SPEAKER: Andy Purvis (Imperial College London)
WHEN: Friday 23 April 2010: 13:00
WHERE: UNEP-WCMC
Phylogenies most obviously tell us about the origins and history of species. However, they can also help us to understand and predict species’ responses to drivers of change, as well as being a proxy measure of biological diversity, so are potentially useful tools for managing the future of biodiversity, at least in well-known groups.
This talk will briefly outline the current distribution and state of mammalian diversity, before going on to model IUCN Red List status as a function of species’ biological attributes and the intensity of human impacts where they live.
The modelling approach permits identification of species not yet at high risk but whose intrinsic biology renders them very susceptible to increased human impact. Such models can form a framework for identifying likely casualties under different climatic and socioeconomic scenarios.