Luca Santini

Sapienza University of Rome | la sapienza · Department of Biology and Biotechnology "Charles Darwin" BBCD

The ongoing biodiversity crisis presents a complex challenge for ecological science. Despite a consensus on general biodiversity decline, identifying clear trends remains difficult due to variability in data, methodologies, and scales of analysis. To enhance our understanding of ongoing biodiversity changes and address discrepancies in biodiversity...

Camera‐traps are valuable tools for estimating wildlife population density, and recently developed models enable density estimation without the need for individual recognition. Still, processing and analysis of camera‐trap data are extremely time‐consuming. While algorithms for automated species classification are becoming more common, they have on...

Studies aimed at estimating species response to climate change generally employ correlative species distribution models (SDMs) coupled with dispersal scenarios. However, dispersal distances are generally lacking or nonrepresentative, so researchers typically estimate dispersal distance from allometric relationships. Yet, these estimates ignore the...

Due to the central role of landscape connectivity in many ecological processes, evaluating and accounting for it has gained attention in both theoretical and applied ecological sciences. To address this challenge, researchers often use generic species to simplify multi‐species connectivity assessments. Yet, this approach tends to oversimplify movem...

Motivation: Population density is a fundamental parameter in ecology and conservation, and taxonomic and geographic patterns of population density have been an important focus of macroecological research. However, population density data are time-consuming and costly to collect, so their availability is limited. Leveraging decades of research, Tetr...

Tropical cyclones are stochastic—sometimes catastrophic—weather events that can shape the ecology of impacted regions and have long‐lasting effects on ecosystems. These destructive events are concerning for species persistence in areas with high endemism. Madagascar is among the world's most biodiverse hotspots and given the island's location withi...

1. Due to the central role of landscape connectivity in many ecological processes, evaluating and accounting for it has gained attention in both theoretical and applied ecological sciences. To address this challenge, researchers often used generic species to simplify multi-species connectivity assessments. Yet, this approach tends to oversimplify m...

Macroecologists traditionally emphasized the role of environmental variables for predicting species distribution and abundance at large scale. While biotic factors have been increasingly recognized as important at macroecological scales, producing valuable biotic variables remains challenging and rarely tested. Capitalizing on the wealth of populat...

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species underpins much decision-making in conservation and plays a key role in monitoring the status and trends of biodiversity. However, the shortage of funds and assessor capacity slows the uptake of novel data and techniques, hampering its currency, applicability, consistency and long-term viability. To help addre...

Human activities can substantially alter forest structure, consequently affecting forest animal communities. An important effect on bat behavior is given by canopy discontinuities like clearings or trails: while the former act as foraging sites, the latter are known to be used by bats to move inside the forest. For this reason, we can expect trails...

Camera-traps are valuable tools for estimating wildlife population density, and recently developed models enable density estimation without the need for individual recognition. Still, processing and analysis of camera-trap data are extremely time-consuming. While algorithms for automated species classification are becoming more common, they have on...

Acoustic indices are cost-efficient tools for monitoring acoustically active taxa. Despite their increasing popularity, their suitability as biodiversity proxies remains debated due to theoretical and practical issues. Existing research has predominantly focused on assessing their capacity to capture species richness and abundance of sounds, with l...

Assessing the extinction risk of species based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (RL) is key to guiding conservation policies and reducing biodiversity loss. This process is resource demanding, however, and requires continuous updating, which becomes increasingly difficult as new species are added to the RL. Auto...

Ecological connectivity is key to maintaining a coherent and resilient network of protected areas in the EU. The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 has identified the unhindered movement of species, nutrients and ecological processes across connected landscapes as a key feature of a coherent Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N) of protected and con...

Anthropogenic disturbance elicits adaptive responses in wildlife, generally aimed at risk-avoidance, ultimately imposing constraints on their spatial and temporal niches. Previous studies have largely focused on long-term adaptive responses to stable human pressure, but rapid adjustments in wildlife’s diel and habitat use patterns in response to fi...

Variation in life histories influences demographic processes from adaptive changes to population declines leading to extinction. Among life history traits, generation length offers a critical feature to forecast species’ demographic trajectories such as population declines (widely used by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) and adaptability to...

Aim Wildlife overexploitation, either for food consumption or for the pet trade, is one of the main threats to bird species in tropical forests. Yet, the spatial distribution and intensity of harvesting pressure on tropical birds remain challenging to quantify. Here, we identify the drivers of hunting‐induced declines in bird abundance and quantify...

Background Vegetation structure is increasingly recognized as a key variable to explain ecosystems states and dynamics. New Remote Sensing tools are available to complement labor intensive field investigations and consider the global biogeography of this parameter. Objectives We propose to model the processes explaining the interaction between vege...

Surveying arboreal wildlife in tropical rainforests is a daunting task: typical survey methods (e.g., focal observations or line transects) imply huge human efforts and are mostly limited to diurnal species. In this context, camera-trapping is a cost-effective method that allows near-continuous data collection over large spatial and temporal scales...

Conservation funding is currently limited; cost-effective conservation solutions are essential. We suggest that the thousands of field stations worldwide can play key roles at the frontline of biodiversity conservation and have high intrinsic value. We assessed field stations’ conservation return on investment and explored the impact of COVID-19. W...

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is a central tool for extinction risk monitoring and influences global biodiversity policy and action. But, to be effective, it is crucial that it consistently accounts for each driver of extinction. Climate change is rapidly becoming a key extinction driver, but consideration of cl...

Comparative extinction risk analysis—which predicts species extinction risk from correlation with traits or geographical characteristics—has gained research attention as a promising tool to support extinction risk assessment in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, its uptake has been very limited so far, possibly because existing model...

Greenspoon et al. (1) used of global population estimates of 392 mammal species to predict the global biomass of mammals. We caution against important limitations in their approach, which likely results in gross underestimations of biomass and its uncertainty. The authors derive >97% of their estimates from the IUCN Red List (RL) database, which is...

A key challenge for ecological science is to understand how biodiversity loss is changing ecosystem structure and function at scales relevant for policy1. Almost all biodiversity metrics are challenging to disaggregate into ecosystem functions, in particular animal-mediated functions such as pollination, seed and nutrient dispersal, and predation....

Elevational gradients are characterized by strong environmental changes within small geographical distances, providing important insights on the response of biological communities to climate change. Mountain biodiversity is particularly sensitive to climate change, given the limited capacity to colonize new areas and the competition from upshifting...

Aim Trophic rewilding is proposed as an approach to tackle biodiversity loss by restoring ecosystem dynamics through the reintroduction of keystone species. Currently, evidence on the ecological consequences of reintroduction programmes is sparse and difficult to generalize. To better understand the ecological consequences of trophic rewilding, we...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Despite being central to the implementation of conservation policies, the usefulness of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is hampered by the 14% of species classified as data‐deficient (DD) because information to evaluate these species’ extinction risk was lacking when they were last assessed o...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Comparative extinction risk analysis – which predicts species extinction risk from correlation with traits or geographical characteristics – has gained research attention as a promising tool to support extinction risk assessment in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, its uptake has been very limited so far, possibly because these mode...

Habitat fragmentation and overexploitation of natural resources are the most prevalent and severe threats to biodiversity in tropical forests. Several studies have estimated the effect of these threats on species extinction risk, however the effect resulting from their interaction remains poorly understood. Here, we assess whether and how habitat a...

We call for journals to commit to requiring open data be archived in a format that will be simple and clear for readers to understand and use. If applied consistently, these requirements will allow contributors to be acknowledged for their work through citation of open data, and facilitate scientific progress.

Knowledge of species' functional traits is essential for understanding biodiversity patterns, predicting the impacts of global environmental changes, and assessing the efficiency of conservation measures. Bats are major components of mammalian diversity and occupy a variety of ecological niches and geographic distributions. However, an extensive co...

Abundance and density of animal populations are key parameters in wildlife studies. In wildlife management, estimating these parameters for species of interest is essential for quantifying variations and guiding conservation decision-making. The use of camera traps has proven to be an efficient and non-invasive methodology for monitoring wildlife p...

Aim: How population density varies across animal species in the context of environmental gradients, and associated migratory strategies, remains poorly understood. The recent influx of avian trait data and population density estimates allows these patterns to be described and explored in unprecedented detail. This study aims to identify the main ma...

While forest productivity and biodiversity are expected to be correlated, prioritizing either forest productivity or biodiversity can result in different management. Spatial quantification of the congruence between areas suitable for either one can inform planning. Here we quantify the relationship between net primary productivity of European fores...

Assessing the extinction risk of species through the IUCN Red List is key to guiding conservation policies and reducing biodiversity loss. This process is resource-demanding, however, and requires a continuous update which becomes increasingly difficult as new species are added to the IUCN Red List. The use of automatic methods, such as comparative...

The viability of populations can be quantified with several measures, such as the probability of extinction, the mean time to extinction, or the population size. While conservation management decisions can be based on these measures, it has not yet been explored systematically if different viability measures rank species and scenarios similarly and...

Aim Whether intraspecific spatial patterns in body size are generalizable across species remains contentious, as well as the mechanisms underlying these patterns. Here we test several hypotheses explaining within‐species body size variation in terrestrial vertebrates including the heat balance, seasonality, resource availability and water conservat...

Climate change represents a threat to narrow-ranged mountain species living in low-altitude massifs. We studied the disjunct Apennine population of Lasiommata petropolitana (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) in the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park. We quantifed the altitudinal shifts undergone in the last decades (1964–2021) in the Alps and Ap...

The relationship between species' body masses and densities is strongly conserved around a three‐quarter power law when pooling data across communities. However, studies of local within‐community relationships have revealed major deviations from this general pattern, which has profound implications for their stability and functioning. Despite multi...

Among mammals, the order Primates is exceptional in having a high taxonomic richness in which the taxa are arboreal, semiterrestrial, or terrestrial. Although habitual terrestriality is pervasive among the apes and African and Asian monkeys (catarrhines), it is largely absent among monkeys of the Americas (platyrrhines), as well as galagos, lemurs,...

Biodiversity is severely threatened by habitat destruction. As a consequence of habitat destruction, the remaining habitat becomes more fragmented. This results in time‐lagged population extirpations in remaining fragments when these are too small to support populations in the long term. If these time‐lagged effects are ignored, the long‐term impac...

Understanding how species respond to climate change is key to informing vulnerability assessments and designing effective conservation strategies, yet research efforts on wildlife responses to climate change fail to deliver a representative overview due to inherent biases. Bats are a species‐rich, globally distributed group of organisms that are th...

While forest productivity and biodiversity are expected to be correlated, prioritizing either forest productivity or biodiversity can result in different management. Spatial quantification of the congruence between areas suitable for either one can inform planning. Here we quantify the relationship between net primary productivity of European fores...

Trophic rewilding is proposed as an effective approach to tackle biodiversity loss by restoring ecosystem dynamics through the reintroduction of large-bodied animals. Currently, evidence on the effectiveness of reintroduction programs is sparse and difficult to generalize. To better understand the ecological consequences of trophic rewilding, we si...

The relationship between species body masses and densities is strongly conserved around a three-quarter power law when pooling data across communities. However, studies of local within-community relationships have revealed major deviations from this general pattern, which has profound implications for their stability and functioning. Despite multip...

Climate change represents a threat to narrow-ranged mountain species living in low-altitude massifs. We studied the disjunct Apennine population of Lasiommata petropolitana (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) in the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park. We quantified the altitudinal shifts undergone in the last decades (1964-2021) in the Alps and A...

Aim Population density is a key parameter in ecology and conservation, and estimates of population density are required for a wide variety of applications in fundamental and applied ecology. Yet, in terrestrial mammals these data are available for only a minority of species, and their availability is taxonomically and geographically biased. Here, w...

Climate change is predicted to drive geographical range shifts, leading to fluctuations in species richness (SR) worldwide. However, the effect of these changes on functional diversity (FD) remains unclear, in part because comprehensive species‐level trait data are generally lacking at global scales. Here, we use morphometric and ecological traits...

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is central in biodiversity conservation, but insufficient resources hamper its long-term growth, updating, and consistency. Models or automated calculations can alleviate those challenges by providing standardised estimates required for assessments, or prioriti...

Aim Climate change will likely modify the global distribution of biomes, but the magnitude of change is debated. Here, we followed a trait‐based, statistical approach to model the influence of climate change on the global distribution of biomes. Location Global. Methods We predicted the global distribution of plant community mean specific leaf ar...

• Climate change is causing shifts in the distribution of many species and populations inhabiting mountain tops are particularly vulnerable to these threats because they are constrained in altitudinal shifts. Apennines are a relatively narrow and low mountain chain located in Southern Europe, which hosts many isolated populations of mountain specie...