NEWS AND VIEWS
26 November 2025 Land-use changes threaten the safety net for birds Alterations in land use are found to leave bird communities with fewer backup species for key ecological roles, making ecosystems vulnerable to further species loss. By Carlos P. Carmona ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6935-4913 0 Carlos P. Carmona Carlos P. Carmona is at Misión Biológica de Galicia, Spanish National Research Council (MBG-CSIC), Pontevedra 36143, Spain, and at the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu 50409, Estonia. View author publications PubMed Google Scholar
Human-related changes in land use influence the prevalence of bird species, and animals with certain traits — such as particular body sizes, beak shapes or diets — are more likely to die out than others are. This process removes ecological roles and erodes the ‘insurance’ that enables such roles to continue after certain species disappear. Writing in Nature, Weeks et al.1 report their analysis of groups of bird species living together in one place (known as assemblages), including those in intact forests, croplands and cities around the world.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03594-4
References Weeks, T. L. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09788-0 (2025). Pigot, A. L. et al. Nature Ecol. Evol. 4, 230–239 (2020). Ausprey, I. J., Newell, F. L. & Robinson, S. K. J. Anim. Ecol. 91, 2314–2328 (2022). Neate-Clegg, M. H. C. et al. Curr. Biol. 33, 1677–1688 (2023). Tobias, J. A. et al. Ecol. Lett. 25, 581–597 (2022). Carmona, C. P. et al. Sci. Adv. 7, eabf2675 (2021). Galland, T. et al. Ecol. Indic. 116, 106488 (2020). Lovell, R. S. L., Collins, S., Martin, S. H., Pigot, A. L. & Phillimore, A. B. Biol. Rev. 98, 2243–2270 (2023). de Bello, F. et al. Handbook of Trait-Based Ecology: From Theory to R Tools (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021). Neyret, M. et al. Nature Commun. 15, 1251 (2024). Download references
Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests. C.P.C. used ChatGPT to help prepare this News & Views article.
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