Using thermal performance data to improve forecasts of extinction risk and global diversity under climate change

Climate change threatens global biodiversity. However, the tools to forecast extinction risk for populations of species are limited. These tools are unequipped to consider the necessary evolutionary, organismal and ecological factors that determine thermal performance—a species’ response to changing temperatures. Using thermal performance to yield viable estimates of extinction risk for a population or species requires linking ideas in organismal biology to those in population ecology, and then grounding those inferences using an appropriate evolutionary framework. These topics typically represent separate disciplines within the field of ecology and evolutionary biology. This project team will host a symposium and working group to identify and evaluate the tools and assumptions needed to improve our understanding of the impact of temperature change when estimating extinction risk.