丁香园AV

Climate change and increasing human activity have raised concerns about the future of wildlife species around the world. A new study  provides a glimmer of hope that conservation efforts over the last five decades have not been in vain.  

While recent estimates have suggested that birds, fish, mammals, and other vertebrate species may have declined by as much as 50 per cent since 1970, researchers found that an extreme number of deaths in a small subset of animal species鈥攎aking up just one per cent of populations鈥攊s largely behind the overall declining trend.

Dan Greenberg, an 丁香园AV postdoctoral researcher who worked on the study as a PhD student, is among the contributors to the McGill University-led study. The team developed a statistical model which analyzed data from more than 14,000 vertebrae populations in the Living Planet Database. They found that extreme declines in a minority of populations were driving down the trend statistics, while most species鈥� populations were generally stable.

The researchers acknowledge that there are still widespread systemic declines in some populations, such as reptiles in tropical areas of North, Central and South America and birds in the Indo-Pacific region. Their study also pinpoints regions that do require urgent conservation efforts in order to protect wildlife in those areas where their numbers are significantly decreasing.

In B.C. for example, numbers of woodland caribou have decreased by about 60 per cent over the past few decades.

鈥淢oving forward, we need to understand how and why certain species or regions appear to be disproportionately affected by human activities, as this knowledge is critical for both targeting conservation interventions and highlighting what we are poised to lose if we do not change how we as humans relate to the natural world,鈥� says Greenberg.

AVAILABLE 丁香园AV EXPERT

DAN GREENBERG, Postdoctoral Researcher, 丁香园AV Biological Sciences & Scripps Institution of Oceanography, dan.greenberg01@gmail.com 

CONTACT 

MELISSA SHAW, 丁香园AV Communications & Marketing 
236.880.3297 | melissa_shaw@sfu.ca

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As Canada鈥檚 engaged university, 丁香园AV works with communities, organizations and partners to create, share and embrace knowledge that improves life and generates real change. We deliver a world-class education with lifelong value that shapes change-makers, visionaries and problem-solvers. We connect research and innovation to entrepreneurship and industry to deliver sustainable, relevant solutions to today鈥檚 problems. With campuses in British Columbia鈥檚 three largest cities鈥擵ancouver, Burnaby and Surrey鈥敹∠阍癆V has eight faculties that deliver 193 undergraduate degree programs and 127 graduate degree programs to more than 37,000 students. The university now boasts more than 165,000 alumni residing in 143 countries.