Objective Climate and habitat change are accelerating the loss of biodiversity at unprecedented rates. To prevent this loss it is criticalto understand species extinction patterns globally. Several studies have linked species extinctions with their intrinsic lifehistory and ecological traits. However, the predictive power of the models is weak generating great uncertainty for appliedconservation strategies on the ground. An important factor that is often forgotten is that species extinctions are theculmination of a sequence of local population declines or extirpations, each of which may present distinct trait-environmentdynamics. There is still little knowledge on how factors related to species traits and those related to the environmentalconditions occurring at the population level interact to drive species declines. Neither is well known how these processesscale up to determine community homogenisation. EXTINCT will use citizen-based data of ca. 175 butterfly speciescollected over >18 years along three countries (UK, South Finland and NE Spain) to test how the species traits and theenvironmental conditions interact in driving population declines and extirpations, and the consequent communityhomogenisation. Specifically, EXTINCT will use butterfly intrinsic traits found to be key in the species ecology andrepresentative of wider taxa, and it will test how they interact with the environmental conditions in terms of climate (aridity) and landscape heterogeneity (topography and landcover heterogeneity). EXTINCT covers six out of the tenbioclimatic regions and three main biomes along Europe, ensuring the generalisations of the findings. It will use modernBayesian Hierarchical models to correct the ecological inferences from the error inherent to data collected by volunteers.With an applied perspective, it will also inform on the level of local landscape heterogeneity (and thus, management) required to preserve the species, which comprise the local community. Fields of science natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetary geologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2017 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF Coordinator THE UNIVERSITY OF READING Net EU contribution € 183 454,80 Address Whiteknights campus whiteknights house RG6 6AH Reading United Kingdom See on map Region South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Berkshire Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
