Hottest year in recorded history compounds global biodiversity risks.

As climate change accelerates, effectively monitoring and managing the growing impacts on biodiversity is an urgent priority. Here, we identify the exposure of species to unprecedented heat to evaluate the potential impact of 2024-the hottest year on record-across >33,000 vertebrate species worldwide. One in six (5,368) species were exposed to unprecedented temperatures across >25% of their range-68% more species than in 2023.

No species left behind: borrowing strength to map data-deficient species.

We lack the data needed to detect and understand biodiversity change for most species, despite some species having millions of observations. This unequal data coverage impedes conservation planning and our understanding of biodiversity patterns. The 'borrowing strength' approach leverages data-rich species to improve predictions for data-deficient species.

High tree diversity exposed to unprecedented macroclimatic conditions even under minimal anthropogenic climate change.

Tree species worldwide face increasing exposure to unprecedented macroclimatic conditions due to anthropogenic climate change, which may trigger biome shifts and ecosystem disruptions. We quantified climate change exposure-shifts to species' currently unoccupied climate zones-for 32,089 tree species globally by 2100, assessing both species-level and local tree diversity risks. On average, 69% of species are predicted to experience macroclimatic shifts in at least 10% of their range, while 14% face exposure in over 50% of their range under a high-emission (4 °C warming) future scenario.

Effect of climate on traits of dominant and rare tree species in the world's forests.

Species' traits and environmental conditions determine the abundance of tree species across the globe. The extent to which traits of dominant and rare tree species differ remains untested across a broad environmental range, limiting our understanding of how species traits and the environment shape forest functional composition. We use a global dataset of tree composition of >22,000 forest plots and 11 traits of 1663 tree species to ask how locally dominant and rare species differ in their trait values, and how these differences are driven by climatic gradients in temperature and water availability in forest biomes across the globe.

Global Future Drought Layers Based on Downscaled CMIP6 Models and Multiple Socioeconomic Pathways.

Droughts are a natural hazard of growing concern as they are projected to increase in frequency and severity for many regions of the world. The identification of droughts and their future characteristics is essential to building an understanding of the geography and magnitude of potential drought change trajectories, which in turn is critical information to manage drought resilience across multiple sectors and disciplines. Adding to this effort, we developed a dataset of global historical and projected future drought indices over the 1980-2100 period based on downscaled CMIP6 models across multiple shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP).

Software codesign between end users and developers to enhance utility for biodiversity conservation.

Creating software tools that address the needs of a wide range of decision-makers requires the inclusion of differing perspectives throughout the development process. Software tools for biodiversity conservation often fall short in this regard, partly because broad decision-maker needs may exceed the toolkits of single research groups or even institutions. We show that participatory, collaborative codesign enhances the utility of software tools for better decision-making in biodiversity conservation planning, as demonstrated by our experiences developing a set of integrated tools in Colombia.

Code sharing in ecology and evolution increases citation rates but remains uncommon.

Biologists increasingly rely on computer code to collect and analyze their data, reinforcing the importance of published code for transparency, reproducibility, training, and a basis for further work. Here, we conduct a literature review estimating temporal trends in code sharing in ecology and evolution publications since 2010, and test for an influence of code sharing on citation rate. We find that code is rarely published (only 6% of papers), with little improvement over time.

Temporal dynamics of climate change exposure and opportunities for global marine biodiversity.

Climate change is exposing marine species to unsuitable temperatures while also creating new thermally suitable habitats of varying persistence. However, understanding how these different dynamics will unfold over time remains limited. We use yearly sea surface temperature projections to estimate temporal dynamics of thermal exposure (when temperature exceeds realised species' thermal limits) and opportunity (when temperature at a previously unsuitable site becomes suitable) for 21,696 marine species globally until 2100.

Global trends and scenarios for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050.

Based on an extensive model intercomparison, we assessed trends in biodiversity and ecosystem services from historical reconstructions and future scenarios of land-use and climate change. During the 20th century, biodiversity declined globally by 2 to 11%, as estimated by a range of indicators. Provisioning ecosystem services increased several fold, and regulating services decreased moderately.

More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change.

Trees are pivotal to global biodiversity and nature's contributions to people, yet accelerating global changes threaten global tree diversity, making accurate species extinction risk assessments necessary. To identify species that require expert-based re-evaluation, we assess exposure to change in six anthropogenic threats over the last two decades for 32,090 tree species. We estimated that over half (54.

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential.

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced and satellite-derived approaches to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands.

Climate change and land use threaten global hotspots of phylogenetic endemism for trees.

Across the globe, tree species are under high anthropogenic pressure. Risks of extinction are notably more severe for species with restricted ranges and distinct evolutionary histories. Here, we use a global dataset covering 41,835 species (65.

The global biogeography of tree leaf form and habit.

Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, evergreen and deciduous trees. To address these gaps, we conducted a global, ground-sourced assessment of forest leaf-type variation by integrating forest inventory data with comprehensive leaf form (broadleaf vs needle-leaf) and habit (evergreen vs deciduous) records.

Native diversity buffers against severity of non-native tree invasions.

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies. Here, leveraging global tree databases, we explore how the phylogenetic and functional diversity of native tree communities, human pressure and the environment influence the establishment of non-native tree species and the subsequent invasion severity.

Abrupt expansion of climate change risks for species globally.

Climate change is already exposing species to dangerous temperatures driving widespread population and geographical contractions. However, little is known about how these risks of thermal exposure will expand across species' existing geographical ranges over time as climate change continues. Here, using geographical data for approximately 36,000 marine and terrestrial species and climate projections to 2100, we show that the area of each species' geographical range at risk of thermal exposure will expand abruptly.

Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change.

As Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide.

Geographic name resolution service: A tool for the standardization and indexing of world political division names, with applications to species distribution modeling.

Massive biological databases of species occurrences, or georeferenced locations where a species has been observed, are essential inputs for modeling present and future species distributions. Location accuracy is often assessed by determining whether the observation geocoordinates fall within the boundaries of the declared political divisions. This otherwise simple validation is complicated by the difficulty of matching political division names to the correct geospatial object.

High exposure of global tree diversity to human pressure.

Safeguarding Earth's tree diversity is a conservation priority due to the importance of trees for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services such as carbon sequestration. Here, we improve the foundation for effective conservation of global tree diversity by analyzing a recently developed database of tree species covering 46,752 species. We quantify range protection and anthropogenic pressures for each species and develop conservation priorities across taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity dimensions.

Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk.

At least 10,000 virus species have the ability to infect humans but, at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals. However, changes in climate and land use will lead to opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically isolated species of wildlife. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover-a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence.

Elevated extinction risk of cacti under climate change.

Cactaceae (cacti), a New World plant family, is one of the most endangered groups of organisms on the planet. Conservation planning is uncertain as it is unclear whether climate and land-use change will positively or negatively impact global cactus diversity. On the one hand, a common perception is that future climates will be favourable to cacti as they have multiple adaptations and specialized physiologies and morphologies for increased heat and drought.