Data from: 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.