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| Wed, 9th Oct 2019 13:08:00 |
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Vulnerability to climate change of islands worldwide and its impact on the tree of life |
Island systems are among the most vulnerable to climate change, which is predicted to induce shifts in temperature, rainfall and/or sea levels.
Islands that were vulnerable to climate change were found at all latitudes, e.g. in Australia, Indonesia, the Caribbean, Pacific countries, the United States, although they were more common near the equator. The loss of highly vulnerable islands would lead to relatively low absolute loss of plant phylogenetic diversity. However, these losses tended to be higher than expected by chance alone even in some highly vulnerable insular systems. This suggests the possible collapse of deep and long branches in vulnerable islands.
Island biodiversity requires specific attention for several reasons. Insular communities, because they are spatially segregated and have evolved in isolation, are characterized by extremely high rates of endemism14,15. Although they occur on less than 5% of the Earth’s terrestrial area, island plants and vertebrates have an endemic richness that may exceed that of mainland species by a factor of 9.515. Island biota are also very prone to extinction: around 80% of past extinctions and a third of threatened terrestrial species are found on islands16.
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