Michela Pacifici

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

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are poised to become a powerful tool for identifying regions that host unique biodiversity. With their great diversity, insects hold significant potential as indicators for global KBA mapping, even in highly specialized and narrowly distributed habitats. For instance, species adapted to fragmented ecosystems like coast...

The recent thematic Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control of the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reaffirmed biological invasions as a major threat to biodiversity. Anticipating biological invasions is crucial for avoiding their ecological and socio‐economic impacts, particular...

Aim People have strongly influenced the biosphere for millennia, but how their increasing activities have shaped wildlife distribution is incompletely understood. We examined how the distribution of European large (>8 kg), wild mammals has changed in association with changing anthropogenic pressures and climate change through the Holocene. Locatio...

The new key biodiversity areas (KBA) standard is an important method for identifying regions of the planet‐hosting unique biodiversity. KBAs are identified through the implementation of threshold‐based criteria that can be applied to any target species and region. Current methods to rapidly assess the existence of potential KBAs in different areas...

The expansion of area-based conservation measures, such as protection and restoration efforts, as well as the design of multi-functional green and blue infrastructure, are widely seen as instrumental in halting or reversing further biodiversity decline. Europe has a long history of protection for biodiversity such as through the Natura 2000 program...

Shared socioeconomic pathways are a key tool in predicting biodiversity scenarios and in the subsequent design of environmental policies. Here, we discuss how recent policy changes to global trade routes, agriculture, and energy production in response to the war in Ukraine are impacting socioeconomic scenarios used to set and assess biodiversity ta...

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...

This data file includes the list of articles and issues previously published in the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (https://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/). All articles are grouped by the research thematic. As an explanation of each article, a brief (one sentence) description is provided by highlighting its contents. The Archive of the journa...

The regular issue 9(1) of the journal «Nature Conservation Research» (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: https://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/47. The cover page shows a skua (Stercorarius maccormicki) in flight on the Haswell Archipelago, Davis Sea (Author: Dr. S.V. Golubev). This issue of the journal «Nat...

Global change is affecting insect populations worldwide as species declines have been reported from different areas of the planet. Novel approaches such as the identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) could detect areas of high biodiversity value for insect populations. The KBA approach relies on standardised criteria to identify important s...

The regular issue 8(4) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: https://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/46. The cover page shows Momotus mexicanus Swainson, 1827 (Aves: Coraciiformes: Momotidae) in the Communal Natural Protected Area El Gavilán, Oaxaca state, Mexico (A...

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

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...

The regular issue 8(3) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/45. The cover shows rocky outcrops on the Malaya Bakhilova Mount, as a habitat of the relic species, Chrysolina roddi (Jakobson, 1897) (Coleoptera) (Author: PhD S.V....

The new Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) standard is an important method for identifying regions of the planet hosting unique biodiversity. KBAs are identified through the implementation of threshold-based criteria that can be applied to any target species and region. Efficient methods to rapidly assess the existence of potential KBAs in different area...

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...

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...

The regular issue 8(2) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/44. The cover shows Cuora bourreti (Obst & Reimann, 1994) in the Bach Ma National Park, Vietnam (Author: Benjamin Leprince). This issue of the journal “Nature Conserv...

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the European Union's main instrument for agricultural planning, with a new reform approved for 2023–2027. The CAP intends to align with the European Green Deal (EGD), a set of policy initiatives underpinning sustainable development and climate neutrality in the European Union (EU), but several flaws cast doub...

The regular issue 8(1) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/43. The cover shows Saguinus leucopus, Silvery-brown tamarin, a Vulnerable and endemic species in the Peasant Reserve Zone-Cimitarra River, middle Magdalena Valley, C...

The regular issue 6(4) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released today. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/42. The cover shows calve of Procarpa gutturosa Pallas, 1777 (Bovidae) in the buffer zone of the Daursky State Nature Reserve, Russia (Author: Dr. Galina S. Ale...

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...

The regular issue 7(3) of the journal “Nature Conservation Research” (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/41. The cover shows Orchis canariensis (Orchidaceae) from la Caldera de los Marteles, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain (Author: Dr. Jacopo Calevo). This issue of t...

The war in Ukraine comes at a time when the world is facing a critical moment in the need to reverse the biodiversity crisis. In response to the war, reactive changes to policy are potentially starting to shift the world from globalisation towards a form of regionalisation. This shift away from globalisation could hamper progress towards internatio...

Planning conservation actions requires detailed information on species' geographic distribution. Species distribution data are most needed in areas hosting unique or endangered biodiversity. Italy is one of the European countries with the highest levels of herpetological diversity and endemism and is home to several threatened species of amphibians...

The regular issue 7(2) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/40. The cover shows staminate flowers of Baccharis macrophylla (Asteraceae) from the high altitude grasslands in the Itatiaia National Park, Rio de Janeiro, Southeast...

The special issue 7(Suppl.1) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/39. This issue is entitled “Biodiversity Informatics for Protected Areas” by containing papers based on biodiversity data management methods and (or) methods for consolidated data...

The regular issue 7(1) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/38. The cover shows the male Urothemis edwardsii (Selys, 1849) in the National Park of El Kala, Algeria (Author: Dr. Rassim Khelifa). This issue of the journal "Natur...

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...

The regular issue 6(4) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/37. The cover shows the female wolf (Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758) in the buffer zone of the Daursky State Nature Biosphere Reserve, Russia (Author: Sergey Vysotin). Th...

The regular issue 6(3) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/36. The cover shows two male Blood pheasants (Ithaginis cruentus Hardwicke, 1821) on the alpine rocky-cliffs of Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve (India) (Authors: Bi...

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will probably include a goal to stabilize and restore the status of species. Its delivery would be facilitated by making the actions required to halt and reverse species loss spatially explicit. Here, we develop a species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric...

The breadth of a species' climatic niche is an important ecological trait that allows adaptation to climate change, but human activities often reduce realised niche breadth by impacting species distributions. Some life‐history traits, such as dispersal ability and reproductive speed, allow species to cope with both human impact and climate change....

The regular issue 6(2) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/35. The cover shows cubs of brown bear (Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1867) feeding by sockeye salmon, South Kamchatka (Photo: PhD Sergey A. Kolchin). This issue of the jour...

The use of species’ traits in macroecological analyses has gained popularity in the last decade, becoming an important tool to understand global biodiversity patterns. Currently, trait data can be found across a wide variety of data sets included in websites, articles, and books, each one with its own taxonomic classification, set of traits, and da...

The special issue 6(Suppl.1) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/33. This issue is entitled "Protected Areas in the Green Belt of Fennoscandia" being devoted to the anniversary of the Kostomuksha State Nature Reserve. The cover shows the wild r...

The regular issue 6(1) of the journal "Nature Conservation Research" (http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/) has been released today. It is stored here: http://ncr-journal.bear-land.org/journal/34. The cover shows Pelias kaznakovi (Nikolsky, 1909) in Sochi National Park (Russia) (Photo: Dr.Sc. Boris S. Tuniyev). This issue of the journal "Nature Conser...

The global network of terrestrial protected areas (PAs) has experienced a fourfold expansion since the 1970s. Yet, there is increasing debate around the role of the global PA estate in covering and sustaining threatened species, with serious ramifications for current PA financing and the setting of post‐2020 global conservation targets. By comparin...

Understanding changes in species distributions is essential to disentangle the mechanisms that drive their responses to anthropogenic habitat modification. Here we analyse the past (1970s) and current (2017) distribution of 204 species of terrestrial non-volant mammals to identify drivers of recent contraction and expansion in their range. We find...

Human pressure on the environment is driving a global decline of biodiversity. Anticipating whether this trend can be reverted under future scenarios is key to supporting policy decisions. We used the InSiGHTS framework to model the impacts of land-use and climate change on future habitat availability for 2,827 terrestrial mammals at 15 arcmin reso...

The breadth of a species' climatic niche is an important ecological trait that allows adaptation to climate change, but human activities drive niche erosion. Life-history traits, such as dispersal ability and reproductive speed, instead allow species to cope with climate change. But how do these characteristics act in combination with human pressur...

Ongoing perturbations in the global climate have triggered changes in the frequency or magnitude of extreme climatic events, including drought. Increasingly common or intense droughts have threatened ungulates. Intensifying trend of drought has been observed in China since the 1980s. We assessed drought vulnerability of 60 ungulate taxa distributed...

Here we provide geographic distribution ranges for 205 species of terrestrial non‐volant mammals in the 1970s. We selected terrestrial non‐volant mammals because they are among the most studied groups, have greater availability of historical distribution data for the 1970s decade, and also show the largest range contractions compared to other taxon...

Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of c...

Durante l’Antropocene, la biodiversità sta vivendo una grave crisi causata da diversi fattori antropogenici, fra cui il cambiamento dell’habitat, del clima e le invasioni biologiche, che non sono indipendenti l’uno dall'altro. Le specie invasive possono causare gravi impatti sulla biodiversità attraverso la competizione, la predazione, la diffusion...

In the Supplementary Information PDF published with this Letter, under the heading ‘Keywords used to select the papers for the literature review’, operator (*) use in the search strings is inconsistent and at times incorrect. In addition, the full list of references shortlisted from the Web of Science search criteria used in this study was not prov...

Checklist of the Small Terrestrial Mammals of Albania_2017

File name: zookeys-742-127-s003.docx Distribution maps of small terrestrial mammals of Albania

Filename: zookeys-742-127-s002.docx Table S2. List of species with numbers of records by year of publication and/or year of data collection

Recently, the Albanian Government started the process to join the European Union. This process also involves matching the EU parameters in protecting its biodiversity. In order to support the Albanian authorities, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, General Directorate for Development Cooperation (DGCS) and the International Union for Conserva...

In this paper new records are reported for 23 species of small terrestrial mammals (STM) of Albania collected during the field work campaigns organised in the framework of the project “Strengthening capacity in National Nature Protection – preparation for Natura 2000 network” (NaturAL) in Albania during the summer and autumn of 2016 and 2017 Data o...

Updated check-list of small terrestrial mammals of Albania (2017)

Table S2. List of species with numbers of records by year of publication and/or year of data collection

In this paper we report new records for 22 species of small mammals of Albania collected during the field work campaigns organized in the framework of Natura 2000 Project in Albania during the summer and autumn of 2016 and 2017. Data on small mammals were primarily collected through Sherman live-trapping campaigns in various high priority protected...

As rates of global warming increase rapidly, identifying species at risk of decline due to climate impacts and the factors affecting this risk have become key challenges in ecology and conservation biology. Here we present a framework for assessing three components of climate-related risk for species: vulnerability, exposure and hazard. We used the...

Although it is widely accepted that future climatic change - if unabated - is likely to have major impacts on biodiversity, few studies have attempted to quantify the number of species whose populations have already been impacted by climate change. Using a systematic review of published literature, we identified mammals and birds for which there is...

Accumulating impacts Anthropogenic climate change is now in full swing, our global average temperature already having increased by 1°C from preindustrial levels. Many studies have documented individual impacts of the changing climate that are particular to species or regions, but individual impacts are accumulating and being amplified more broadly....

Predicting climate change impacts on biodiversity is a major scientific challenge, but doing so is important for assessing extinction risk, developing conservation action plans, providing guidance for laws and regulations, and identifying the mechanisms and patterns of impact to inform climate change adaptation. In the few decades since the threat...

Fire is a key ecosystem driver in savannahs and it can have large impacts on species distribution and density. A re-examination of fire management in Kruger National Park is currently under review with the objective to maintain natural ecosystem dynamics and favour tourists' ability to observe animals. We used data on location, intensity and freque...

The effects of climate change on biodiversity are increasingly well documented, and many methods have been developed to assess species' vulnerability to climatic changes, both ongoing and projected in the coming decades. To minimize global biodiversity losses, conservationists need to identify those species that are likely to be most vulnerable to...

The extensive deforestation and degradation of tropical forests is a significant contributor to the loss of biodiversity and to global warming. Restoration could potentially mitigate the impacts of deforestation, yet knowledge on how to efficiently allocate funding for restoration is still in its infancy. We systematically prioritize investments in...