TY - JOUR
T1 - The commonness of rarity
T2 - Global and future distribution of rarity across land plants
AU - Enquist, Brian J.
AU - Feng, Xiao
AU - Boyle, Brad
AU - Maitner, Brian
AU - Newman, Erica A.
AU - Jørgensen, Peter Møller
AU - Roehrdanz, Patrick R.
AU - Thiers, Barbara M.
AU - Burger, Joseph R.
AU - Corlett, Richard T.
AU - Couvreur, Thomas L.P.
AU - Dauby, Gilles
AU - Donoghue, John C.
AU - Foden, Wendy
AU - Lovett, Jon C.
AU - Marquet, Pablo A.
AU - Merow, Cory
AU - Midgley, Guy
AU - Morueta-Holme, Naia
AU - Neves, Danilo M.
AU - Oliveira-Filho, Ary T.
AU - Kraft, Nathan J.B.
AU - Park, Daniel S.
AU - Peet, Robert K.
AU - Pillet, Michiel
AU - Serra-Diaz, Josep M.
AU - Sandel, Brody
AU - Schildhauer, Mark
AU - Šímová, Irena
AU - Violle, Cyrille
AU - Wieringa, Jan J.
AU - Wiser, Susan K.
AU - Hannah, Lee
AU - Svenning, Jens Christian
AU - McGill, Brian J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
PY - 2019/11/27
Y1 - 2019/11/27
N2 - A key feature of life’s diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species. Here, we present the largest compilation of global plant diversity to quantify the fraction of Earth’s plant biodiversity that are rare. A large fraction, ~36.5% of Earth’s ~435,000 plant species, are exceedingly rare. Sampling biases and prominent models, such as neutral theory and the k-niche model, cannot account for the observed prevalence of rarity. Our results indicate that (i) climatically more stable regions have harbored rare species and hence a large fraction of Earth’s plant species via reduced extinction risk but that (ii) climate change and human land use are now disproportionately impacting rare species. Estimates of global species abundance distributions have important implications for risk assessments and conservation planning in this era of rapid global change.
AB - A key feature of life’s diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species. Here, we present the largest compilation of global plant diversity to quantify the fraction of Earth’s plant biodiversity that are rare. A large fraction, ~36.5% of Earth’s ~435,000 plant species, are exceedingly rare. Sampling biases and prominent models, such as neutral theory and the k-niche model, cannot account for the observed prevalence of rarity. Our results indicate that (i) climatically more stable regions have harbored rare species and hence a large fraction of Earth’s plant species via reduced extinction risk but that (ii) climate change and human land use are now disproportionately impacting rare species. Estimates of global species abundance distributions have important implications for risk assessments and conservation planning in this era of rapid global change.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0414
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0414
M3 - Article
C2 - 31807712
AN - SCOPUS:85076310925
VL - 5
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
IS - 11
M1 - eaaz0414
ER -
