Ongoing over-exploitation and delayed responses to environmental change highlight the urgency for action to promote vertebrate recoveries by 2030.

ABSTRACT: To safeguard nature, we must understand the drivers of biodiversity loss. Time-delayed biodiversity responses to environmental changes (ecological lags) are often absent from models of biodiversity change, despite their well-documented existence. We quantify how lagged responses to climate and land-use change have influenced mammal and bird populations around the world, while incorporating effects of direct exploitation and conservation interventions. Ecological lag duration varies between drivers, vertebrate classes and body size groupings-e.g. lags linked to climate-change impacts are 13 years for small birds, rising to 40 years for larger species. Past warming and land conversion generally combine to predict population declines; however, such conditions are associated with population in

SUBMITTER: Cornford R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10113031 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature