Integrating biogeography and behavioral ecology to rapidly address biodiversity loss

Abstract

Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss will be the defining ecological, political, and humanitarian challenge of our time. Alarmingly, policymakers face a narrowing window of opportunity to prevent the worst impacts, necessitating complex decisions about which land to set aside for biodiversity preservation. Yet, our ability to make these decisions is hindered by our limited capacity to predict how species will respond to synergistic drivers of extinction risk. We argue that a rapid integration of biogeography and behavioral ecology can meet these challenges because of the distinct, yet complementary levels of biological organization they address, scaling from individuals to populations, and from species and communities to continental biotas. This union of disciplines will advance efforts to predict biodiversity’s responses to climate change and habitat loss through a deeper understanding of how biotic interactions and other behaviors modulate extinction risk, and how responses of individuals and populations impact the communities in which they are embedded. Fostering a rapid mobilization of expertise across behavioral ecology and biogeography is a critical step toward slowing biodiversity loss.