Andy Purvis

TL;DR: The authors' analyses reveal strong geographical variation in the influence of traits on risk: notably, larger species are at higher risk only in tropical regions, and narrow-ranged and rare species tend to be at high risk in areas of high current human impacts.

TL;DR: It is estimated that the prospective extra loss of mammalian evolutionary history alone would be equivalent to losing a monotypic phylum, and the potentially severe implications of the clumped nature of threat for the loss of biodiversity are shown.

TL;DR: It is shown that extinction risk in the mammal order Carnivora is predicted more strongly by biology than exposure to high-density human populations, and it is suggested that biology will become a more critical determinant of risk as human populations expand.

TL;DR: Using a new global biodiversity database with unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage, four biodiversity measures are compared at sites sampled in multiple land uses inside and outside protected areas to reinforce the global importance of protected areas but suggest that protection does not consistently benefit species with small ranges or increase the variety of ecological niches.

TL;DR: A novel risk-assessment framework is developed that integrates ecological and evolutionary perspectives on functional traits to determine species’ effects on ecosystems and their tolerance of environmental changes, and suggests a research agenda at the interface of evolutionary biology and ecosystem ecology.