Scenarios of large mammal loss in Europe for the 21st century

Distributions and populations of large mammals are declining globally, leading to an increase intheir extinction risk. We forecasted the distribution of extant European large mammals (17 carnivores and10 ungulates) based on 2 Rio+20 scenarios of socioeconomic development: business as usual and reducedimpact through changes in human consumption of natural resources. These scenarios are linked to scenariosof land-use change and climate change through the spatial allocation of land conversion up to 2050. We useda hierarchical framework to forecast the extent and distribution of mammal habitat based on species’ habitatpreferences (as described in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List database) withina suitable climatic space fitted to the species’ current geographic range. We analyzed the geographic andtaxonomic variation of habitat loss for large mammals and the potential effect of the reduced impact policyon loss mitigation. Averaging across scenarios, European large mammals were predicted to lose 10% of theirhabitat by 2050 (25% in the worst-case scenario). Predicted loss was much higher for species in northwesternEurope, where habitat is expected to be lost due to climate and land-use change. Change in human consumptionpatterns was predicted to substantially improve the conservation of habitat for European large mammals,but not enough to reduce extinction risk if species cannot adapt locally to climate change or disperse.