Global State of Biodiversity and Loss

Dirzo, Rodolfo; Raven, Peter H.

doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.28.050302.105532

Cited by 1,089 publications

(697 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Tropical forests, which cover less than 7 % of the world land area , contain over 50 % of global biodiversity (Dirzo and Raven 2003 ), but these unique habitats are being destroyed at unprecedented rates (Laurance 1991 ;Achard et al 2002 ) as a result of rapid human population growth and economic development. In tropical Asia and Africa, over 40 % of the primary forests is already lost (Wright 2005 ).…”

Section: Extinction Drivers In Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Yessoufou

Davies

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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Analysing extinction within a phylogenetic framework may seem counter-intuitive because extinction is a priori a non-heritable trait. However, extinction risk is correlated with other traits, such as body size, that show a strong phylogenetic signal. Further, there has been much effort in identifying key traits important for diversifi cation, and recent evidence has demonstrated that the processes of speciation and extinction may be inextricably linked. A phylogenetic approach also allows us to quantify the impact of extinction, for example, as the loss of branches from the tree-of-life. Early work suggested that extinctions might result in little loss of evolutionary history, but subsequent studies indicated that nonrandom extinctions might prune more of the evolutionary tree. Loss of phylogenetic diversity might have ecosystem consequences because functional differences between species tend to be correlated with the evolutionary distances between them. Here we explore how extinction prunes the tree-of-life. Our review indicates that the loss of evolutionary history under non-random extinction (the emerging pattern in extinction biology) might be less pronounced than some previous studies have suggested. However, the loss of functional diversity might still be large, depending on the evolutionary model of trait change. Under a punctuated model of evolution, in which trait differences accrue in bursts at speciation, the number of branches lost is more important than their summed lengths. We suggest that evolutionary models need to be incorporated more explicitly into measures of phylogenetic diversity if we are to use phylogeny as a proxy for functional diversity.

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Section: Extinction Drivers In Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Yessoufou

Davies

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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“…Tropical forests contain more than two-thirds of all terrestrial plant and animal species [1][2][3], but long-term prospects for their survival are uncertain, as more than half of the original extent of these forests has already been degraded by human land-use change and other perturbations [4]. Agricultural expansion continues to be the main driver of tropical deforestation [5] with more than one third of the global terrestrial land area currently under cultivation [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Soil Fungi to Logging and Oil Palm Agriculture in Southeast Asian Tropical Forests

et al. 2014

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Human land use alters soil microbial composition and function in a variety of systems, although few comparable studies have been done in tropical forests and tropical agricultural production areas. Logging and the expansion of oil palm agriculture are two of the most significant drivers of tropical deforestation, and the latter is most prevalent in Southeast Asia. The aim of this study was to compare soil fungal communities from three sites in Malaysia that represent three of the most dominant land-use types in the Southeast Asia tropics: a primary forest, a regenerating forest that had been selectively logged 50 years previously, and a 25-year-old oil palm plantation. Soil cores were collected from three replicate plots at each site, and fungal communities were sequenced using the Illumina platform. Extracellular enzyme assays were assessed as a proxy for soil microbial function. We found that fungal communities were distinct across all sites, although fungal composition in the regenerating forest was more similar to the primary forest than either forest community was to the oil palm site. Ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are important associates of the dominant Dipterocarpaceae tree family in this region, were compositionally distinct across forests, but were nearly absent from oil palm soils. Extracellular enzyme assays indicated that the soil ecosystem in oil palm plantations experienced altered nutrient cycling dynamics, but there were few differences between regenerating and primary forest soils. Together, these results show that logging and the replacement of primary forest with oil palm plantations alter fungal community and function, although forests regenerating from logging had more similarities with primary forests in terms of fungal composition and nutrient cycling potential. Since oil palm agriculture is currently the mostly rapidly expanding equatorial crop and logging is pervasive across tropical ecosystems, these findings may have broad applicability.

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“…Knowing the importance of habitat loss in biodiversity decreasing at local, regional and global scales (Dirzo & Raven 2003, Balmford et al 2005, the main reason for the continuous declining of geographic range and population size and consequently disappearance of boreo-montane species is the endangerment of their habitats, i.e. fragmentation, degradation and loss of mires and coniferous and coniferous-deciduous forests.…”

Section: Allium Schoenoprasum L -Amaryllidaceaementioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation status of some rare boreo-montane species in Serbia

Jakovljević¹,

Niketić²,

Lakušić³

et al. 2015

Bulletin of the Natural History Museum

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Abstract. Due to disjunct distribution and habitat specificity, boreo-montane species are particularly vulnerable to the declining in area and population size. Although great proportion of these species has been already included, certain number of rare species among them so far has not been protected by any national or international document. This paper reviews the distribution and conservation status of 13 rare boreo-montane taxa not covered by any act of protection yet. For each species, the IUCN threatened status in Serbia is given; on the basis of these estimates it is proposed for 10 of them to be included in further acts of protection.

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Global State of Biodiversity and Loss

Cited by 1,089 publications

References 57 publications

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Responses of Soil Fungi to Logging and Oil Palm Agriculture in Southeast Asian Tropical Forests

Conservation status of some rare boreo-montane species in Serbia

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