The homogenization of avian morphological and phylogenetic diversity under the global extinction crisis.

ABSTRACT: Biodiversity is facing a global extinction crisis that will reduce ecological trait diversity, evolutionary history, and ultimately ecosystem functioning and services.^1-4 A key challenge is understanding how species losses will impact morphological and phylogenetic diversity at global scales.^5,6 Here, we test whether the loss of species threatened with extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) leads to morphological and phylogenetic homogenization^7,8 across both the whole avian class and within each biome and ecoregion globally. We use a comprehensive set of continuous morphological traits extracted from museum collections of 8,455 bird species, including geometric morphomet

SUBMITTER: Hughes EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9616725 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature