title: Parasite vulnerability to climate change: an evidence-based functional trait approach.
abstract: Despite the number of virulent pathogens that are projected to benefit from global change and to spread in the next century, we suggest that a combination of coextinction risk and climate sensitivity could make parasites at least as extinction prone as any other trophic group. However, the existing interdisciplinary toolbox for identifying species threatened by climate change is inadequate or inappropriate when considering parasites as conservation targets. A functional trait approach can be used to connect parasites' ecological role to their risk of disappearance, but this is complicated by the taxonomic and functional diversity of many parasite clades. Here, we propose biological traits that may render parasite species particularly vulnerable to extinction (including high host specificity, complex life cycles and narrow climatic tolerance), and identify critical gaps in our knowledge of parasite biology and ecology. By doing so, we provide criteria to identify vulnerable parasite species and triage parasite conservation efforts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science , Policy , and Management , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Carrie A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Cizauskas
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science , Policy , and Management , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Colin J
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6960-8434
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Kevin R
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8375-2501
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Burgio
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies , The University of Zurich , Zurich , Switzerland.
authors.forename: Chris F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Clements
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Science , Policy , and Management , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA.
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Dougherty
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA.
authors.forename: Nyeema C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Department of Invertebrate Zoology , Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History , Washington , DC , USA.
authors.forename: Anna J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Phillips
keywords: biodiversity; climate change; conservation; disease ecology; host–parasite interactions; parasite extinction