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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Identifying the World's Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species: A Systematic Trait-Based Assessment of all Birds, Amphibians and Corals
PLoS ONE, Volume 8, No. 6, Article e65427, Year 2013
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Description
Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on biodiversity, including increasing extinction rates. Current approaches to quantifying such impacts focus on measuring exposure to climatic change and largely ignore the biological differences between species that may significantly increase or reduce their vulnerability. To address this, we present a framework for assessing three dimensions of climate change vulnerability, namely sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity; this draws on species' biological traits and their modeled exposure to projected climatic changes. In the largest such assessment to date, we applied this approach to each of the world's birds, amphibians and corals (16,857 species). The resulting assessments identify the species with greatest relative vulnerability to climate change and the geographic areas in which they are concentrated, including the Amazon basin for amphibians and birds, and the central Indo-west Pacific (Coral Triangle) for corals. We found that high concentration areas for species with traits conferring highest sensitivity and lowest adaptive capacity differ from those of highly exposed species, and we identify areas where exposure-based assessments alone may over or under-estimate climate change impacts. We found that 608-851 bird (6-9%), 670-933 amphibian (11-15%), and 47-73 coral species (6-9%) are both highly climate change vulnerable and already threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List. The remaining highly climate change vulnerable species represent new priorities for conservation. Fewer species are highly climate change vulnerable under lower IPCC SRES emissions scenarios, indicating that reducing greenhouse emissions will reduce climate change driven extinctions. Our study answers the growing call for a more biologically and ecologically inclusive approach to assessing climate change vulnerability. By facilitating independent assessment of the three dimensions of climate change vulnerability, our approach can be used to devise species and area-specific conservation interventions and indices. The priorities we identify will strengthen global strategies to mitigate climate change impacts. © 2013 Foden et al.
Available Materials
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Authors & Co-Authors
Foden, Wendy B.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
Global Species Programme
South Africa, Johannesburg
University of the Witwatersrand
Butchart, Stuart H.M.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
Science
Stuart, Simon N.
Switzerland, Gland
Species Survival Commission
United Kingdom, Cambridge
United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
United Arab Emirates, Al Ain
Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort
United Kingdom, Bath
University of Bath
Vié, Jean Christophe
Switzerland, Gland
Global Species Programme
Akçakaya, H. Reşit
United States, Stony Brook
Stony Brook University
Angulo, Ariadne
Switzerland, Gland
Global Species Programme
DeVantier, Lyndon M.
Unknown Affiliation
Gutsche, Alexander
Germany, Berlin
Museum Für Naturkunde
Turak, Emre
France, Cergy
Cormec
Australia, Townsville
James Cook University
Cao, Long
China, Hangzhou
Zhejiang University
Donner, Simon D.
Canada, Vancouver
The University of British Columbia
Katariya, Vineet
United Kingdom, Cambridge
Global Species Programme
Bernard, Rodolphe
United Kingdom, London
Imperial College London
Holland, Robert A.
United Kingdom, Southampton
University of Southampton
Hughes, Adrian F.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
Global Species Programme
O'Hanlon, Susannah E.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
Anglia Ruskin University
Garnett, Stephen T.
Australia, Darwin
Charles Darwin University
Hakkı Şekercioğlu, Çağan
United States, Salt Lake City
The University of Utah
Mace, Georgina M.
United Kingdom, London
University College London
Statistics
Citations: 785
Authors: 19
Affiliations: 20
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0065427
e-ISSN:
19326203
Research Areas
Environmental