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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Extinction risk from climate change

TLDR
Estimates of extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.
Abstract
Climate change over the past approximately 30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction ( approximately 18%) than mid-range ( approximately 24%) and maximum-change ( approximately 35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

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Defining spatial conservation priorities in the face of land-use and climate change

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors defined spatial priorities for the conservation of non-flying mammals inhabiting the Cerrado Biodiversity Hotspot, Brazil, that overcome the likely impacts of land-use and climate change to this imperiled fauna.
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Resistance and resilience to changing climate and fire regime depend on plant functional traits

TL;DR: This article quantified the effects of more frequent fire and lower rainfall on population responses of shrub species in biodiverse Mediterranean-climate type shrublands near Eneabba, southwestern Australia.
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Nesting lizards (Bassiana duperreyi) compensate partly, but not completely, for climate change

TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that even though lizards adjust both nest depth and seasonal timing of oviposition in response to rising ambient temperatures, they have been unable to compensate entirely for climate change, due to the fact that the seasonal progression of soil temperatures and thus, the degree to which thermal regimes at the time of laying predict subsequent conditions during incubation, also has shifted with climate change.
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The matter of spatial and temporal scales: a review of reindeer and caribou response to human activity

TL;DR: Research on impacts of human activity and infrastructure development on reindeer and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) is reviewed in the context of spatial and temporal scales to improve understanding of both temporal and spatial patterns.
Journal ArticleDOI

Losing pieces of the puzzle: threats to marine, estuarine, and diadromous species

TL;DR: Overexploitation is the most frequent threat to vulnerable marine species, with approximately half of threatened species caught as bycatch in fisheries, and Habitat degradation, the primary threat to terrestrial species, ranks second in impact on marine species.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities

TL;DR: A ‘silver bullet’ strategy on the part of conservation planners, focusing on ‘biodiversity hotspots’ where exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat, is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI

Climate change 2001: the scientific basis

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an overview of the climate system and its dynamics, including observed climate variability and change, the carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry and greenhouse gases, and their direct and indirect effects.
Journal ArticleDOI

A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems

TL;DR: A diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial ‘sign-switching’ responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends is defined and generates ‘very high confidence’ (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
Book

Species Diversity in Space and Time

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a hierarchical dynamic puzzle to understand the relationship between habitat diversity and species diversity and the evolution of the relationships between habitats diversity and diversity in evolutionary time.
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