Science Enabled by Specimen Data

Liu, X., T. M. Blackburn, T. Song, X. Li, C. Huang, and Y. Li. 2019. Risks of Biological Invasion on the Belt and Road. Current Biology 29: 499-505.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.036

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an unprecedented global development program that involves nearly half of the world’s countries [1]. It not only will have economic and political influences, but also may generate multiple environmental challenges and is a focus of considerable academic and p…

Deb, J. C., S. Phinn, N. Butt, and C. A. McAlpine. 2018. Adaptive management and planning for the conservation of four threatened large Asian mammals in a changing climate. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 24: 259–280. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-018-9810-3

Mammals can serve as an indicator of global climate change impacts on species’ distributions due to the wide range of ecological niches they utilize. Tropical Asia encompasses several biodiversity hotspots, is the largest reservoir of mammalian diversity on earth, and has already experienced the ext…

Faurby, S., and M. B. Araújo. 2018. Anthropogenic range contractions bias species climate change forecasts. Nature Climate Change 8: 252–256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0089-x

Forecasts of species range shifts under climate change most often rely on ecological niche models, in which characterizations of climate suitability are highly contingent on the species range data used. If ranges are far from equilibrium under current environmental conditions, for instance owing to …