Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 2100, Denmark; Faculty of Natural Sciences, Lúrio University, Pemba 958, Mozambique; Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 40530, Sweden.
Vizzuality, Calle de Fuencarral, Madrid 28010, Spain.
Curr Biol. 2024 May 20;34(10):2231-2237.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.04.007. Epub 2024 Apr 23.
Reptiles are an important, yet often understudied, taxon in nature conservation. They play a significant role in ecosystems and can serve as indicators of environmental health, often responding more rapidly to human pressures than other vertebrate groups. At least 21% of reptiles are currently assessed as threatened with extinction by the IUCN. However, due to the lack of comprehensive global assessments until recently, they have been omitted from spatial studies addressing conservation or spatial prioritization (e.g., Rosauer et al., Fritz and Rahbek, Farooq et al., Meyer et al., and Farooq et al.). One important knowledge gap in conservation is the lack of spatially explicit information on the main threats to biodiversity, which significantly hampers our ability to respond effectively to the current biodiversity crisis. In this study, we calculate the probability of a reptile species in a specific location being affected by one of seven biodiversity threats-agriculture, climate change, hunting, invasive species, logging, pollution, and urbanization. We conducted the analysis at a global scale, using a 50 km × 50 km grid, and evaluated the impact of these threats by studying their relationship with the risk of extinction. We find that climate change, logging, pollution, and invasive species are most linked to extinction risk. However, we also show that there is considerable geographical variation in these results. Our study highlights the importance of going beyond measuring the intensity of threats to measuring the impact of these separately for various biogeographical regions of the world, with different historical contingencies, as opposed to a single global analysis treating all regions the same.
爬行动物是自然保护中一个重要但往往研究不足的分类群。它们在生态系统中起着重要的作用，可以作为环境健康的指标，通常比其他脊椎动物群体对人类压力更敏感。目前，至少有 21%的爬行动物被 IUCN 评估为面临灭绝威胁。然而，由于直到最近才进行全面的全球评估，它们在涉及保护或空间优先级的空间研究中被忽略了（例如，Rosauer 等人、Fritz 和 Rahbek、Farooq 等人、Meyer 等人，以及 Farooq 等人）。保护方面的一个重要知识差距是缺乏对生物多样性主要威胁的空间明确信息，这极大地阻碍了我们有效应对当前生物多样性危机的能力。在这项研究中，我们计算了在特定地点的爬行动物物种受到七种生物多样性威胁之一（农业、气候变化、狩猎、入侵物种、伐木、污染和城市化）影响的概率。我们在全球范围内进行了分析，使用了 50km×50km 的网格，并通过研究它们与灭绝风险的关系来评估这些威胁的影响。我们发现气候变化、伐木、污染和入侵物种与灭绝风险的联系最密切。然而，我们也表明，这些结果在地理上存在相当大的差异。我们的研究强调了超越衡量威胁强度，转而衡量这些威胁对世界不同生物地理区域的影响的重要性，因为这些区域具有不同的历史偶然性，而不是对所有区域进行单一的全球分析。
