LIFE is a new metric that's like a crystal ball for global biodiversity. A big challenge facing the world today is global consumption causing land cover changes like deforestation, which reduces habitat for wildlife and makes them more vulnerable to extinction. Now, picture a policymaker anywhere in the world using the new LIFE metric to see how changing a forest to a farm affects extinctions of local species. LIFE works the same way anywhere in the world, by using global data science to map extinction risks for over 29,000 terrestrial species, and helps connect how our actions impact wildlife globally.
We imagine city planners, agricultural leaders or supermarkets using LIFE to see how their policy or procurement decisions affect wildlife. LIFE (short for Land-cover change Impacts on Future Extinctions) stands out because it:
- Combines advanced computing with a persistence score approach for detailed, global extinction risk maps.
- Incorporates species identity and the cumulative, non-linear impacts of habitat loss.
- Is digitally scalable and provides specific data for over 29,000 terrestrial vertebrate species.
- Assesses the effects of converting natural habitats to agriculture and conversely restoring farmland to natural environments.
We've just released a pre-print paper this week onto Cambridge Open Engage, and full datasets will be available early next year under a liberal license. Please get in touch with us if you'd like to use LIFE in your own work, or have comments on our pre-print.