traits

New Zealand’s native forest bird species with high taxonomic levels of endemism (deep endemics) are more vulnerable to decline than species that arrived and speciated more recently. Here we use national-scale local occupancy data to show that three endemism-linked life-history traits account for greater vulnerability of deep-endemic species in the extant forest avifauna, but also that other, more subtle traits and mechanisms favour rather than hinder endemic persistence.