Improving extinction projections across scales and habitats using the countryside species-area relationship.

ABSTRACT: The species-area relationship (SAR) has been often used to project species extinctions as a consequence of habitat loss. However, recent studies have suggested that the SAR may overestimate species extinctions, at least in the short-term. We argue that the main reason for this overestimation is that the classic SAR ignores the persistence of species in human-modified habitats. We use data collected worldwide to analyse what is the fraction of bird and plant species that remain in different human-modified habitats at the local scale after full habitat conversion. We observe that both taxa have consistent responses to the different land-use types, with strongest reductions in species richness in cropland across the globe, and in pasture in the tropics. We show that the results from these stu

SUBMITTER: Martins IS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5635007 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature