Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity.
Andrew Gonzalez,Bradley J. Cardinale,Ginger R.H. Allington,Jarrett E. K. Byrnes,K. Arthur Endsley,Daniel G. Brown,David U. Hooper,Forest Isbell,Mary I. O'Connor,Michel Loreau +9 more
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TLDR
Reanalyses of the data detected a signal of study duration on biodiversity change, indicating net biodiversity loss is most apparent in studies of longer duration and estimates of species richness change can be biased if species gains during post-disturbance recovery are included without also including species losses that occurred during the disturbance.Abstract:
Global species extinction rates are orders of magnitude above the background rate documented in the fossil record. However, recent data syntheses have found mixed evidence for patterns of net species loss at local spatial scales. For example, two recent data meta-analyses have found that species richness is decreasing in some locations and is increasing in others. When these trends are combined, these papers argued there has been no net change in species richness, and suggested this pattern is globally representative of biodiversity change at local scales. Here we reanalyze results of these data syntheses and outline why this conclusion is unfounded. First, we show the datasets collated for these syntheses are spatially biased and not representative of the spatial distribution of species richness or the distribution of many primary drivers of biodiversity change. This casts doubt that their results are representative of global patterns. Second, we argue that detecting the trend in local species richness is very difficult with short time series and can lead to biased estimates of change. Reanalyses of the data detected a signal of study duration on biodiversity change, indicating net biodiversity loss is most apparent in studies of longer duration. Third, estimates of species richness change can be biased if species gains during post-disturbance recovery are included without also including species losses that occurred during the disturbance. Net species gains or losses should be assessed with respect to common baselines or reference communities. Ultimately, we need a globally coordinated effort to monitor biodiversity so that we can estimate and attribute human impacts as causes of biodiversity change. A combination of technologies will be needed to produce regularly updated global datasets of local biodiversity change to guide future policy. At this time the conclusion that there is no net change in local species richness is not the consensus state of knowledge.read more
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Linking the influence and dependence of people on biodiversity across scales
Forest Isbell,Andrew Gonzalez,M. Loreau,Jane Cowles,Sandra Díaz,Andy Hector,Georgina M. Mace,David A. Wardle,David A. Wardle,Mary I. O'Connor,J. Emmett Duffy,Lindsay A. Turnbull,Patrick L. Thompson,Anne Larigauderie +13 more
TL;DR: Biodiversity loss substantially diminishes several ecosystem services by altering ecosystem functioning and stability, especially at the large temporal and spatial scales that are most relevant for policy and conservation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Biodiversity change is uncoupled from species richness trends: Consequences for conservation and monitoring
Helmut Hillebrand,Bernd Blasius,Elizabeth T. Borer,Jonathan M. Chase,Jonathan M. Chase,John A. Downing,Britas Klemens Eriksson,Christopher T. Filstrup,W. Stanley Harpole,W. Stanley Harpole,Dorothee Hodapp,Stefano Larsen,Aleksandra M. Lewandowska,Eric W. Seabloom,Dedmer B. Van de Waal,Alexey B. Ryabov +15 more
TL;DR: It is shown how a set of species turnover indices provide more information content regarding temporal trends in biodiversity, as they reflect how dominance and identity shift in communities over time, and several limitations of species richness as a metric of biodiversity change are summarized.
Journal ArticleDOI
Meta-analysis of multidecadal biodiversity trends in Europe
Francesca Pilotto,Francesca Pilotto,Ingolf Kühn,Ingolf Kühn,Rita Adrian,Renate Alber,Audrey Alignier,Christopher Andrews,Jaana Bäck,Luc Barbaro,D. A. Beaumont,Natalie Beenaerts,Sue Benham,David S. Boukal,David S. Boukal,Vincent Bretagnolle,Elisa Camatti,Roberto Canullo,Patricia Cardoso,Bruno J. Ens,Gert Everaert,Vesela Evtimova,Heidrun Feuchtmayr,Ricardo García-González,Daniel Gómez García,Ulf Grandin,Jerzy M. Gutowski,Liat Hadar,Lubos Halada,Melinda Halassy,Herman Hummel,Kaisa-Leena Huttunen,Bogdan Jaroszewicz,Thomas C. Jensen,Henrik Kalivoda,Inger Kappel Schmidt,Ingrid Kröncke,Reima Leinonen,Filipe Martinho,Henning Meesenburg,Julia S. Meyer,Stefano Minerbi,Don Monteith,Boris P. Nikolov,Daniel Oro,Dāvis Ozoliņš,Bachisio Mario Padedda,D. Pallett,Marco Pansera,Miguel Ângelo Pardal,Bruno Petriccione,Tanja Pipan,Juha Pöyry,S. Schafer,Marcus Schaub,Susanne C. Schneider,Agnija Skuja,Karline Soetaert,Gunta Spriņģe,Radoslav Stanchev,Jenni A. Stockan,Stefan Stoll,Stefan Stoll,Lisa Sundqvist,Anne Thimonier,Gert Van Hoey,Gunther Van Ryckegem,Marcel E. Visser,Samuel Vorhauser,Peter Haase,Peter Haase +70 more
TL;DR: A quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe is reported, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa.
Journal ArticleDOI
The geography of biodiversity change in marine and terrestrial assemblages.
Shane A. Blowes,Sarah R. Supp,Laura H. Antão,Laura H. Antão,Laura H. Antão,Amanda E. Bates,Helge Bruelheide,Jonathan M. Chase,Faye Moyes,Anne E. Magurran,Brian J. McGill,Isla H. Myers-Smith,Marten Winter,Anne D. Bjorkman,Diana E. Bowler,Jarrett E. K. Byrnes,Andrew Gonzalez,Jes Hines,Forest Isbell,Holly P. Jones,Laetitia M. Navarro,Patrick L. Thompson,Mark Vellend,Conor Waldock,Maria Dornelas +24 more
TL;DR: Examining spatial variation in species richness and composition change using more than 50,000 biodiversity time series from 239 studies found clear geographic variation in biodiversity change, suggesting that biodiversity change may be spatially structured.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt.
David Moreno-Mateos,Edward B. Barbier,Peter C. Jones,Holly P. Jones,James Aronson,James Aronson,José A López-López,Michelle L. McCrackin,Paula Meli,Daniel Montoya,Daniel Montoya,José María Rey Benayas +11 more
TL;DR: Recovering and restored ecosystems have less abundance, diversity and cycling of carbon and nitrogen than ‘undisturbed' ecosystems, and that even if complete recovery is reached, an interim recovery debt will accumulate.
References
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Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity
Tim Newbold,Lawrence N. Hudson,Samantha L. L. Hill,Sara Contu,Igor Lysenko,Rebecca A. Senior,Luca Börger,Dominic J. Bennett,Argyrios Choimes,Ben Collen,Julie Day,Adriana De Palma,Sandra Díaz,Susy Echeverría-Londoño,Melanie J. Edgar,Anat Feldman,Morgan Garon,Michelle L K Harrison,Tamera I Alhusseini,Daniel J. Ingram,Yuval Itescu,Jens Kattge,Victoria Kemp,Lucinda Kirkpatrick,Michael Kleyer,David L P Correia,Callum D. Martin,Shai Meiri,Maria Novosolov,Yuan Pan,Helen Phillips,Drew W. Purves,Alexandra N Robinson,Jake Simpson,Sean L. Tuck,Evan Weiher,Hannah J. White,Robert M. Ewers,Georgina M. Mace,Jörn P. W. Scharlemann,Andy Purvis +40 more
TL;DR: A terrestrial assemblage database of unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage is analysed to quantify local biodiversity responses to land use and related changes and shows that in the worst-affected habitats, pressures reduce within-sample species richness by an average of 76.5%, total abundance by 39.5% and rarefaction-based richness by 40.3%.
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