Legacy effects of European colonialism on hotspots of biocultural diversity threat

作者：Bernd Lenzner, Andreas Baumann, Sietze J. Norder, Franz Essl, Hannes A. Fellner · 发表于：People and Nature · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1002/pan3.70308 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：International Maritime Law Issues、Genetically Modified Organisms Research

Abstract Patterns of biological diversity have been shaped by cultural practices in the past, while in turn, cultures and languages have evolved in close interaction with local species and ecosystems. However, in the Anthropocene, human activities are putting increasingly diverse pressures on ecosystems and cultures, resulting in accelerating threat levels on both. Understanding where biological and cultural diversity is threatened globally, and how far current and historical anthropogenic drivers such as colonialism shape their distribution is crucial for pinpointing hotspots and prioritizing efforts to counter these threats. We use global data on biological diversity (using amphibians, birds, mammals and reptile diversity as a proxy) and linguistic diversity (using as a proxy for cultural diversity) to estimate their current threat levels using the Red List Index framework. Using this data, we identify hotspots and coldspots of threat to both biological and linguistic diversity as well as a combined threat (here termed biocultural diversity threat). In a second step, we identify global drivers of biological, linguistic and biocultural diversity threat using beta‐regression models. We find that the spatial patterns of the erosion of biological diversity and linguistic diversity are only weakly congruent on a global scale and that they are driven by differential sets of mechanisms. These include the level of urbanization in the case of linguistic diversity threat and roughnes...