LIFE: A metric for mapping the impact of land-cover change on global extinctions

We present Global LIFE (Land-cover change Impacts on Future Extinctions; Eyres et al, 2025) score layers for 30,875 terrestrial vertebrates at 1 arc-minute resolution (3.4 km2 ; 1.855 km linear at the equator). These maps provide, for the first time, estimates of the expected changes in number of extinctions (both increases and decreases) caused by (1) converting remaining natural vegetation to agriculture, and (2) restoring farmland to natural habitat. Our resulting maps can be used at scales from 0.5-1000 km2, and offer unprecedented opportunities to estimate the impact on extinctions of diverse actions that affect land cover, from individual dietary choices through to global protected area development. 

The LIFE conversion to arable layer shows the change in number of extinctions that would occur if current natural habitat was converted to arable land and largely results in increased extinctions (i.e. largely positive values). The LIFE reversion layer shows the change in extinctions that result from restoring agricultural lands (arable and pasture) back to potential natural habitats. This predominantly results in a decrease in extinction (i.e. largely negative values). All values in the layers are presented as extinction/km2 of land that has changed in a pixel.

The main analyses of Eyres et al 2025 assumed all species exhibit an exponential persistence-habitat loss curve with an exponent of 0.25. However, we also explored how our two LIFE score values differed using exponential curves with exponents set to 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 (the latter indicating a linear response to habitat loss), and assuming persistence changes according to a modified Gompertz curve. We present overall layers for 30,875 species of terrestrial vertebrates together as well as broken down into the main taxonomic groups (amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles).

In addition to the LIFE layers  we include two additional rasters that provide information about the area of land that has changed within a pixel (in km²; not necessarily equivalent to the pixel’s area). Using LIFE layers alongside the area change rasters allows calculation of the maximum change in extinction is possible within each pixel.

Citation

Please cite the published paper and state the used version. Paper will be published 9th January 2025. Issue doi:  https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb/380/1917. 

Eyres, Alison, Thomas S. Ball, Michael Dales, Tom Swinfield, Andy Arnell, Daniele Baisero, América Paz Durán et al. (2025) LIFE: A metric for mapping the impact of land-cover change on global extinctions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 

Code

Code available for reproducing the analysis pipeline here: https://github.com/quantifyearth/LIFE