Projecting the Effects of Environmental Change on the Geographic Ranges of Bird, Mammals, and Amphibians: A First Global Analysis

气候变化加速和人类活动对自然栖息地的破坏是对陆地生物多样性的两大威胁。这些形式的环境变化将影响当地规模的生物多样性，但只有从大范围(最好是全球)的角度，才能充分评估生物多样性潜在的不可逆转的丧失及其提供的生态系统服务。到目前为止，对是什么使一些地区和物种特别容易受到这些威胁的概念性理解有限。该项目的目标是朝着全面了解环境变化对陆生脊椎动物的影响迈出第一步。为此，该项目将建立一个分类完整、分析严谨的陆生脊椎动物地理范围数据库、物种核心生态数据以及关于当前和预测未来环境条件的全球数据。准确掌握当前物种的分布情况对任何影响评估都至关重要。因此，这项研究的一个重要的第一部分将是对物种的地理范围进行评估、改进和验证。这些细化的范围将被用来评估过去环境变化对物种灭绝风险的影响，作为了解未来风险的基线。该项目随后将利用联合国千年生态系统评估预测，评估全球保护区网络和单一物种地理范围在不同社会经济情景下对未来环境变化的影响。该项目旨在确定未来气候和土地利用变化对陆地脊椎动物影响的核心地理、分类和生态模式。预期的结果将显著提高我们对环境变化对生物多样性影响的经验和概念上的理解。该项目将为数千种脊椎动物的未来影响提供第一次基线评估。此外，它将量化近期政治决定(在其相关的社会经济情景下)对生物多样性的影响，以及由此产生的保护研究和行动的类型、即时性、分类和地理优先顺序。这些信息将帮助决策者认识到环境变化对生物多样性的影响。此外，这些成果可能有助于严格地、以科学为基础确定全球保护工作的优先顺序。其他科学家可能会从这项研究开发的方法、原理和数据中受益。

Accelerated climate change and the destruction of natural habitats through human activities are the two greatest threats to terrestrial biodiversity. These forms of environmental change will impact biodiversity at the local scale, but only with a broad-scale (ideally global) perspective can the potential irreversible loss of biodiversity, and the ecosystem services it provides, be fully evaluated. To date, the conceptual understanding of what makes some regions and species particularly vulnerable to these threats is limited. The goal of this project is to perform first steps toward an integrated understanding of the effects of environmental change on terrestrial vertebrates. To this end, the project will produce a taxonomically complete and analytically rigorous database of the geographic ranges of terrestrial vertebrates, core ecological data for species, and global data on present-day and projected future environmental conditions. The accurate capturing of the current distribution of species is crucial for any impact assessments. Therefore, an important first component of this research will be the evaluation, refinement, and validation of species' geographic ranges. These refined ranges will then be used to evaluate the impact of past environmental change on species risk of extinction as baseline for understanding future risk. The project will subsequently assess the exposure of the global protected area network and of single species' geographic ranges to future environmental change under different socioeconomic scenarios using the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment projections. The project aims to identify the core geographic, taxonomic, and ecological patterns of the impacts of future climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrates. The anticipated results will significantly improve our empirical and conceptual understanding of the effects of environmental change on biodiversity. The project will provide a first baseline assessment of future impacts for thousands of vertebrate species. Furthermore, it will quantify the effect of near-future political decisions (under their associated socioeconomic scenarios) on biodiversity and the resulting type, immediacy, taxonomic and geographic prioritization of conservation research and action. This information will help decision-makers to appreciate the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Furthermore, the outcomes may facilitate rigorous, science-based prioritization of global conservation efforts. Other scientists will likely benefit from the methods, principles, and data developed from this research.