DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1c59zw3vj
title: The potential impacts of climate change on mammal functional groups at regional scale: the case of Iranian terrestrial mammals

description: The negative impacts of climate change on mammals have been largely based
 on assessments of total species assemblages or individual species at broad
 scales. Here, we evaluate how the predicted magnitude and velocity of
 climate change in the arid region of southwest Asia might affect regional
 functional groups of terrestrial mammals. Location: Iran We gathered data
 from 186 species to map diversity hotspots of 12 functional groups,
 threatened species richness, and total species richness. We mapped areas
 with high risk of exposure to extreme drying and warming events and
 calculated the velocity of climate change by using precipitation and
 temperature data from current and future periods. We then quantified the
 exposure of these hotspots to extreme changes in magnitude and velocity.
 Hotspots of functional groups, threatened species, and species richness
 were most exposed to precipitation decline in current and future scenarios
 (average of 17.9% and 29.9% respectively), compared to temperature rise.
 While most hotspots are found in mountains, hotspots located in lowlands
 were more exposed to extreme drying; particularly for carnivore, desert
 and large-bodied functional groups, as well as threatened species. These
 patterns remained intact when we considered only hotspots covered by
 existing protected areas. The impacts of velocity also varied
 significantly among functional groups, with highest levels for carnivore,
 large-bodied and specialist groups and threatened species. We show that
 climate change does not equally impact all species within a community and
 that vulnerability to these changes differed between functional groups. We
 found that the areas with the highest risk of exposure to extreme climates
 are located in lowlands and not in mountains. We found that extreme
 drying, rather than warming, is the major threat to regional mammal
 diversity in this arid region, particularly for large-bodied and
 threatened species.
description: We used distribution data of Iran terrestrial mammalian species
 from Yusefi et al. (2019). Please see this article for details of data
 collection: Yusefi, G. H., Faizolahi, K., Darvish, J.,
 Safi, K., & Brito, J. C. (2019). The species diversity,
 distribution and conservation status of the terrestrial mammals of Iran.
 Journal of Mammalogy, 100, 55-71.
 https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyz002 Please cite the
 reference in above (Yusefi et al. 2019) in case of using the database
 only.
description: Raw data belonging to: Yusefi GH, Safi K, Tarroso P, Brito JC.
 (2021) The potential impacts of climate change on mammal functional groups
 at regional scale: the case of Iranian terrestrial mammals. Divesit
 & Distri The large part of the data does not
 contain any sensitive information, compromises ethical standards or legal
 requirements, except few species that are endangered and threatened by
 poaching. Even though, species or records for which coordinates provided
 in this database are at the scale of 0.5 degrees. Few species (n=12) that
 are highly endangered and threatened by poaching (those classified as CR
 and EN) are include "rare, endangered or commercially valuable
 taxa" which are classified as distinctive species of high biological
 significance is under high threat from exploitation/disease or other
 identifiable threat where even general locality information may threaten
 the taxon. Therefore, no record for these species are provided.