Accelerating local extinction associated with very recent climate change

Climate change has already caused local extinction in many plants and animals, based on surveys spanning many decades. As climate change accelerates, the pace of these extinctions may also accelerate, potentially leading to large-scale, species-level extinctions. We tested this hypothesis in a montane lizard. We resurveyed 18 mountain ranges in 2021–2022 after only ~7 years. We found rates of local extinction among the fastest ever recorded, which have tripled in the past ~7 years relative to the preceding ~42 years. Further, climate change generated local extinction in ~7 years similar to that seen in other organisms over ~70 years. Yet, contrary to expectations, populations at two of the hottest sites survived. We found that genomic data helped predict which populations survived and which went extinct. Overall, we show the increasing risk to biodiversity posed by accelerating climate change, and the opportunity to study its effects over surprisingly brief timescales., , , Data from: Accelerating local extinction associated with very recent climate change
Datasets S1–S8 are on Dryad
Dataset S9 and Supporting Information are on Zenodo
For Datasets S1–S4 and S7–S8, the first sheet of each file contains the metadata for that file
Dataset S1. Field survey data
Dataset S2. Literature dataset on range shifts
Dataset S3. Climate data for lowest-elevation sites
Dataset S4. RADseq sample locations
Dataset S5. RADseq data for all 115 individuals
Dataset S6. RADseq data for 70 recent individuals
Dataset S7. Genetic variation within populations
Dataset S8. Climate data for LFMM analyses
Dataset S9. Code and scripts for statistical analyses
Supporting Information (Appendices S1–S4, Figures S1–S7, Tables S1–S20)