4.6 Editorial Material

Addressing biodiversity loss by building a shared future

Related references

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Article Multidisciplinary Sciences

A global reptile assessment highlights shared conservation needs of tetrapods

Neil Cox et al.

Summary: Global assessments have shown that 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals, and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction, but reptiles have been excluded from these assessments. This study provides a comprehensive extinction-risk assessment for reptiles and finds that at least 21.1% of species are threatened, with similar major threats as other tetrapods. Reptiles in forests are more threatened than those in arid habitats. Threatened reptiles tend to be isolated from other threatened tetrapods.

NATURE (2022)

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Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period

Rebecca Eden et al.

Summary: The structure of the Ediacaran ecosystem underwent changes over time, with an initial increase in diversity followed by a decrease, often attributed to a catastrophic mass extinction. This study used the Elements of Metacommunity Structure framework to investigate these changes and found that the complexity of metacommunity structure increased, leading to increased specialization and competitive exclusion, rather than a catastrophic environmental disaster, resulting in the loss of diversity in the terminal Ediacaran.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2022)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Major environmental drivers determining life and death of cold-water corals through time

Rodrigo Da Costa Portilho-Ramos et al.

Summary: Cold-water corals play an important role in complex ecosystems in the deep sea, and their sensitivity to environmental changes is still uncertain. Reconstructing paleoceanographic data has shown that food supply and turbulence at the seabed have the strongest influence on coral vitality, while low oxygen concentrations in the water can also be a relevant stressor. The fate of cold-water corals in a changing ocean will depend on how these oceanographic processes are modulated.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2022)

Editorial Material Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Molecular biology for green recovery-A call for action

Marta Rodriguez-Martinez et al.

Summary: Molecular biology has great potential in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, but it is currently not well incorporated into strategies. We call for a community-wide action to bring molecular biology to the forefront of climate change solutions.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2022)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Automated assessment reveals that the extinction risk of reptiles is widely underestimated across space and phylogeny

Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano et al.

Summary: The Red List of Threatened Species is a crucial tool for conservation decision-making, but many species are unassessed or lack sufficient data for classification. This study presents a machine learning-based method for automated extinction risk assessment, provides provisional assessments for reptiles, and examines the impact of human decision biases. The results show that unassessed and Data Deficient reptiles are more likely to be threatened and that the assessor's identity strongly affects the predictions. It is recommended to focus on regions and taxa identified as more threatened in new assessments and conservation planning.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2022)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity

Tatsuya Amano et al.

Summary: The assumption that important scientific information is mainly available in English leads to the underuse of non-English language science. However, non-English language studies provide crucial evidence for global biodiversity conservation, expanding the geographical and taxonomic coverage of English language evidence.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Rapid increase in snake dietary diversity and complexity following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

Michael C. Grundler et al.

Summary: The Cenozoic era was a period of significant ecological changes on Earth due to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and the formation of new biogeographic theaters and habitats. Snakes experienced massive ecological diversification, evolving novel dietary adaptations and prey preferences. The study found that dietary niche breadths remained constant per lineage, with rapid increases in dietary diversity occurring in the early Cenozoic era. Explosive bursts of trophic innovation occurred after colonization of specific regions by certain groups of snakes, highlighting the importance of dietary ecology shifts in driving adaptive radiation in snakes.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Maximizing regional biodiversity requires a mosaic of protection levels

Nicolas Loiseau et al.

Summary: Protected areas play a crucial role in securing biodiversity, but adjacent areas with different protection levels can host distinct species compositions. Approximately 12% to 15% of species are found only in non-protected areas, indicating that a notable portion of regional biodiversity occurs in less regulated areas. Imperiled species, particularly fishes, birds, and plants, show a high proportion of unique species recorded only in strictly protected areas, underscoring the essential role of protected areas and their environmental conditions in biodiversity conservation.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

A return-on-investment approach for prioritization of rigorous taxonomic research needed to inform responses to the biodiversity crisis

Jane Melville et al.

Summary: Global biodiversity loss due to human activity is significant, with a large portion of undocumented species contributing to the underestimation of this loss. This study introduces a quantitative approach for prioritizing taxonomic research to aid in conservation efforts, using Australian lizards and snakes as a diverse vertebrate group case study. The research identified a substantial number of species with taxonomic uncertainty, highlighting the importance of investing in identifying unknown species for conservation before they are lost.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Global and national trends, gaps, and opportunities in documenting and monitoring species distributions

Ruth Y. Oliver et al.

Summary: Despite rapid growth in data coverage, geographic and taxonomic biases persist in closing knowledge gaps for terrestrial vertebrates. In some taxa and regions, a surge in records did not lead to new knowledge due to a decline in sampling effectiveness. Countries demonstrate stronger coverage for species they have greater stewardship over.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Editorial Material Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Vast (but avoidable) underestimation of global biodiversity

John J. Wiens

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Tooth morphology elucidates shark evolution across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

Mohamad Bazzi et al.

Summary: Through geometric morphometric analysis of shed teeth, this study found that sharks maintained stable dental morphology in most clades following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, but apex predator species characterized by triangular blade-like teeth were impacted by selective extinctions.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

gen3sis: A general engine for eco-evolutionary simulations of the processes that shape Earth's biodiversity

Oskar Hagen et al.

Summary: Understanding the origins of biodiversity has been a long-standing goal in the scientific community, but the complexity of ecological, evolutionary, and spatial processes has made this goal elusive. While computer models have advanced many scientific fields, eco-evolutionary models are relatively less developed in macroecology and macroevolution. The researchers presented a spatially explicit eco-evolutionary engine that can model various macroecological and macroevolutionary processes, demonstrating the emergence of common biodiversity patterns as simulations progress.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2021)

Article Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?

Camilo Mora et al.

PLOS BIOLOGY (2011)