Final countdown for biodiversity hotspots

Habel, Jan Christian; Rasche, Livia; Schneider, Uwe A.; Engler, Jan O.; Schmid, Erwin; Rödder, Dennis; Meyer, Sebastian T.; Trapp, Natalie; Diego, Ruth Sos Del; Eggermont, Hilde; Lens, Luc; Stork, Nigel E.

doi:10.1111/conl.12668

Cited by 106 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The tropics have abundant plant life that grows throughout the year. Approximately 14 of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots (Habel et al, 2019) and 50% of all known plant species are in tropical zones (Primack and Morrison, 2013).…”

Section: Background Tropical Zones and A Changing Climatementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Growth and Heat in Tropical Climates

et al. 2021

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This research describes the change in temperatures across approximately 270 tropical cities from 1960 to 2020 with a focus on urban warming. It associates urban growth indicators with temperature variations in tropical climate zones (tropical rainforest, tropical monsoon, and tropical wet-dry savanna). Our findings demonstrate that over time while temperatures have increased across the tropics, urban residents have experienced higher temperatures (minimum and maximum) than those living outside of cities. Moreover, in certain tropical zones, over the study period, temperatures have risen faster in urban areas than the background (non-urban) temperatures. The results also suggest that with continuing climate change and urban growth, temperatures will continue to rise at higher than background levels in tropical cities unless mitigation measures are implemented. Several fundamental characteristics of urban growth including population size, population density, infrastructure and urban land use patterns are factors associated with variations in temperatures. We find evidence that dense urban forms (compact residential and industrial developments) are associated with higher temperatures and population density is a better predictor of variation in temperatures than either urban population size or infrastructure in most tropic climate zones. Infrastructure, however, is a better predictor of temperature increases in wet-dry savanna tropical climates than population density. There are a number of potential mitigation measures available to urban managers to address heat. We focus on ecological services, but whether these services can address the projected increasing heat levels is unclear. More local research is necessary to untangle the various contributions to increasing heat in cities and evaluate whether these applications can be effective to cool tropical cities as temperature continue to rise. Our methods include combining several different datasets to identify differences in daily, seasonal, and annual maximum and minimum temperatures.

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Section: Background Tropical Zones and A Changing Climatementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Growth and Heat in Tropical Climates

et al. 2021

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“…Our findings demonstrate that although these three endangered freshwater turtles are protected by several IUCN designated and proposed reserves, their populations are vulnerable as a result of extensive habitat loss and fragmentation in the present and expected to increase in the future (Sodhi et al 2004, Habel et al 2019. Despite being protected under national laws, many of these species are still relentlessly poached for eggs and meat and exported due to the lack of law enforcement (van Dijk et al 2000, TCC 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…However, with the unavailability of stable suitable Protected Areas suggested by our models and assuming highly conservative climatic niches and low potential for rapid evolutionary adaptations in turtles (Stephens andWiens 2009, Berriozabal-Islas et al 2020), we would expect a severe decline in their populations in the future. In addition, synergistic effects from continued exploitation, habitat loss and degradation, economic development, agricultural pressures, and endemic plant species loss predicted by the year 2050 increase the uncertainty of long-term persistence of these turtles (Habel et al 2019).…”

Section: Impact Of Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

A present and future assessment of the effectiveness of existing reserves in preserving three critically endangered freshwater turtles in Southeast Asia and South Asia

Tan¹,

Ginal²,

Rhodin³

et al. 2022

Frontiers of Biogeography

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Indonesia and Thailand are countries of major importance in preserving these threatened species, although current established reserves might be insufficient.• We proposed several priority conservation areas where the species could potentially occur.• Future projection models suggest an expansion of suitable habitat inland and northward in response to climate change, despite uncertainty due to extrapolation outside the training range of the models.

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“…We demonstrate that conventional tourism land use and urban development can have severe impacts on the ground-associated invertebrate diversity on remote oceanic atoll islands. Although agriculture is currently considered the predominant driver of the worldwide species decline [62], it is crucial to investigate and consider all human land uses for obtaining a global impact assessment, especially in regions where land use types other than agriculture are predominant. Only by generating a holistic understanding of the different human pressures and their severity on the world's biomes will it be possible to effectively counteract the ongoing global biodiversity loss.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tourism and urban development as drivers for invertebrate diversity loss on tropical islands

2021

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Oceanic islands harbour a disproportionately high number of endemic and threatened species. Rapidly growing human populations and tourism are posing an increasing threat to island biota, yet the ecological consequences of these human land uses on small oceanic island systems have not been quantified. Here, we investigated and compared the impact of tourism and urban island development on ground-associated invertebrate biodiversity and habitat composition on oceanic islands. To disentangle tourism and urban land uses, we investigated Indo-Pacific atoll islands, which either exhibit only tourism or urban development, or remain uninhabited. Within the investigated system, we show that species richness, abundance and Shannon diversity of the investigated invertebrate community are significantly decreased under tourism and urban land use, relative to uninhabited islands. Remote-sensing-based spatial data suggest that habitat fragmentation and a reduction in vegetation density are having significant effects on biodiversity on urban islands, whereas land use/cover changes could not be linked to the documented biodiversity loss on tourist islands. This offers the first direct evidence for a major terrestrial invertebrate loss on remote oceanic atoll islands due to different human land uses with yet unforeseeable long-term consequences for the stability and resilience of oceanic island ecosystems.

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Final countdown for biodiversity hotspots

Cited by 106 publications

References 36 publications

Urban Growth and Heat in Tropical Climates

Urban Growth and Heat in Tropical Climates

A present and future assessment of the effectiveness of existing reserves in preserving three critically endangered freshwater turtles in Southeast Asia and South Asia

Tourism and urban development as drivers for invertebrate diversity loss on tropical islands

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