Wildfire risk for species under climate change
Xiaoye Yang · Mark C. Urban · Bo Su · Ziqian Zhong · Chao Wu · Deliang Chen
期刊Nature Climate Change / Nat. Clim. Chang.
类型Article
发表2026-04-06 (online)
卷期页16(5): 613-621
收录2026-10-09
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关键词wildfire riskclimate changefire frequencyfire intensitythreatened speciesbiodiversity lossspecies range sizeconservation concernconservation prioritizationShared Socioeconomic Pathways
标签—
Wildfires are emerging as a major driver of biodiversity loss, yet their long-term implications for species under climate change remain poorly quantified. Here we show that future wildfire exposure will substantially increase for 9,592 non-marine species identified as threatened by increased fire frequency and/or intensity. Under shared socioeconomic pathway 2-4.5, global burned area is projected to increase by 9.3%, with 83.9% of wildfire-vulnerable species exposed to higher risk and ~40% of South American species experiencing >50% increases. High-latitude regions exhibit the fastest intensification, with fire season duration more than doubling. Species with small ranges and elevated conservation concern—particularly in South America, Australia and South Asia—dominate the top 1% most affected taxa. In contrast, up to 41.8% of African species experience reduced exposure, revealing marked spatial asymmetry in future risk. Our results demonstrate that climate-driven shifts in wildfire exposure are highly uneven across regions and taxa, underscoring the need for targeted, region-specific conservation strategies.

@article{yang2026,
author = {Xiaoye Yang and Mark C. Urban and Bo Su and Ziqian Zhong and Chao Wu and Deliang Chen},
title = {Wildfire risk for species under climate change},
journal = {Nature Climate Change},
year = {2026},
volume = {16},
number = {5},
pages = {613-621},
doi = {10.1038/s41558-026-02600-5},
publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
}· END ·