Nick A. Littlewood

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify seven key challenges in drawing robust inference about insect population declines: establishment of the historical baseline, representativeness of site selection, robustness of time series trend estimation, mitigation of detection bias effects, and ability to account for potential artefacts of density dependence, phenological shifts and scale-dependence in extrapolation from sample abundance to population level inference.

TL;DR: A new database of more than 1.6 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 is described and assessed.

TL;DR: The PREDICTS project as discussed by the authors provides 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.

TL;DR: Assessment of the potential ecological impact of Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus (ash dieback) on Fraxinus excelsior in the UK highlights wide-ranging ecological implications of ash dieback of relevance to other invasive pests and pathogens that are threatening the integrity of other tree species and woodland ecosystems.

TL;DR: The ECN is effective in detecting trends in a range of different variables at contrasting sites and improving the ability to attribute causes of change, which is essential to developing conservation policy and management in the 21st century.