Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019.
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73072.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Apr 11;120(15):e2110866120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2110866120. Epub 2023 Apr 5.
Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss will be the defining ecological, political, and humanitarian challenge of our time. Alarmingly, policymakers face a narrowing window of opportunity to prevent the worst impacts, necessitating complex decisions about which land to set aside for biodiversity preservation. Yet, our ability to make these decisions is hindered by our limited capacity to predict how species will respond to synergistic drivers of extinction risk. We argue that a rapid integration of biogeography and behavioral ecology can meet these challenges because of the distinct, yet complementary levels of biological organization they address, scaling from individuals to populations, and from species and communities to continental biotas. This union of disciplines will advance efforts to predict biodiversity's responses to climate change and habitat loss through a deeper understanding of how biotic interactions and other behaviors modulate extinction risk, and how responses of individuals and populations impact the communities in which they are embedded. Fostering a rapid mobilization of expertise across behavioral ecology and biogeography is a critical step toward slowing biodiversity loss.
应对气候变化和生物多样性丧失将是我们这个时代具有决定性的生态、政治和人道主义挑战。令人震惊的是，政策制定者面临着缩小防止最坏影响机会窗口的局面，需要就保护生物多样性的土地做出复杂的决策。然而，我们做出这些决策的能力受到限制，因为我们无法预测物种对灭绝风险协同驱动因素的反应。我们认为，生物地理学和行为生态学的快速融合可以应对这些挑战，因为它们解决了不同但互补的生物组织层次，从个体到种群，从物种和群落到大陆生物群。这种学科的结合将通过更深入地了解生物相互作用和其他行为如何调节灭绝风险，以及个体和种群的反应如何影响它们所处的群落，来推进预测生物多样性对气候变化和生境丧失的反应的努力。促进行为生态学和生物地理学专业知识的快速动员是减缓生物多样性丧失的关键步骤。
