WCS 3-Sentence Science

Human Pressure vs. Species Vulnerability

December 26, 2019

CREDIT: JULIE LARSEN MAHER/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s James Watson on the great number of land-based species whose ranges overlap with areas under human pressure.

1. Using the most comprehensive global dataset on cumulative human footprint, researchers assessed the extent of intense human pressures across 20,529 terrestrial vertebrate species’ geographic ranges — a useful first step for measuring species vulnerability.
2. They show that 85 percent (17,517) of the terrestrial vertebrate species assessed have > half of their range exposed to intense human pressure, with 16% (3328) of the species assessed being entirely exposed to this degree of pressure, and threatened terrestrial vertebrates and species with small ranges are disproportionately exposed to intense human pressure
3. The analysis suggests that there are at least 2,478 species considered ‘least concern’ that have considerable portions of their range overlapping with intense human pressures, which may indicate their risk of decline.

Study and Journal: “Intense human pressure is widespread across terrestrial vertebrate ranges” from Global Ecology and Conservation
WCS Co-Author(s): James Watson, Director, Science and Research Initiative

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.