McGill University
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Laura Pollock
Start: 2021-09-01
End: 2025-09-01
Personal page
Personal page 2

Project

Assessing threat vulnerability and extinction risk for terrestrial vertebrates
The IUCN Red List is the most comprehensive index of global species extinction risk. Species assessments are typically based on published data and expert input on demographic data and population trends. However, there are many species for which there is not enough data on demographic trends to evaluate risk accurately. For species lacking detailed time-series data, models can be used to infer extinction risk based on species traits, which are well-known to correlate with extinction risk broadly across many taxa. For example, there are documented relationships between body size, habitat specialization, and risk of extinction. While these models are generally applicable, one problem is that, in some cases, a trait can either increase of decrease extinction risk depending on the threat. For example, larger vertebrates are more vulnerable to hunting, whereas smaller vertebrates are more vulnerable to habitat loss. Thus, predicting extinction risk from traits alone without considering the type of threats to which species are exposed can result in inaccurate predictions. Here, I extend the typical trait-based extinction risk models to a framework that simultaneously includes information on traits and threats to estimate extinction risk. The overall objectives of this project are to understand how traits and threats influence extinction risk for terrestrial vertebrates and to discover species with latent extinction risk (those species likely at risk but not currently listed). To do this, I will use hierarchical regression models to predict extinction risk as a function of traits and threats for all species individually and as taxonomic clades (e.g. birds and mammals) and predict latent extinction risk. I will also extend this approach for use climate-change projections for Canadian species, for which detailed climate projections are available. Finally, I will contrast overall extinction risk and that attributed to climate change for a temperate (Canada) and tropical (Brazil) ecosystems. The outcomes of this project will be: a better understanding of which traits indicate extinction risk from specific threats for all vertebrates, how climate change risk differs between the temperate and tropics, and a priority ranking of species likely to be vulnerable in the future. Results can be used to inform global conservation priorities such as the post-2020 Convention on Biodiversity.