Data from: Global trends in drought impacts on wildlife: A review
Data files
Mar 04, 2026 version files 56.57 KB
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README.md
2.15 KB
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Review_Data.csv
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Abstract
We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles from 1982-2024, focusing on the impacts of anomalous drought on terrestrial vertebrates. We recorded 3,324 total wildlife responses, 188 from single-species studies and 3,136 from multi-species studies. Within single-species studies, 66% of responses were negative, 32% were unclear, and 2% were positive, illustrating the widespread threat of increasing drought to global wildlife. Within multi-species studies, 24% of responses were negative, and 5% were positive. Notably, 71% of responses within multi-species papers were categorized as ‘unclear’, highlighting the need for additional investigation and the complexity of synthesizing a diverse literature. Drought impacts are not evenly tested across taxa, with birds being the most frequently studied (51% of documented responses), followed by mammals (28%), amphibians (16%), and reptiles (5%). Geographically, studies tended to occur most often where recent increases in anomalous drought have been observed (e.g., the Southwestern United States, South Africa, and Southeastern Australia). The sophistication of how drought is measured has increased over time, whereby studies increasingly defined drought as an anomalous event in comparison to a long-term average through the use of drought indices, rather than as a short-term weather event. However, we did not see consistency in indices used across the literature, which has the potential to present challenges for interpretation and synthesis. This review summarizes the predominantly negative impacts of drought on terrestrial vertebrates and the growing challenge of conserving wildlife in a changing world, while also highlighting gaps in our understanding of drought-wildlife relationships that can guide future research.
This dataset contains data collected from our literature review. Search methods can be found in the publication connected to this data, Global Trends in Drought Impacts on Wildlife - a Review, published in Global Change Biology, February 2026. Each column represents data extracted from each paper included in our review.
The latitude and longitude are derived from study areas described in previously published literature, and refer to general areas (e.g., Kruger National Park, Kalahari Desert, Warrembungle Mountains). They do not indicate precise locations of endangered, vulnerable, or threatened species.
This dataset contains the following columns:
- Title: The title of the article included in our review.
- Does it concern ANOMALOUS drought: Describes whether the article describes anomalous drought, excluding instances of seasonal drought or drought not compared to a long-term average.
- Is Drought Quantified: Describes whether or not the authors quantified drought.
- Is Drought Quantified as anomalous: Drought was considered “quantified anomalous” when empirically compared to long-term conditions of a period ≥30 years. If drought was not quantified, nothing was entered in this column.
- Quantification metric: Describes the metric used to quantify drought (e.g., precipitation, SPEI, PDSI). If drought was not quantified, nothing was entered in this column.
- Continent: The continent the study took place on.
- Lat: Latitude of the study location.
- Long: Longitude of the study location
- Taxa: The taxonomic group studied in the article.
- Total Species: The total number of species studied.
- Positive: The number of species that had a positive response to drought.
- Negative: The number of species that had a negative response to drought.
- Unclear: Any result where the impact of drought did not clearly influence a species vital rate.
- Type of Study: Describes whether the study was observational, experimental, or other.
There are a total of 288 rows and 14 columns in this dataset. There are 278 unique titles in this dataset.