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

Climate change refers to the long-term changes in temperature and weather due to human
activities. Increase in average global temperature and extreme and unpredictable weather …

The oft-repeated claim that Earth's biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on
clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates …

Global food demand is increasing rapidly, as are the environmental impacts of agricultural
expansion. Here, we project global demand for crop production in 2050 and evaluate the …

Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than
three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times …

Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International
Decade for Action–'Water for Life'–2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the …

Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity, is accelerated by global demand for
commodities. Although prior literature has linked deforestation to global supply chains, here …

Human-driven land-use changes increasingly threaten biodiversity, particularly in tropical
forests where both species diversity and human pressures on natural environments are …

Studying and protecting each and every living species on Earth is a major challenge of the
21st century. Yet, most species remain unknown or unstudied, while others attract most of …

The diversity of life is ultimately generated by evolution, and much attention has focused on
the rapid evolution of ecological traits. Yet, the tendency for many ecological traits to instead …