Authors: Cristiano, Andrea; Suggitt, Andrew;Jeffries, Michael;

Anthropogenic global change is the most prominent threat for the conservation of biodiversity, and species’ responses to its components are mediated by ecological and life history traits. Land use change is currently the main driver of habitat destruction and fragmentation, while climate change is already having a pervasive effect on most of the world’s biodiversity. When acting in concert, these drivers can interact to enhance the rates of biodiversity change, but past studies have tended to report that these interactions are relatively scarce and contextually restricted. Using datasets of validated occurrence records, we created occupancy maps for 49 terrestrial mammal species in Great Britain at 1-km scale resolution between 1960 and 2017. We grouped occurrences into two time periods and estimated extirpation and colonization rates, determining the extent to which distribution changes were a combined function of species’ traits, land use change, climate change, or interaction between these latter two drivers. Preliminary analyses revealed that responses were often trait-dependent, with specialist species more likely to be sensitive to environmental alterations. A fuller understanding of the drivers of range shifting will improve our ability to more precisely attribute change and help prioritize efforts for the conservation of exposed species and habitats.