Human activities, especially conversion and degradation of habitats, are causing global biodiversity declines. How local ecological assemblages are responding is less clear--a concern given their importance for many ecosystem functions and services. We analysed a terrestrial assemblage database of unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage to quantify local biodiversity responses to land use and related changes. Here we show that in the worst-affected habitats, these pressures reduce within-sample species richness by an average of 76.5%, total abundance by 39.5% and rarefaction-based richness by 40.3%. We estimate that, globally, these pressures have already slightly reduced average within-sample richness (by 13.6%), total abundance (10.7%) and rarefaction-based richness (8.1%), with changes showing marked spatial variation. Rapid further losses are predicted under a business-as-usual land-use scenario; within-sample richness is projected to fall by a further 3.4% globally by 2100, with losses concentrated in biodiverse but economically poor countries. Strong mitigation can deliver much more positive biodiversity changes (up to a 1.9% average increase) that are less strongly related to countries' socioeconomic status.

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Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity

Land use and related pressures have reduced local terrestrial biodiversity, but it is unclear how the magnitude of change relates to the recently proposed planetary boundary (“safe limit”). We estimate that land use and related pressures have already reduced local biodiversity intactness—the average proportion of natural biodiversity remaining in local ecosystems—beyond its recently proposed planetary boundary across 58.1% of the world’s land surface, where 71.4% of the human population live. Biodiversity intactness within most biomes (especially grassland biomes), most biodiversity hotspots, and even some wilderness areas is inferred to be beyond the boundary. Such widespread transgression of safe limits suggests that biodiversity loss, if unchecked, will undermine efforts toward long-term sustainable development.

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Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment

Relatorio de Unidade Curricular, apresentado para Provas de Agregacao em Biologia, na especialidade de Ecologia, da Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra

Biologia da Conservação

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines We describe and assess a new database of more than 16 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – wwwpredictsorguk) We make site-level summary data available alongside this article The full database will be publicly available in 2015

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The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.

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The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project

O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar riqueza, abundância, diversidade e equitabilidade das especies de Scarabaeinae em dois ambientes no Refugio Ecologico Charles Darwin (RECD), Pernambuco. As coletas foram realizadas com armadilha de interceptacao de voo entre os meses de Abril e Junho de 2007, totalizando seis coletas. Foram capturados 4576 escarabeineos, pertencentes a 35 especies, 15 generos e seis tribos. Sete novos registros de especies foram feitos para Pernambuco, passando de 26 para 33 especies. As tribos registradas foram Canthonini, Ateuchini, Coprini, Phanaeini, Eurystenini e Onthophagini. Os generos melhor representados foram: Dichotomius com 84,6% dos besouros coletados, seguido por Canthidium com 7,62% e Canthon com 2,48%. A especie Dichotomius aff.sericeus foi a mais abundante com 3889 individuos. Em todo o estudo foram verificadas 17 especies para a area aberta, sendo 11 restritas a esse ambiente, enquanto para mata foram registradas 24, sendo 18 especies restritas. Grande parte dos individuos capturados na mata foi da especie D. aff.sericeus, enquanto no ambiente aberto nenhum individuo desta especie foi coletado. Os estimadores indicaram uma estimativa maxima de riqueza de 21 especies para o ambiente aberto e 32 especies para o ambiente de mata. A curva de acumulacao de especies baseada em valores de riqueza observada media para os dois ambientes do RECD, nao apresentou tendencia a assintota.

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbent/v53n1/21.pdf

Diversidade de Scarabaeinae (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) coletados com armadilha de interceptação de vôo no Refúgio Ecológico Charles Darwin, Igarassu-PE, Brasil

The aim of this study was to compare the dung beetle (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) community structure at two sites in the Charles Darwin Ecological Refuge in Igarassu, Pernambuco, Brazil. Dung beetles were collected in 2006 using monthly samples from 48 pitfall traps baited with human dung and bovine carrion. The dung beetle communities from the study sites were compared in terms of abundance, species richness, and diversity (Shannon index). Seasonality was analyzed by Spearman correlation between rainfall data and community parameters. In total, 2,560 individuals belonging to 40 species, 16 genera, and 6 tribes were collected. Species richness was higher for the clear-cut area compared with the forest habitat. Estimators of species richness suggested a total richness of 42–47 species in the entire study area. A positive correlation was observed between monthly rainfall and total abundance of individuals for the clear-cut area but not for the forest habitat. This study contributes to a better understanding of Scarabaeinae ecology in the Atlantic rainforest of northeastern Brazil.

Study of the dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) community at two sites: Atlantic forest and clear-cut, Pernambuco, Brazil.

Restinga (forest formations on sandy substrates on the Brazil Atlantic coast) have declined from covering approximately 80 % of the coastline and continue to do so due to anthropogenic activity. This study compares the abundance, richness and species composition of conserved (CR) and degraded (DR) resting forest. We used six locations on the coast of Pernambuco, Brazil where there were paired CR and DR sites and used baited pitfall traps to sample dung beetles in the dry and wet seasons. We captured 1,724 individuals, which belonged to 25 species and 10 genera; 1,030 individuals (15 species) were from CR and 694 individuals (17 species) from DR. No significant differences was observed in the patterns of species richness or abundance between CR and DR sites but non-metric multidimensional scaling and similarity analyses revealed differences in species composition between CR and DR sites. Additionally DR sites had a higher beta diversity than CR sites. We found only seven of the 25 species identified in this study in both areas, indicating that few species from the original ecosystem remain in degraded sites. In addition, the forest species that were recorded in Degraded sites, such as Canthon nigripenne and Dichotomius
 schiffleri, had low abundance when compared to conserved restinga. We suggest that parts of the CR become areas under legal protection, in order to maintain the biodiversity of the remaining areas of restinga.

Cristiane Maria Queiroz da Costa

Papers

Diversidade de Scarabaeinae (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) coletados com armadilha de interceptação de vôo no Refúgio Ecológico Charles Darwin, Igarassu-PE, Brasil

Study of the dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) community at two sites: Atlantic forest and clear-cut, Pernambuco, Brazil.

Changes in the dung beetle community in response to restinga forest degradation

Synergistic effects of climate and human-induced landscape changes on the spatial distribution of an endangered dung beetle

Synergistic effects of climate and human-induced landscape changes on the spatial distribution of an endangered dung beetle