Biodiversity enhances many of nature's benefits to people, including the regulation of
climate and the production of wood in forests, livestock forage in grasslands and fish in …

Community ecology is often perceived as a mess, given the seemingly vast number of
processes that can underlie the many patterns of interest, and the apparent uniqueness of …

Although habitat fragmentation is often assumed to be a primary driver of extinction, global
patterns of fragmentation and its relationship to extinction risk have not been consistently …

Molluscs comprise the second largest phylum of animals (after arthropods), occurring in
virtually all habitats. Some are commercially important, a few are pests and some carry …

Biodiversity is shrinking rapidly, and despite our efforts only a small part of it has been
assessed for extinction risk. Identifying the traits that make species vulnerable might help us …

Specialization is a concept based on a broad theoretical framework developed by
evolutionary biologists and ecologists. In the past 10 years, numerous studies have reported …

The strength of phylogenetic signal in extinction risk can give insight into the mechanisms
behind species' declines. Nevertheless, no existing measure of phylogenetic pattern in a …

If habitat destruction or overexploitation of populations is severe, species loss can occur
directly and abruptly. Yet the final descent to extinction is often driven by synergistic …

Human activities are not random in their negative and positive impacts on biotas. Emerging
evidence shows that most species are declining as a result of human activities ('losers') and …

The ability to predict the responses of ecological communities and individual species to
human-induced environmental change remains a key issue for ecologists and conservation …