We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and
population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly …

BACKGROUND Comparing patterns of terrestrial and marine defaunation helps to place
human impacts on marine fauna in context and to navigate toward recovery. Defaunation …

Power-law distributions occur in many situations of scientific interest and have significant
consequences for our understanding of natural and man-made phenomena. Unfortunately …

Until recently, large apex consumers were ubiquitous across the globe and had been for
millions of years. The loss of these animals may be humankind's most pervasive influence …

Large wild herbivores are crucial to ecosystems and human societies. We highlight the 74
largest terrestrial herbivore species on Earth (body mass≥ 100 kg), the threats they face …

Large herbivores play unique ecological roles and are disproportionately imperiled by
human activity. As many wild populations dwindle towards extinction, and as interest grows …

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 …

The late Quaternary megafauna extinction was a severe global-scale event. Two factors,
climate change and modern humans, have received broad support as the primary drivers …

Since the late Pleistocene, large-bodied mammals have been extirpated from much of Earth.
Although all habitable continents once harbored giant mammals, the few remaining species …

Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of global conservation and central to international
plans to minimize global extinctions. During the coming century, global ecosystem …