S. Faurby

Large-scale assessment of habitat quality and quantity change on declining European butterflies

This study assesses habitat quality and quantity changes in European butterflies and finds habitat quality, not area, is the main driver of biodiversity decline.

Two major extinction events in the evolutionary history of turtles: one caused by a meteorite, the other by hominins

The paper analyzes the fossil record of turtles to identify extinction events, finding two major ones linked to the K-Pg meteorite and hominins, with the latter affecting terrestrial turtles.

A call for improving the Key Biodiversity Areas framework

The paper evaluates the Key Biodiversity Areas framework by assessing how many terrestrial areas could qualify as KBAs if all species were considered, finding that up to 68% of land could be classified as KBAs.

Functional and historical drivers of leaf shape evolution in Palms (Arecaceae)

This study investigates the evolutionary drivers of leaf shape in palms, finding associations between plant height, precipitation, and leaf morphology, while temperature had less impact.

Fruit colour and range size interact to influence diversification

The paper examines how fruit color and range size interact to influence diversification rates in palms, finding that intermediate range sizes correlate with higher diversification and that disperser type affects this relationship.

Extinctions have strongly reduced the mammalian consumption of primary productivity

The paper estimates that mammalian herbivory consumes 7.3% of global plant productivity in natural areas, but this would be 13% without human-driven extinctions, indicating a >50% reduction.

Mechanistic macroecology: exploring the drivers of latitudinal variation in terrestrial body size in a General Ecosystem Model

This study uses a mechanistic ecosystem model to evaluate the role of thermoregulation and resource availability in explaining latitudinal body size variation in mammals and birds.

Megafauna decline have reduced pathogen dispersal which may have increased emergent infectious diseases

This study links megafauna extinction to reduced pathogen dispersal, suggesting it may have increased zoonotic disease emergence in humans.

WEGE: A NEW METRIC FOR RANKING LOCATIONS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

The paper develops and validates the WEGE index to rank biodiversity importance of sites based on species endemism and threat status, outperforming existing metrics for conservation prioritization.

iucn_sim: A new program to simulate future extinctions based on IUCN threat status

The paper introduces a software tool to simulate future species extinctions using IUCN threat status and generation length data, predicting bird extinction rates and biodiversity loss over 100 years.

Dispersal ability predicts evolutionary success among mammalian carnivores

This study shows that dispersal ability is positively linked to diversification rates in mammalian carnivores when including extinct species.