AimUnderstanding how extinction has occurred in the recent past is crucial to unravel its main drivers as well as to implement effective conservation practices to minimize global biodiversity loss. It has long been hypothesized that extinction risk is not randomly distributed among traits of species. However, the actual traits making species more prone to extinction may have been overlooked because already extinct species are often not considered in comparative analyses of extinction risk. We characterized the drivers of extinction in a cosmopolitan bird clade, including Holocene and contemporary extinctions potentially related to human impacts and provided evidence of an ‘extinction selectivity’ in species traits.LocationGlobal.Time periodAnthropocene.Major taxa studiedColumbiformes clade, pigeons and doves.MethodsWe constructed a new phylogenetic hypothesis of the Columbiformes, a cosmopolitan bird clade consisting of 33 recently extinct and 351 extant species. Then, we integrated data on geography, behaviour and morphology to reveal the drivers of extinction risk. We used phylogenetic generalized least square models to test the effect of geography, behaviour and morphology in the risk of extinction and identified differences in the drivers of extinction when including versus excluding recently extinct species.ResultsOur analysis revealed that Columbiformes endemic to islands with ground‐foraging habits, weak flying abilities, migratory behaviour and larger body sizes are more vulnerable to extinction. Our results also show that excluding recently extinct species identifies extinction drivers different from those when including recently extinct species.Main conclusionsOnly by accurately identifying the traits that increase extinction risk we can develop targeted conservation measures that promote the long‐term persistence of threatened species. Extinction selectivity has important implications for the conservation of biological communities and ultimately ecosystem functioning, considering the critical role Columbiformes often play as seed dispersers.

中文翻译：

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灭绝选择性掩盖了鸽形目中性状依赖的濒危模式


目的了解最近的灭绝是如何发生的对于揭示其主要驱动因素以及实施有效的保护措施以最大限度地减少全球生物多样性丧失至关重要。长期以来，人们一直假设灭绝风险并不是随机分布在物种特征之间的。然而，使物种更容易灭绝的实际特征可能被忽视，因为在灭绝风险的比较分析中通常不考虑已经灭绝的物种。我们描述了世界性鸟类进化枝灭绝的驱动因素，包括可能与人类影响相关的全新世和当代灭绝，并提供了物种特征中“灭绝选择性”的证据。位置全球。时间段人类世。主要分类群研究了鸽形目进化枝、鸽子和鸽子。方法我们构建了哥伦比目的新系统发育假说，哥伦比目是一个世界性的鸟类分支，由 33 个最近灭绝的物种和 351 个现存物种组成。然后，我们整合了地理、行为和形态方面的数据，以揭示灭绝风险的驱动因素。我们使用系统发育广义最小二乘模型来测试地理、行为和形态对灭绝风险的影响，并确定了在包括和排除最近灭绝的物种时灭绝驱动因素的差异。结果我们的分析表明，鸽形目是地面觅食岛屿的特有种习性、飞行能力较弱、迁徙行为和较大的体型更容易灭绝。我们的结果还表明，排除最近灭绝的物种所确定的灭绝驱动因素与包括最近灭绝的物种时不同。主要结论只有准确识别增加灭绝风险的特征，我们才能制定有针对性的保护措施，促进受威胁物种的长期存在。考虑到鸽形目作为种子传播者经常发挥的关键作用，灭绝选择性对生物群落的保护和最终的生态系统功能具有重要影响。