Conservationists predict massive extinctions as a result of habitat loss. Habitat loss undoubtedly does drive extinctions, but dealing with an unmet assumption that underlies these predictions yields much lower estimates.

Many studies suggest that global warming is driving species ranges poleward and toward higher elevations at temperate latitudes, but evidence for range shifts is scarce for the tropics, where the shallow latitudinal temperature gradient makes upslope shifts more likely than poleward shifts.