eprintid: 10101872 rev_number: 28 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/10/18/72 datestamp: 2020-06-22 11:24:30 lastmod: 2021-12-08 23:43:23 status_changed: 2020-06-22 11:24:30 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Norris, K creators_name: Terry, A creators_name: Hansford, JP creators_name: Turvey, ST title: Biodiversity conservation and the earth system – mind the gap ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B02 divisions: C08 divisions: D09 divisions: B04 divisions: C06 divisions: F57 keywords: biodiversity, megafauna, ecological function, biome, Earth system note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: One of the most striking human impacts on global biodiversity is the ongoing depletion of large vertebrates from terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Recent work suggests this loss of megafauna can affect processes at biome or Earth system scales with potentially serious impacts on ecosystem structure and function, ecosystem services, and biogeochemical cycles. We argue that our contemporary approach to biodiversity conservation focuses on spatial scales that are too small to adequately address these impacts. We advocate a new global approach to address this conservation gap, which must enable megafaunal populations to recover to functionally relevant densities. We conclude that re-establishing biome and Earth system functions needs to become an urgent global priority for conservation science and policy. date: 2020-10 date_type: published publisher: Elsevier official_url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.010 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1791127 doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.010 lyricists_name: Hansford, James Peter lyricists_name: Turvey, Samuel lyricists_id: JHANS58 lyricists_id: STURV99 actors_name: Austen, Jennifer actors_id: JAUST66 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Trends in Ecology and Evolution volume: 35 number: 10 pagerange: 919-926 citation: Norris, K; Terry, A; Hansford, JP; Turvey, ST; (2020) Biodiversity conservation and the earth system – mind the gap. Trends in Ecology and Evolution , 35 (10) pp. 919-926. 10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.010 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.010>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10101872/3/Turvey_Biodiversity%20conservation%20earth%20system%20REVISED%20FINAL.pdf