Conservation priorities for functionally unique and specialized terrestrial vertebrates threatened by biological invasions.

ABSTRACT: Invasive non-native species (INS) continue to pose a significant threat to biodiversity, including native population declines, which can ultimately disrupt ecosystem processes. Although there is growing evidence of the impacts of INS on functional diversity, most of the existing approaches to prioritization of species for conservation still focus on taxonomic diversity, neglecting the ecological role of species. We developed the functionally unique, specialized, and endangered by invasive non-native species (FUSE INS) score to fill this gap by combining functional irreplaceability (i.e., uniqueness and specialization) of species with their extinction risk due to INS. We calculated this score for 3642 terrestrial vertebrates exposed to INS by assessing how INS affected them based on the IUC

SUBMITTER: Marino C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11959344 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature