Relative importance of traits, climate, and threats to extinction risk in salamanders

A global comparative analysis of 711 salamander species disentangling how species traits, climate, and human threats drive extinction risk and population decline. Identifies Cryptobranchidae and Hynobiidae as the highest-risk families, names small geographic range size, terrestrial breeding, high elevation, human threat intensity, low protected area coverage, and climatic stress as the strongest predictors of extinction risk, and predicts 22 high-risk Data Deficient species warranting reassessment. Provides actionable conservation priorities at family, species, and habitat scales.