Projected losses of global mammal and bird ecological strategies

Robert S. C. Cooke (), Felix Eigenbrod and Amanda E. Bates
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Robert S. C. Cooke: University of Southampton
Felix Eigenbrod: University of Southampton
Amanda E. Bates: Memorial University of Newfoundland

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Species, and their ecological strategies, are disappearing. Here we use species traits to quantify the current and projected future ecological strategy diversity for 15,484 land mammals and birds. We reveal an ecological strategy surface, structured by life-history (fast–slow) and body mass (small–large) as one major axis, and diet (invertivore–herbivore) and habitat breadth (generalist–specialist) as the other. We also find that of all possible trait combinations, only 9% are currently realized. Based on species’ extinction probabilities, we predict this limited set of viable strategies will shrink further over the next 100 years, shifting the mammal and bird species pool towards small, fast-lived, highly fecund, insect-eating, generalists. In fact, our results show that this projected decline in ecological strategy diversity is much greater than if species were simply lost at random. Thus, halting the disproportionate loss of ecological strategies associated with highly threatened animals represents a key challenge for conservation.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10284-z

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