Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates

DataSet Animal(s) : Animals
DataSet Category : Reptiles, Mammals, Birds, Insects, Fish, Amphibians, Arthropods, Mollusks, Annelids
DataSet Country : Global
DataSet Region : Across the World
DataSet Type : Research
DataSet Access : Public
DataSet URL : https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000158

Conserving threatened species requires identifying where across their range they are being impacted by threats, yet this remains unresolved across most of Earth. Here, we present a global analysis of cumulative human impacts on threatened species by using a spatial framework that jointly considers the co-occurrence of eight threatening processes and the distribution of 5,457 terrestrial vertebrates. We show that impacts to species are widespread, occurring across 84% of Earth’s surface, and identify hotspots of impacted species richness and coolspots of unimpacted species richness. Almost one-quarter of assessed species are impacted across >90% of their distribution, and approximately 7% are impacted across their entire range. These results foreshadow localised extirpations and potential extinctions without conservation action. The spatial framework developed here offers a tool for defining strategies to directly mitigate the threats driving species’ declines, providing essential information for future national and global conservation agendas.

DataSet Agency Contact : The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia & Wildlife Conservation Society