Development of a global conservation strategy for mammals
The current rate of species extinction is 100-1000 times the basal extinction rate estimated from fossil records. Mammals,togetherwithbirds, receive the highest conservation attention,yet25%ofthespeciesinthisgrouparecurrentlythreatenedwithextinction. Therefore defining global conservation strategies for mammals is a necessary step to coordinate international conservation efforts. As partner of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Sapienza University coordinates the Global Mammal Assessment program. Underthisprogramweperiodicallyupdatetheinformationonconservationstatusformammalsandintegratethemwithseveralexternaldatasourcestohaveaglobalpictureoftheecology,life historyandextinction risk ofthe ca.5400extantmammalspecies. Our research projects follow several main directions, all of them being a spin-off of our mainstream conservation assessment program: (i) species distribution modelling, (ii) extinction risk minimization, (iii) species' threat status change, (iv) scenarios of future biodiversity loss, (v) macroecological patterns in conservation, (vi) global indicators of past and present trends of biodiversity, (vii) scaling up equitable species' conservation targets. We will present an overview of our research projects and collaborations, giving a summary of our main findings and an insight on our on-going analysis.