On the Edge, London, UK.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, UK.
Nat Commun. 2024 Sep 3;15(1):7672. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51992-5.
The biodiversity crisis is pruning the Tree of Life in a way that threatens billions of years of evolutionary history and there is a need to understand where the greatest losses are predicted to occur. We therefore present threatened evolutionary history mapped for all tetrapod groups and describe patterns of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species. Using a complementarity procedure with uncertainty incorporated for 33,628 species, we identify 25 priority tetrapod EDGE Zones, which are insufficiently protected and disproportionately exposed to high human pressure. Tetrapod EDGE Zones are spread over five continents, 33 countries, and 117 ecoregions. Together, they occupy 0.723% of the world's surface but harbour one-third of the world's threatened evolutionary history and EDGE tetrapod species, half of which is endemic. These EDGE Zones highlight areas of immediate concern for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and communicators looking to safeguard the tetrapod Tree of Life.
生物多样性危机正在以一种威胁到数十亿年进化历史的方式修剪生命之树，因此有必要了解预计最大损失将发生在哪里。为此，我们展示了所有四足动物群受威胁进化历史的映射，并描述了进化独特和全球濒危（EDGE）物种的模式。我们使用不确定性纳入的互补程序对 33,628 个物种进行了分析，确定了 25 个优先的四足动物 EDGE 区域，这些区域保护不足，且不成比例地面临高人类压力。四足动物 EDGE 区域分布在五大洲、33 个国家和 117 个生态区。它们总共占世界表面的 0.723%，但却拥有世界上三分之一的受威胁进化历史和 EDGE 四足动物物种，其中一半是特有物种。这些 EDGE 区域突出了研究人员、实践者、政策制定者和传播者关注的热点地区，他们希望保护四足动物的生命之树。
