© A Lees/Manchester Metropolitan University; S.Wilson; A.Lees; M Dehling; C. Contijo LealSavanna elephant; coral reef; saffron-crowned tanager; blue-headed parrots; Amazon Forest stream.
In their paper '
The future of hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems' an international team has warned that a failure to act quickly and decisively will greatly increase the risk of unprecedented and irrevocable species loss in the most diverse parts of the planet.
The study is the first high-level report on the state of all four of the world´s most diverse tropical ecosystems - tropical forests, savannas, lakes and rivers, and coral reefs.
The authors found that although the tropics cover just 40% of the planet, they are home to more than three-quarters of all species including almost all shallow-water corals and more than 90% of the world's bird species. Most of these species are found nowhere else, and millions more are as yet unknown to science.
"At the current rate of species description - about 20,000 new species per year - it can be estimated that at least 300 years will be necessary to catalogue biodiversity," said Dr. Benoit Guénard, Assistant Professor of the University of Hong Kong and an author of the study.
And across tropical ecosystems, many species face the 'double jeopardy' of being harmed by both local human pressures - such as overfishing or selective logging - and droughts or heatwaves linked to climate change.
