Coextinctions dominate future vertebrate losses from climate and land use change

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn4345
• Publication Date: 2022-12-16T18:58:39Z
• Authors: Giovanni Strona; Corey J. A. Bradshaw
• Keywords: Resilience

Although theory identifies coextinctions as a main driver of biodiversity loss, their role at the planetary scale has yet to be estimated. We subjected global model interconnected terrestrial vertebrate food webs future (2020–2100) climate and land-use changes. predict 17.6% (± 0.16% SE) average reduction local diversity globally by 2100, with increasing effect primary extinctions 184.2% 10.9% on under an intermediate emissions scenario. Communities will lose up half ecological interactions, thus reducing trophic complexity, network connectance, community resilience. The reveals that extreme toll change for might secondary importance compared damages structure.