Assessing the impact of island bird extinctions

在世界各地，我们都看到了物种灭绝率的上升，我们目前正经历着全球生物多样性的下降。特别是岛屿上的物种灭绝数量不成比例。尽管岛屿只占全球面积的3.5%，但它们支持着巨大的物种多样性以及大量的特有物种——这使得岛屿成为应对生物多样性下降的保护工作的重要优先事项。此外，岛屿在历史上对经典生态理论（如岛屿平衡理论、限制相似性等）的发展具有重要意义，因为它们的隔离使它们成为理想的“自然实验室”。岛屿提供了在某种程度上孤立地观察物种相互作用的可能性，同时拥有跨越不同气候带、栖息地类型等的“样本”。虽然我们对物种灭绝的数量有了一些了解，但我们对生态系统服务的后果的理解却不太清楚。这包括绘制出当前生态功能的变化/损失，以及通过增加脆弱性或缺乏本地社区的稳健性而在未来发生变化的可能性。许多物种正日益受到威胁，预计未来许多物种将继续消失，少数物种将继续扩散。该项目旨在研究岛屿物种灭绝对生态功能的潜在影响。虽然这个项目的重点是鸟类，但希望包括其他分类群体，以获得更广泛的视角，更好地了解岛屿社区发生的生态过程。这将通过分析功能性状来计算群落功能多样性的变化。功能特征是生物体影响适应性的形态和/或生理特征，因此可以洞察个体在物种存在/缺失范围之外的群落中的“角色”。这方面的知识对经典生态理论的解释具有潜在影响，可在整个生态系统中应用，并可为更好地缓解和保护世界范围内的生物多样性提供见解和基础。

All over the world we have seen a rise in extinction rates, and we are currently experiencing a global decline in biodiversity. Particularly islands have shown a disproportionate number of extinctions. Despite islands taking up only 3.5% of global area, they support a huge diversity of species as well as a large number of endemic species - this makes islands an important priority for conservation efforts fighting declining biodiversity. Furthermore, islands have historically been of great significance in the development of classic ecological theory (e.g., the island equilibrium theory, limiting similarity etc.) due to their isolation making them ideal as "natural laboratories". Islands gives the possibility to observe species interaction in somewhat isolation while having "samples" across different climatic zones, habitat types etc. While we have some understanding of the number of extinctions, our understanding of the consequences to ecosystem services is less well understood. This includes mapping out current change/loss in ecological function as well as the potential for change in the future through increased vulnerability or a lack of robustness of the native community. Many species are increasingly threatened, and a continuation in the loss of many species along with a spread of few species is predicted for the future. This project aims to look at the potential change in ecological function with species extinctions on islands. While this project is focused on avifauna, the hope is to include other taxonomic groups to get a broader perspective and better understanding of the ecological processes taking place in island communities. This will be done though analyses of functional traits to calculate changes in functional diversity of the community. Functional traits are morphological and/or physiological characteristics of the organism which impacts fitness - thus gives insight into an individual's "role" in the community outside the scope of species presence/absence. This knowledge has potential implications in the interpretation of classical ecological theories with application across ecosystems and could provide insight as well as a foundation for better mitigation and protection of biodiversity worldwide.