ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6823-2826
Current Organisation
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Environment Policy | Environmental Science and Management | Environmental Management | Conservation and Biodiversity
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Remnant Vegetation and Protected Conservation Areas at Regional or Larger Scales | Mining Land and Water Management | Ecosystem Assessment and Management of Mining Environments |
Related Links
Publications
The effect of conservation interventions on the abundance of breeding waders within nature reserves in the United Kingdom
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-08-2022
DOI: 10.1111/IBI.13106
Abstract: Breeding populations of many wading birds have declined globally, primarily caused by habitat degradation and loss. In the UK, population declines have been particularly notable on lowland wet grasslands. In response, some areas of lowland wet grassland have been restored and are under ongoing management to improve the breeding conditions of target species. Here, we assess the efficacy of management measures using a Bayesian framework and controlling for confounding factors. We focus on four wader species, Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus , Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata , Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago and Common Redshank Tringa totanus , that breed in numbers on wet grassland reserve sites in the UK. We collated annual site‐specific climate variables, management information (e.g. the creation of wet features and predator control measures) and bird counts between 1994 and 2018. We found the effects of conservation actions varied between intervention types and species. For Lapwing and Redshank, excluding predators by predator‐exclusion fencing, especially in combination with fox control, was generally associated with higher breeding counts. For all study species, sites with longer histories of management were associated with higher breeding numbers, with the effect of site age being particularly notable for management on former arable land. Our findings support the effectiveness of targeted conservation actions to achieve high numbers of breeding waders on lowland wet grassland reserves, and also highlight the value of consistent and reliable monitoring data.
A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 10-10-2014
Abstract: In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 bio ersity-related “Aichi Targets” to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of in idual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the bio ersity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of bio ersity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress.
A counterfactual approach to measure the impact of wet grassland conservation on U.K. breeding bird populations
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2021
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.13692
Abstract: Wet grassland populations of wading birds in the United Kingdom have declined severely since 1990. To help mitigate these declines, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has restored and managed lowland wet grassland nature reserves to benefit these and other species. However, the impact of these reserves on bird population trends has not been evaluated experimentally due to a lack of control populations. We compared population trends from 1994 to 2018 among 5 bird species of conservation concern that breed on these nature reserves with counterfactual trends created from matched breeding bird survey observations. We compared reserve trends with 3 different counterfactuals based on different scenarios of how reserve populations could have developed in the absence of conservation. Effects of conservation interventions were positive for all 4 targeted wading bird species: Lapwing ( Vanellus vanellus ), Redshank ( Tringa totanus ), Curlew ( Numenius arquata ), and Snipe ( Gallinago gallinago ). There was no positive effect of conservation interventions on reserves for the passerine, Yellow Wagtail ( Motacilla flava ). Our approach using monitoring data to produce valid counterfactual controls is a broadly applicable method allowing large‐scale evaluation of conservation impact.
Global trends in biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 15-04-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.14.031716
Abstract: Despite the scientific consensus on the extinction crisis and its anthropogenic origin, the quantification of historical trends and of future scenarios of bio ersity and ecosystem services has been limited, due to the lack of inter-model comparisons and harmonized scenarios. Here, we present a multi-model analysis to assess the impacts of land-use and climate change from 1900 to 2050. During the 20th century provisioning services increased, but bio ersity and regulating services decreased. Similar trade-offs are projected for the coming decades, but they may be attenuated in a sustainability scenario. Future bio ersity loss from land-use change is projected to keep up with historical rates or reduce slightly, whereas losses due to climate change are projected to increase greatly. Renewed efforts are needed by governments to meet the 2050 vision of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Development pathways exist that allow for a reduction of the rates of bio ersity loss from land-use change and improvement in regulating services but climate change poses an increasing challenge.
Setting population targets for mammals using body mass as a predictor of population persistence
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-12-2016
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12846
Abstract: Conservation planning and bio ersity assessments need quantitative targets to optimize planning options and assess the adequacy of current species protection. However, targets aiming at persistence require population-specific data, which limit their use in favor of fixed and nonspecific targets, likely leading to unequal distribution of conservation efforts among species. We devised a method to derive equitable population targets that is, quantitative targets of population size that ensure equal probabilities of persistence across a set of species and that can be easily inferred from species-specific traits. In our method, we used models of population dynamics across a range of life-history traits related to species' body mass to estimate minimum viable population targets. We applied our method to a range of body masses of mammals, from 2 g to 3825 kg. The minimum viable population targets decreased asymptotically with increasing body mass and were on the same order of magnitude as minimum viable population estimates from species- and context-specific studies. Our approach provides a compromise between pragmatic, nonspecific population targets and detailed context-specific estimates of population viability for which only limited data are available. It enables a first estimation of species-specific population targets based on a readily available trait and thus allows setting equitable targets for population persistence in large-scale and multispecies conservation assessments and planning.
Biases of Odonata in Habitats Directive: Trends, trend drivers, and conservation status of European threatened Odonata
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-09-2020
DOI: 10.1111/ICAD.12450
Abstract: Dragonflies and damselflies, within the order of Odonata, are important ecological indicators with widely recognised conservation value. They are generally better researched and protected than other invertebrates, yet, they have received limited protection from the European Union (EU)'s Habitats Directive, which serves as the major legislative tool for species conservation in Europe. We reviewed the conservation status and trends, legal protection status, and knowledge gaps of Odonates within the EU. Among the 22 threatened and 27 endemic species in EU, respectively 19 and 11 of them are not protected by the Directive. Out of the 35 species which are threatened and/or listed on the Annexes, 61.5% of them are declining. Nevertheless, threatened non‐Annex species are more likely to have a decreasing population trend than Annex species. There are also 26% of threatened non‐Annex species with unknown trends. Inaccuracies in evaluating Odonata trends are also revealed due to the lack of standardised methodology and incomplete surveys. Moreover, most conservation research focuses on climate change's effects on range shift, therefore knowledge gaps exist in understating how water and habitat qualities, the most important Odonate trend drivers, shape Odonata conservation status. There is an urgent need to revise the legal protection status of Odonata in Europe, for instance by revising the EU Habitats Directive Annexes to include threatened damselflies and dragonflies. There is also an urgent need for systematic, standardised, and regular survey to be able to investigate trends and drivers of change to identify priority conservation actions.
Climate change vulnerability assessment of species
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-10-2018
DOI: 10.1002/WCC.551
Abstract: Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe key concepts, terms, steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait‐based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide ex les of open‐access resources. Because rare, small‐range, and declining‐range species are often of particular conservation concern while also posing significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable. This article is categorized under: Climate, Ecology, and Conservation Extinction Risk
Author Correction: Areas of global importance for conserving terrestrial biodiversity, carbon and water
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-09-2021
Integrating climate change vulnerability assessments from species distribution models and trait-based approaches
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2015
A Retrospective Evaluation of the Global Decline of Carnivores and Ungulates
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-02-2014
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12249
Abstract: Assessing temporal changes in species extinction risk is necessary for measuring conservation success or failure and for directing conservation resources toward species or regions that would benefit most. Yet, there is no long-term picture of genuine change that allows one to associate species extinction risk trends with drivers of change or conservation actions. Through a review of 40 years of IUCN-related literature sources on species conservation status (e.g., action plans, red-data books), we assigned retrospective red-list categories to the world's carnivores and ungulates (2 groups with relatively long generation times) to examine how their extinction risk has changed since the 1970s. We then aggregated species' categories to calculate a global trend in their extinction risk over time. A decline in the conservation status of carnivores and ungulates was underway 40 years ago and has since accelerated. One quarter of all species (n = 498) moved one or more categories closer to extinction globally, while almost half of the species moved closer to extinction in Southeast Asia. The conservation status of some species improved (toward less threatened categories), but for each species that improved in status 8 deteriorated. The status of large-bodied species, particularly those above 100 kg (including many iconic taxa), deteriorated significantly more than small-bodied species (below 10 kg). The trends we found are likely related to geopolitical events (such as the collapse of Soviet Union), international regulations (such as CITES), shifting cultural values, and natural resource exploitation (e.g., in Southeast Asia). Retrospective assessments of global species extinction risk reduce the risk of a shifting baseline syndrome, which can affect decisions on the desirable conservation status of species. Such assessments can help conservationists identify which conservation policies and strategies are or are not helping safeguard bio ersity and thus can improve future strategies.
A framework for the identification of hotspots of climate change risk for mammals
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-11-2017
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.13942
Abstract: As rates of global warming increase rapidly, identifying species at risk of decline due to climate impacts and the factors affecting this risk have become key challenges in ecology and conservation biology. Here, we present a framework for assessing three components of climate‐related risk for species: vulnerability, exposure and hazard. We used the relationship between the observed response of species to climate change and a set of intrinsic traits (e.g. weaning age) and extrinsic factors (e.g. precipitation seasonality within a species geographic range) to predict, respectively, the vulnerability and exposure of all data‐sufficient terrestrial non‐volant mammals (3,953 species). Combining this information with hazard (the magnitude of projected climate change within a species geographic range), we identified global hotspots of species at risk from climate change that includes the western Amazon basin, south‐western Kenya, north‐eastern Tanzania, north‐eastern South Africa, Yunnan province in China, and mountain chains in Papua‐New Guinea. Our framework identifies priority areas for monitoring climate change effects on species and directing climate mitigation actions for bio ersity.
How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 12-02-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.11.943902
Abstract: Aichi Target 12 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to ‘prevent extinctions of known threatened species’. To measure its success, we used a Delphi expert elicitation method to estimate the number of bird and mammal species whose extinctions were prevented by conservation action in 1993 - 2020 (the lifetime of the CBD) and 2010 - 2020 (the timing of Aichi Target 12). We found that conservation prevented 21–32 bird and 7–16 mammal extinctions since 1993, and 9–18 bird and 2–7 mammal extinctions since 2010. Many remain highly threatened, and may still become extinct in the near future. Nonetheless, given that ten bird and five mammal species did go extinct (or are strongly suspected to) since 1993, extinction rates would have been 2.9–4.2 times greater without conservation action. While policy commitments have fostered significant conservation achievements, future bio ersity action needs to be scaled up to avert additional extinctions.
Update or Outdate: Long‐Term Viability of the IUCN Red List
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-06-2013
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12040
Putting species back on the map: devising a robust method for quantifying the biodiversity impacts of land conversion
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 18-10-2018
DOI: 10.1101/447466
Abstract: Quantifying connections between the global drivers of habitat loss and bio ersity impact is vital for decision-makers promoting responsible land-use. To that end, bio ersity impact metrics should be able to report linked trends in specific anthropogenic activities and changes in bio ersity state. However, for bio ersity, it is challenging to deliver integrated information on its multiple dimensions (i.e. species richness, endemicity) and keep it practical. Here, we developed a bio ersity footprint indicator that can i) capture the status of different species groups, ii) link bio ersity impact to specific human activities, and iii) be adapted to the most applicable scale for the decision context. Cerrado Biome, Brazil We illustrate this globally-applicable approach for the case of soybean expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado. Using species-specific habitat suitability models, we assessed the impact of soy expansion and other land uses over 2,000 species of hibians, birds, mammals and plants for three time periods between 2000 and 2014. Overall, plants suffered the greatest reduction of suitable habitat. However, among endemic and near-endemic species – which face greatest risk of global extinction from habitat conversion in the Cerrado - birds were the most affected group. While planted pastures and cropland expansion were together responsible for most of the absolute bio ersity footprint, soy expansion via direct conversion of natural vegetation had the greatest impact per unit area. The total bio ersity footprint over the period was concentrated in the southern states of Minas Geráis, Goiás and Mato Grosso, but the soy footprint was proportionally higher in those northern states (such as Bahía and Piauí) which belong to the new agricultural frontier. The ability and flexibility of our approach to examine linkages between bio ersity loss and specific human activities has substantial potential to better characterise the pathways by which habitat loss drivers operate.
Areas of global importance for terrestrial biodiversity, carbon, and water
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 16-04-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.16.021444
Abstract: To meet the ambitious objectives of bio ersity and climate conventions, countries and the international community require clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially, and multiple targets be pursued concurrently 1 . To support governments and political conventions, spatial guidance is needed to identify which areas should be managed for conservation to generate the greatest synergies between bio ersity and nature’s contribution to people (NCP). Here we present results from a joint optimization that maximizes improvements in species conservation status, carbon retention and water provisioning and rank terrestrial conservation priorities globally. We found that, selecting the top-ranked 30% (respectively 50%) of areas would conserve 62.4% (86.8%) of the estimated total carbon stock and 67.8% (90.7%) of all clean water provisioning, in addition to improving the conservation status for 69.7% (83.8%) of all species considered. If priority was given to bio ersity only, managing 30% of optimally located land area for conservation may be sufficient to improve the conservation status of 86.3% of plant and vertebrate species on Earth. Our results provide a global baseline on where land could be managed for conservation. We discuss how such a spatial prioritisation framework can support the implementation of the bio ersity and climate conventions.
How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-09-2020
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12762
Detecting ecological thresholds for biodiversity in tropical forests: Knowledge gaps and future directions
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-07-2021
DOI: 10.1111/BTP.12999
Abstract: Protecting tropical forests and their biological ersity is a global priority. Understanding if thresholds of forest cover exist beyond which bio ersity displays non‐linear declines is key to developing appropriate conservation strategies and policies, but uncertainty remains around the identification and characteristics of these thresholds. We performed a global systematic review of studies using forest cover gradient to identify an ecological threshold across tropical forest ecosystems. Our systematic review finds 68 ecological thresholds reported in 33 peer‐reviewed publications. Three main conclusions emerged: first, we show clear geographical gaps in ecological thresholds studies, with 72% of reported thresholds found in South America, over half in Brazil second, we see ecological threshold studies follow taxonomic biases in line with wider conservation research and third, there is a lack of homogeneity and comparability in the metrics and s ling designs used to identify a threshold. This global review shows interest in ecological thresholds continues to grow, but further evidence is needed to understand their application in tropical forest management. We identify the main gaps in knowledge and provide guidance to focus research efforts on six key aspects to better understand their potential as a policy‐making tool for tropical forest conservation. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.
Bridging the research-implementation gap in IUCN Red List assessments
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2021.12.002
Abstract: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is central in bio ersity conservation, but insufficient resources h er its long-term growth, updating, and consistency. Models or automated calculations can alleviate those challenges by providing standardised estimates required for assessments, or prioritising species for (re-)assessments. However, while numerous scientific papers have proposed such methods, few have been integrated into assessment practice, highlighting a critical research-implementation gap. We believe this gap can be bridged by fostering communication and collaboration between academic researchers and Red List practitioners, and by developing and maintaining user-friendly platforms to automate application of the methods. We propose that developing methods better encompassing Red List criteria, systems, and drivers is the next priority to support the Red List.
Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-11-2019
Contrasting changes in the abundance and diversity of North American bird assemblages from 1971 to 2010
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-05-2016
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.13292
Abstract: Although it is generally recognized that global bio ersity is declining, few studies have examined long-term changes in multiple bio ersity dimensions simultaneously. In this study, we quantified and compared temporal changes in the abundance, taxonomic ersity, functional ersity, and phylogenetic ersity of bird assemblages, using roadside monitoring data of the North American Breeding Bird Survey from 1971 to 2010. We calculated 12 abundance and ersity metrics based on 5-year average abundances of 519 species for each of 768 monitoring routes. We did this for all bird species together as well as for four subgroups based on breeding habitat affinity (grassland, woodland, wetland, and shrubland breeders). The majority of the bio ersity metrics increased or remained constant over the study period, whereas the overall abundance of birds showed a pronounced decrease, primarily driven by declines of the most abundant species. These results highlight how stable or even increasing metrics of taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic ersity may occur in parallel with substantial losses of in iduals. We further found that patterns of change differed among the species subgroups, with both abundance and ersity increasing for woodland birds and decreasing for grassland breeders. The contrasting changes between abundance and ersity and among the breeding habitat groups underscore the relevance of a multifaceted approach to measuring bio ersity change. Our findings further stress the importance of monitoring the overall abundance of in iduals in addition to metrics of taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic ersity, thus confirming the importance of population abundance as an essential bio ersity variable.
Reconciling global mammal prioritization schemes into a strategy
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-09-2011
Abstract: The huge conservation interest that mammals attract and the large datasets that have been collected on them have propelled a ersity of global mammal prioritization schemes, but no comprehensive global mammal conservation strategy. We highlight some of the potential discrepancies between the schemes presented in this theme issue, including: conservation of species or areas, reactive and proactive conservation approaches, conservation knowledge and action, levels of aggregation of indicators of trend and scale issues. We propose that recently collected global mammal data and many of the mammal prioritization schemes now available could be incorporated into a comprehensive global strategy for the conservation of mammals. The task of developing such a strategy should be coordinated by a super-partes , authoritative institution (e.g. the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN). The strategy would facilitate funding agencies, conservation organizations and national institutions to rapidly identify a number of short-term and long-term global conservation priorities, and act complementarily to achieve them.
Effects of errors and gaps in spatial data sets on assessment of conservation progress
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-07-2013
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12095
Abstract: Data on the location and extent of protected areas, ecosystems, and species' distributions are essential for determining gaps in bio ersity protection and identifying future conservation priorities. However, these data sets always come with errors in the maps and associated metadata. Errors are often overlooked in conservation studies, despite their potential negative effects on the reported extent of protection of species and ecosystems. We used 3 case studies to illustrate the implications of 3 sources of errors in reporting progress toward conservation objectives: protected areas with unknown boundaries that are replaced by buffered centroids, propagation of multiple errors in spatial data, and incomplete protected-area data sets. As of 2010, the frequency of protected areas with unknown boundaries in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) caused the estimated extent of protection of 37.1% of the terrestrial Neotropical mammals to be overestimated by an average 402.8% and of 62.6% of species to be underestimated by an average 10.9%. Estimated level of protection of the world's coral reefs was 25% higher when using recent finer-resolution data on coral reefs as opposed to globally available coarse-resolution data. Accounting for additional data sets not yet incorporated into WDPA contributed up to 6.7% of additional protection to marine ecosystems in the Philippines. We suggest ways for data providers to reduce the errors in spatial and ancillary data and ways for data users to mitigate the effects of these errors on bio ersity assessments.
Governance factors in the identification of global conservation priorities for mammals
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-09-2011
Abstract: Global conservation priorities have often been identified based on the combination of species richness and threat information. With the development of the field of systematic conservation planning, more attention has been given to conservation costs. This leads to prioritizing developing countries, where costs are generally low and bio ersity is high. But many of these countries have poor governance, which may result in ineffective conservation or in larger costs than initially expected. We explore how the consideration of governance affects the selection of global conservation priorities for the world's mammals in a complementarity-based conservation prioritization. We use data on Control of Corruption (Worldwide Governance Indicators project) as an indicator of governance effectiveness, and gross domestic product per capita as an indicator of cost. We show that, while core areas with high levels of endemism are always selected as important regardless of governance and cost values, there are clear regional differences in selected sites when bio ersity, cost or governance are taken into account separately. Overall, the analysis supports the concentration of conservation efforts in most of the regions generally considered of high priority, but stresses the need for different conservation approaches in different continents owing to spatial patterns of governance and economic development.
Author Correction: Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century (Nature, (2020), 586, 7828, (217-227), 10.1038/s41586-020-2773-z)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-11-2020
Conservation planning with dynamic threats: The role of spatial design and priority setting for species’ persistence
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2010
Global habitat suitability models of terrestrial mammals
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-09-2011
Abstract: Detailed large-scale information on mammal distribution has often been lacking, hindering conservation efforts. We used the information from the 2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a baseline for developing habitat suitability models for 5027 out of 5330 known terrestrial mammal species, based on their habitat relationships. We focused on the following environmental variables: land cover, elevation and hydrological features. Models were developed at 300 m resolution and limited to within species' known geographical ranges. A subset of the models was validated using points of known species occurrence. We conducted a global, fine-scale analysis of patterns of species richness. The richness of mammal species estimated by the overlap of their suitable habitat is on average one-third less than that estimated by the overlap of their geographical ranges. The highest absolute difference is found in tropical and subtropical regions in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia that are not covered by dense forest. The proportion of suitable habitat within mammal geographical ranges correlates with the IUCN Red List category to which they have been assigned, decreasing monotonically from Least Concern to Endangered. These results demonstrate the importance of fine-resolution distribution data for the development of global conservation strategies for mammals.
Global forest management data for 2015 at a 100 m resolution
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-05-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41597-022-01332-3
Abstract: Spatially explicit information on forest management at a global scale is critical for understanding the status of forests, for planning sustainable forest management and restoration, and conservation activities. Here, we produce the first reference data set and a prototype of a globally consistent forest management map with high spatial detail on the most prevalent forest management classes such as intact forests, managed forests with natural regeneration, planted forests, plantation forest (rotation up to 15 years), oil palm plantations, and agroforestry. We developed the reference dataset of 226 K unique locations through a series of expert and crowdsourcing c aigns using Geo-Wiki ( www.geo-wiki.org/ ). We then combined the reference s les with time series from PROBA-V satellite imagery to create a global wall-to-wall map of forest management at a 100 m resolution for the year 2015, with forest management class accuracies ranging from 58% to 80%. The reference data set and the map present the status of forest ecosystems and can be used for investigating the value of forests for species, ecosystems and their services.
Projected Global Loss of Mammal Habitat Due to Land-Use and Climate Change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2020
Building robust conservation plans
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 31-10-2014
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12416
Abstract: Systematic conservation planning optimizes trade-offs between bio ersity conservation and human activities by accounting for socioeconomic costs while aiming to achieve prescribed conservation objectives. However, the most cost-efficient conservation plan can be very dissimilar to any other plan achieving the set of conservation objectives. This is problematic under conditions of implementation uncertainty (e.g., if all or part of the plan becomes unattainable). We determined through simulations of parallel implementation of conservation plans and habitat loss the conditions under which optimal plans have limited chances of implementation and where implementation attempts would fail to meet objectives. We then devised a new, flexible method for identifying conservation priorities and scheduling conservation actions. This method entails generating a number of alternative plans, calculating the similarity in site composition among all plans, and selecting the plan with the highest density of neighboring plans in similarity space. We compared our method with the classic method that maximizes cost efficiency with synthetic and real data sets. When implementation was uncertain--a common reality--our method provided higher likelihood of achieving conservation targets. We found that χ, a measure of the shortfall in objectives achieved by a conservation plan if the plan could not be implemented entirely, was the main factor determining the relative performance of a flexibility enhanced approach to conservation prioritization. Our findings should help planning authorities prioritize conservation efforts in the face of uncertainty about future condition and availability of sites.
Robert L. Pressey (1953–2023)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-10-2023
Achieving the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Goals for Plant Conservation
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 06-09-2013
Abstract: The Convention on Biological Diversity's 20 Aichi Targets, agreed in October 2010, extend to 2020 an international commitment to halt the loss of bio ersity. Using data from “The Plant List” ( www.theplantlist.org ), Joppa et al. (p. 1100 ), show that ∼65% of plant species are endemic to 17% of the terrestrial land surface and include many islands, with mainland contributions concentrated heavily in central and southern America and Asia. These regions include 75% of all plant species. These regions are also important for terrestrial vertebrates—containing most of all—bird, mammal, and hibian species, but less than one-sixth of this land surface is under protection.
Fire policy optimization to maximize suitable habitat for locally rare species under different climatic conditions: A case study of antelopes in the Kruger National Park
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2015
What spatial data do we need to develop global mammal conservation strategies?
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-09-2011
Abstract: Spatial data on species distributions are available in two main forms, point locations and distribution maps (polygon ranges and grids). The first are often temporally and spatially biased, and too discontinuous, to be useful (untransformed) in spatial analyses. A variety of modelling approaches are used to transform point locations into maps. We discuss the attributes that point location data and distribution maps must satisfy in order to be useful in conservation planning. We recommend that before point location data are used to produce and/or evaluate distribution models, the dataset should be assessed under a set of criteria, including s le size, age of data, environmental/geographical coverage, independence, accuracy, time relevance and (often forgotten) representation of areas of permanent and natural presence of the species. Distribution maps must satisfy additional attributes if used for conservation analyses and strategies, including minimizing commission and omission errors, credibility of the source/assessors and availability for public screening. We review currently available databases for mammals globally and show that they are highly variable in complying with these attributes. The heterogeneity and weakness of spatial data seriously constrain their utility to global and also sub-global scale conservation analyses.
Scenarios of large mammal loss in Europe for the 21st century
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-05-2015
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12532
Abstract: Distributions and populations of large mammals are declining globally, leading to an increase in their extinction risk. We forecasted the distribution of extant European large mammals (17 carnivores and 10 ungulates) based on 2 Rio+20 scenarios of socioeconomic development: business as usual and reduced impact through changes in human consumption of natural resources. These scenarios are linked to scenarios of land‐use change and climate change through the spatial allocation of land conversion up to 2050. We used a hierarchical framework to forecast the extent and distribution of mammal habitat based on species’ habitat preferences (as described in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List database) within a suitable climatic space fitted to the species’ current geographic range. We analyzed the geographic and taxonomic variation of habitat loss for large mammals and the potential effect of the reduced impact policy on loss mitigation. Averaging across scenarios, European large mammals were predicted to lose 10% of their habitat by 2050 (25% in the worst‐case scenario). Predicted loss was much higher for species in northwestern Europe, where habitat is expected to be lost due to climate and land‐use change. Change in human consumption patterns was predicted to substantially improve the conservation of habitat for European large mammals, but not enough to reduce extinction risk if species cannot adapt locally to climate change or disperse.
Set ambitious goals for biodiversity and sustainability
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 23-10-2020
Abstract: Multiple, coordinated goals and holistic actions are critical
Targeted expansion of Protected Areas to maximise the persistence of terrestrial mammals
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 15-04-2019
DOI: 10.1101/608992
Abstract: Over a quarter of species assessed by the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction. A global commitment to protect 17% of land and 10% of the oceans by 2020 is close to being achieved, but with limited ecological impacts due to its inadequacy and poor enforcement. Here, we reverse-engineer IUCN Red List criteria to generate area-based conservation targets and spatial conservation priorities to minimize the extinction risk of the world terrestrial mammals. We find that approximately 60% of the Earth’s non-Antarctic land surface would require some form of protection. Our results suggest that global conservation priority schemes, among which the Aichi targets, will be inadequate to secure the persistence of terrestrial mammals. To achieve this goal, international cooperation is required to implement a connected and comprehensive conservation area network, guided by high priority regions outlined in this study.
Filling in biodiversity threat gaps: Only 5% of global threat data sets meet a gold standard
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 22-04-2016
Abstract: Only 5% of global threat data sets meet a “gold standard”
Areas of global importance for conserving terrestrial biodiversity, carbon and water.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-08-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-021-01528-7
Abstract: To meet the ambitious objectives of bio ersity and climate conventions, the international community requires clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially and how multiple targets can be pursued concurrently. To support goal setting and the implementation of international strategies and action plans, spatial guidance is needed to identify which land areas have the potential to generate the greatest synergies between conserving bio ersity and nature's contributions to people. Here we present results from a joint optimization that minimizes the number of threatened species, maximizes carbon retention and water quality regulation, and ranks terrestrial conservation priorities globally. We found that selecting the top-ranked 30% and 50% of terrestrial land area would conserve respectively 60.7% and 85.3% of the estimated total carbon stock and 66% and 89.8% of all clean water, in addition to meeting conservation targets for 57.9% and 79% of all species considered. Our data and prioritization further suggest that adequately conserving all species considered (vertebrates and plants) would require giving conservation attention to ~70% of the terrestrial land surface. If priority was given to bio ersity only, managing 30% of optimally located land area for conservation may be sufficient to meet conservation targets for 81.3% of the terrestrial plant and vertebrate species considered. Our results provide a global assessment of where land could be optimally managed for conservation. We discuss how such a spatial prioritization framework can support the implementation of the bio ersity and climate conventions.
A practical approach to measuring the biodiversity impacts of land conversion
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-06-2020
Quantifying the relative irreplaceability of important bird and biodiversity areas
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-10-2016
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12609
Sixty years of tracking conservation progress using the World Database on Protected Areas
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-04-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-019-0869-3
Abstract: The world's protected area network is constantly changing, and the dynamics of this network are tracked using the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). This database evolved from a list of protected areas first mandated by the United Nations in 1959, and it now informs the key indicators that track progress toward area-based conservation targets. In this capacity, the WDPA illuminates the role of protected areas in advancing a range of international objectives and agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite ongoing challenges in maintaining such a complex global dataset, the WDPA is continuously improving and taking advantage of new technology, making it widely applicable to erse users, including those in sectors far from its original intended audience. In the future, the WDPA will expand to include areas that contribute to conservation and sustainable use outside of formal protected areas, and will increasingly link to other key global datasets. These innovations in the way the WDPA is managed and used will deliver vital knowledge to support a sustainable future for bio ersity and people globally.
Global and regional health and food security in a Half Earth world
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 30-04-2021
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-415185/V1
Abstract: Global bio ersity is rapidly declining and goals to halt bio ersity loss, such as the Aichi Bio ersity Targets, have not been achieved. To avoid further bio ersity loss and aid recovery some have argued for the protection of 50% or 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface. We use a state of the art global land use model, LandSyMM, to assess global and regional human health and food security outcomes when potential area based strategies for conserving bio ersity are modelled. We find diet and weight changes in strictly enforced 30% and 50% land protection scenarios, cause an additional 5.1 million deaths in 2060. At a regional level, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa experience high levels of underweight-related mortality, causing an additional 200,000 deaths in these regions alone. Developed regions in contrast are less affected by protection measures. Our results highlight that radical measures to protect areas of bio ersity value may jeopardise food security and human health in the most vulnerable regions of the world.
Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-10-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-020-2784-9
Abstract: Extensive ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as being central to conserving bio ersity
Author Correction: Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-01-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-021-20999-7
Abstract: A Correction to this paper has been published: 0.1038/s41467-021-20999-7.
Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-10-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-020-2773-Z
Abstract: Humanity will soon define a new era for nature-one that seeks to transform decades of underwhelming responses to the global bio ersity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and ersify. However, persistent shortfalls in ecological representation and management effectiveness diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming bio ersity loss. Here we show how the expansion of protected areas by national governments since 2010 has had limited success in increasing the coverage across different elements of bio ersity (ecoregions, 12,056 threatened species, 'Key Bio ersity Areas' and wilderness areas) and ecosystem services (productive fisheries, and carbon services on land and sea). To be more successful after 2020, area-based conservation must contribute more effectively to meeting global bio ersity goals-ranging from preventing extinctions to retaining the most-intact ecosystems-and must better collaborate with the many Indigenous peoples, community groups and private initiatives that are central to the successful conservation of bio ersity. The long-term success of area-based conservation requires parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to secure adequate financing, plan for climate change and make bio ersity conservation a far stronger part of land, water and sea management policies.
Conservation needs to integrate knowledge across scales
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-11-2021
The global exposure of species ranges and protected areas to forest management
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 14-02-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.02.11.480150
Abstract: The majority of vertebrate species globally are dependent on forests, most of which require active protection to safeguard global bio ersity. Forests, however, are increasingly either being disturbed, planted or managed in the form of timber or food plantations. Because of a lack of spatial data, forest management has commonly been ignored in previous conservation assessments. Here we show – using a new global map of forest management - that disturbed and human managed forests cover the distributional ranges of most forest-associated species. Even more worrying, protected areas are increasingly being established in areas dominated by disturbed forests. Our results imply that species extinction risk and habitat assessments might have been overly optimistic with forest management practices being ignored. With forest restoration being in the centre of climate and conservation policies in this decade, we caution that policy makers should explicitly consider forest management.
Synergies between the key biodiversity area and systematic conservation planning approaches
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-12-2019
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12625
Erratum to: Species’ traits influenced their response to recent climate change (Nature Climate Change, (2017), 7, 3, (205-208), 10.1038/nclimate3223)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-07-2017
Habitat vulnerability in conservation planning-when it matters and how much
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2010
Generation length for mammals
Publisher: Pensoft Publishers
Date: 13-11-2013
A bold successor to Aichi Target 11−−Response
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 16-08-2019
Mammal assemblage composition predicts global patterns in emerging infectious disease risk
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-07-2021
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.15784
Abstract: As a source of emerging infectious diseases, wildlife assemblages (and related spatial patterns) must be quantitatively assessed to help identify high‐risk locations. Previous assessments have largely focussed on the distributions of in idual species however, transmission dynamics are expected to depend on assemblage composition. Moreover, disease– ersity relationships have mainly been studied in the context of species loss, but assemblage composition and disease risk (e.g. infection prevalence in wildlife assemblages) can change without extinction. Based on the predicted distributions and abundances of 4466 mammal species, we estimated global patterns of disease risk through the calculation of the community‐level basic reproductive ratio R0, an index of invasion potential, persistence, and maximum prevalence of a pathogen in a wildlife assemblage. For density‐dependent diseases, we found that, in addition to tropical areas which are commonly viewed as infectious disease hotspots, northern temperate latitudes included high‐risk areas. We also forecasted the effects of climate change and habitat loss from 2015 to 2035. Over this period, many local assemblages showed no net loss of species richness, but the assemblage composition (i.e. the mix of species and their abundances) changed considerably. Simultaneously, most areas experienced a decreased risk of density‐dependent diseases but an increased risk of frequency‐dependent diseases. We further explored the factors driving these changes in disease risk. Our results suggest that bio ersity and changes therein jointly influence disease risk. Understanding these changes and their drivers and ultimately identifying emerging infectious disease hotspots can help health officials prioritize resource distribution.
Include biodiversity representation indicators in area-based conservation targets
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-12-2021
Capacity of countries to reduce biological invasions
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-07-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S11625-022-01166-3
Abstract: The extent and impacts of biological invasions on bio ersity are largely shaped by an array of socio-economic and environmental factors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet, a global analysis of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how five broad, country-specific socio-economic and environmental indices (Governance, Trade, Environmental Performance, Lifestyle and Education, Innovation) explain country-level (1) established alien species (EAS) richness of eight taxonomic groups, and (2) proactive or reactive capacity to prevent and manage biological invasions and their impacts. These indices underpin many aspects of the invasion process, including the introduction, establishment, spread and management of alien species. They are also general enough to enable a global comparison across countries, and are therefore essential for defining future scenarios for biological invasions. Models including Trade, Governance, Lifestyle and Education, or a combination of these, best explained EAS richness across taxonomic groups and national proactive or reactive capacity. Historical (1996 or averaged over 1996–2015) levels of Governance and Trade better explained both EAS richness and the capacity of countries to manage invasions than more recent (2015) levels, revealing a historical legacy with important implications for the future of biological invasions. Using Governance and Trade to define a two-dimensional socio-economic space in which the position of a country captures its capacity to address issues of biological invasions, we identified four main clusters of countries in 2015. Most countries had an increase in Trade over the past 25 years, but trajectories were more geographically heterogeneous for Governance. Declines in levels of Governance are concerning as they may be responsible for larger levels of invasions in the future. By identifying the factors influencing EAS richness and the regions most susceptible to changes in these factors, our results provide novel insights to integrate biological invasions into scenarios of bio ersity change to better inform decision-making for policy and the management of biological invasions.
Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 27-09-2011
Abstract: Current levels of endangerment and historical trends of species and habitats are the main criteria used to direct conservation efforts globally. Estimates of future declines, which might indicate different priorities than past declines, have been limited by the lack of appropriate data and models. Given that much of conservation is about anticipating and responding to future threats, our inability to look forward at a global scale has been a major constraint on effective action. Here, we assess the geography and extent of projected future changes in suitable habitat for terrestrial mammals within their present ranges. We used a global earth-system model, IMAGE, coupled with fine-scale habitat suitability models and parametrized according to four global scenarios of human development. We identified the most affected countries by 2050 for each scenario, assuming that no additional conservation actions other than those described in the scenarios take place. We found that, with some exceptions, most of the countries with the largest predicted losses of suitable habitat for mammals are in Africa and the Americas. African and North American countries were also predicted to host the most species with large proportional global declines. Most of the countries we identified as future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss have little or no overlap with the present global conservation priorities, thus confirming the need for forward-looking analyses in conservation priority setting. The expected growth in human populations and consumption in hotspots of future mammal loss mean that local conservation actions such as protected areas might not be sufficient to mitigate losses. Other policies, directed towards the root causes of bio ersity loss, are required, both in Africa and other parts of the world.
Capacity of countries to reduce biological invasions
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 06-02-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.02.04.429788
Abstract: The extent and impacts of biological invasions on bio ersity are largely shaped by an array of socio-ecological predictors, which exhibit high variation among countries. Yet a global synthetic perspective of how these factors vary across countries is currently lacking. Here, we investigate how a set of five socio-ecological predictors (Governance, Trade, Environmental Performance, Lifestyle and Education, Innovation) explain i) country-level established alien species (EAS) richness of eight taxonomic groups, and ii) country capacity to prevent and manage biological invasions and their impacts. Trade and Governance together best predicted the average EAS richness, increasing variance explained by up to 54% compared to models based on climatic and spatial variables only. Country-level EAS richness increased strongly with Trade, whereas high level of Governance resulted in lower EAS richness. Historical (1996) levels of Governance and Trade better explained response variables than current (2015) levels. Thus, our results reveal a historical legacy of these two predictors with profound implications for the future of biological invasions. We therefore used Governance and Trade to define a two-dimensional socio-economic space in which the position of a country captures its capacity to address issues of biological invasions. Our results provide novel insights into the complex relationship between socio-ecological predictors and biological invasions. Further, we highlight the need for designing better policies and management measures for alien species, and for integrating biological invasions in global environmental scenarios.
The global exposure of species ranges and protected areas to forest management
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-06-2022
DOI: 10.1111/DDI.13582
Abstract: Many vertebrate species globally are dependent on forests, most of which require active protection to safeguard global bio ersity. Forests, however, are increasingly either being disturbed, planted or managed in the form of timber or food plantations. Because of a lack of spatial data, forest management has commonly been ignored in previous conservation assessments. Global. We combine a new global map of forest management types created solely from remote sensing imagery with spatially explicit information on the distribution of forest‐associated vertebrate species and protected areas globally. Using Bayesian logistic regressions, we explore whether the amount of forested habitat available to a species as well as information on species‐specific threats can explain differences in IUCN extinction risk categories. We show that disturbed and human‐managed forests dominate the distributional ranges of most forest‐associated species. Species considered as non‐threatened had on average larger amounts of non‐managed forests within their range. A greater amount of planted forests did not decrease the probability of species being threatened by extinction. Even more worrying, protected areas are increasingly being established in areas dominated by disturbed forests. Our results imply that species extinction risk and habitat assessments might have been overly optimistic with forest management practices being largely ignored so far. With forest restoration being at the centre of climate and conservation policies in this decade, we caution that policy makers should explicitly consider forest management in global and regional assessments.
Species' traits influenced their response to recent climate change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-02-2017
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3223
A protocol for an intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models using harmonized land-use and climate scenarios
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 13-11-2018
Abstract: Abstract. To support the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Bio ersity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the IPBES Expert Group on Scenarios and Models is carrying out an intercomparison of bio ersity and ecosystem services models using harmonized scenarios (BES-SIM). The goals of BES-SIM are (1) to project the global impacts of land-use and climate change on bio ersity and ecosystem services (i.e., nature's contributions to people) over the coming decades, compared to the 20th century, using a set of common metrics at multiple scales, and (2) to identify model uncertainties and research gaps through the comparisons of projected bio ersity and ecosystem services across models. BES-SIM uses three scenarios combining specific Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) – SSP1xRCP2.6, SSP3xRCP6.0, SSP5xRCP8.6 – to explore a wide range of land-use change and climate change futures. This paper describes the rationale for scenario selection, the process of harmonizing input data for land use, based on the second phase of the Land Use Harmonization Project (LUH2), and climate, the bio ersity and ecosystem services models used, the core simulations carried out, the harmonization of the model output metrics, and the treatment of uncertainty. The results of this collaborative modeling project will support the ongoing global assessment of IPBES, strengthen ties between IPBES and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios and modeling processes, advise the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on its development of a post-2020 strategic plans and conservation goals, and inform the development of a new generation of nature-centred scenarios.
Reply to: Restoration prioritization must be informed by marginalized people
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-07-2022
Why do we map threats? Linking threat mapping with actions to make better conservation decisions
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-2015
DOI: 10.1890/140022
Using connectivity metrics in conservation planning – when does habitat quality matter?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-06-2009
Making parks make a difference: poor alignment of policy, planning and management with protected-area impact, and ways forward
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 05-11-2015
Abstract: Policy and practice around protected areas are poorly aligned with the basic purpose of protection, which is to make a difference. The difference made by protected areas is their impact, defined in program evaluation as the outcomes arising from protection relative to the counterfactual of no protection or a different form of protection. Although impact evaluation of programs is well established in fields such as medicine, education and development aid, it is rare in nature conservation. We show that the present weak alignment with impact of policy targets and operational objectives for protected areas involves a great risk: targets and objectives can be achieved while making little difference to the conservation of bio ersity. We also review potential ways of increasing the difference made by protected areas, finding a poor evidence base for the use of planning and management ‘levers’ to better achieve impact. We propose a dual strategy for making protected areas more effective in their basic role of saving nature, outlining ways of developing targets and objectives focused on impact while also improving the evidence for effective planning and management.
The global cropland-sparing potential of high-yield farming
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-04-2020
Socio-economic and ecological impacts of global protected area expansion plans
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 05-11-2015
Abstract: Several global strategies for protected area (PA) expansion have been proposed to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity's Aichi target 11 as a means to stem bio ersity loss, as required by the Aichi target 12. However, habitat loss outside PAs will continue to affect habitats and species, and PAs may displace human activities into areas that might be even more important for species persistence. Here we measure the expected contribution of PA expansion strategies to Aichi target 12 by estimating the extent of suitable habitat available for all terrestrial mammals, with and without additional protection (the latter giving the counterfactual outcome), under different socio-economic scenarios and consequent land-use change to 2020. We found that expanding PAs to achieve representation targets for ecoregions under a Business-as-usual socio-economic scenario will result in a worse prognosis than doing nothing for more than 50% of the world's terrestrial mammals. By contrast, targeting protection towards threatened species can increase the suitable habitat available to over 60% of terrestrial mammals. Even in the absence of additional protection, an alternative socio-economic scenario, adopting progressive changes in human consumption, leads to positive outcomes for mammals globally and to the largest improvements for wide-ranging species.
Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-09-2020
Climate change modifies risk of global biodiversity loss due to land-cover change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2015
Reply to: The risks of overstating the climate benefits of ecosystem restoration
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-09-2022
A systematic approach for prioritizing multiple management actions for invasive species
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-02-2011
Projecting Global Biodiversity Indicators under Future Development Scenarios
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 23-02-2016
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12159
Assessing species vulnerability to climate change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-02-2015
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2448
Synergies and trade‐offs in achieving global biodiversity targets
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-08-2015
DOI: 10.1111/COBI.12559
Abstract: After their failure to achieve a significant reduction in the global rate of bio ersity loss by 2010, world governments adopted 20 new ambitious Aichi bio ersity targets to be met by 2020. Efforts to achieve one particular target can contribute to achieving others, but different targets may sometimes require conflicting solutions. Consequently, lack of strategic thinking might result, once again, in a failure to achieve global commitments to bio ersity conservation. We illustrate this dilemma by focusing on Aichi Target 11. This target requires an expansion of terrestrial protected area coverage, which could also contribute to reducing the loss of natural habitats (Target 5), reducing human-induced species decline and extinction (Target 12), and maintaining global carbon stocks (Target 15). We considered the potential impact of expanding protected areas to mitigate global deforestation and the consequences for the distribution of suitable habitat for >10,000 species of forest vertebrates ( hibians, birds, and mammals). We first identified places where deforestation might have the highest impact on remaining forests and then identified places where deforestation might have the highest impact on forest vertebrates (considering aggregate suitable habitat for species). Expanding protected areas toward locations with the highest deforestation rates (Target 5) or the highest potential loss of aggregate species' suitable habitat (Target 12) resulted in partially different protected area network configurations (overlapping with each other by about 73%). Moreover, the latter approach contributed to safeguarding about 30% more global carbon stocks than the former. Further investigation of synergies and trade-offs between targets would shed light on these and other complex interactions, such as the interaction between reducing overexploitation of natural resources (Targets 6, 7), controlling invasive alien species (Target 9), and preventing extinctions of native species (Target 12). Synergies between targets must be identified and secured soon and trade-offs must be minimized before the options for co-benefits are reduced by human pressures.
Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-12-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-19493-3
Abstract: Many global environmental agendas, including halting bio ersity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km 2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally.
Using the IUCN Red List to map threats to terrestrial vertebrates at global scale
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-08-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-021-01542-9
Abstract: The Anthropocene is characterized by unparalleled human impact on other species, potentially ushering in the sixth mass extinction. Yet mitigation efforts remain h ered by limited information on the spatial patterns and intensity of the threats driving global bio ersity loss. Here we use expert-derived information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List on threats to 23,271 species, representing all terrestrial hibians, birds and mammals, to generate global maps of the six major threats to these groups: agriculture, hunting and trapping, logging, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. Our results show that agriculture and logging are pervasive in the tropics and that hunting and trapping is the most geographically widespread threat to mammals and birds. Additionally, current representations of human pressure underestimate the overall pressure on bio ersity, due to the exclusion of threats such as hunting and climate change. Alarmingly, this is particularly the case in areas of the highest bio ersity importance.
High-Resolution Assessment of Land Use Impacts on Biodiversity in Life Cycle Assessment Using Species Habitat Suitability Models
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 28-01-2015
DOI: 10.1021/ES504380T
Abstract: Agricultural land use is a main driver of global bio ersity loss. The assessment of land use impacts in decision-support tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA) requires spatially explicit models, but existing approaches are either not spatially differentiated or modeled at very coarse scales (e.g., biomes or ecoregions). In this paper, we develop a high-resolution (900 m) assessment method for land use impacts on bio ersity based on habitat suitability models (HSM) of mammal species. This method considers potential land use effects on in idual species, and impacts are weighted by the species' conservation status and global rarity. We illustrate the method using a case study of crop production in East Africa, but the underlying HSMs developed by the Global Mammals Assessment are available globally. We calculate impacts of three major export crops and compare the results to two previously developed methods (focusing on local and regional impacts, respectively) to assess the relevance of the methodological innovations proposed in this paper. The results highlight hotspots of product-related bio ersity impacts that help characterize the links among agricultural production, consumption, and bio ersity loss.
Assessing the global impact of targeted conservation actions on species abundance
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 05-06-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2861352/V1
Abstract: Globally, vertebrate abundance has declined, and species’ extinction rates have increased, at unprecedented rates over recent decades 1,2. In response, targeted species interventions, such as conservation breeding programmes, legislative measures or species-specific habitat management, have been used to help address population declines and reduce and reverse the loss of bio ersity 3,4. Until now, assessments of conservation actions have focused on the extent to which they reduce extinction risk or focus on the impact of protected areas 4–9. Here, we extend our knowledge of conservation efficacy by quantifying the impact of targeted conservation actions on vertebrate abundance, analyzing data from 26,904 vertebrate populations across 4,629 species worldwide. Using a counterfactual approach to represent population trends in the absence of conservation, we show that targeted actions have delivered substantial positive effects on the abundance of recipient vertebrate populations worldwide. Positive trends were especially observed in vertebrate populations subject to species or habitat management. Our results provide compelling evidence that, with sufficient and sustained resourcing and commitment, successful implementation of Target 4 of the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Bio ersity Framework can readily help reverse global bio ersity loss and put nature on a path to recovery.
Cheap and Nasty? The Potential Perils of Using Management Costs to Identify Global Conservation Priorities
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 15-11-2013
A framework to identify enabling and urgent actions for the 2020 Aichi Targets
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2014
Assessing the suitability of diversity metrics to detect biodiversity change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2017
Shortfalls and Solutions for Meeting National and Global Conservation Area Targets
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-02-2015
DOI: 10.1111/CONL.12158
A global map of terrestrial habitat types
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-08-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41597-020-00599-8
Abstract: We provide a global, spatially explicit characterization of 47 terrestrial habitat types, as defined in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) habitat classification scheme, which is widely used in ecological analyses, including for quantifying species’ Area of Habitat. We produced this novel habitat map for the year 2015 by creating a global decision tree that intersects the best currently available global data on land cover, climate and land use. We independently validated the map using occurrence data for 828 species of vertebrates (35152 point plus 8181 polygonal occurrences) and 6026 s ling sites. Across datasets and mapped classes we found on average a balanced accuracy of 0.77 ( $$\\bar{+}$$ + ¯ 0.14 SD) at Level 1 and 0.71 ( $$\\bar{+}$$ + ¯ 0.15 SD) at Level 2, while noting potential issues of using occurrence records for validation. The maps broaden our understanding of habitats globally, assist in constructing area of habitat refinements and are relevant for broad-scale ecological studies and future IUCN Red List assessments. Periodic updates are planned as better or more recent data becomes available.
Related Organisations
International Institute For Applied Systems Analysis
Location: Austria
Institute Of Zoology Of The Zoological Society Of London
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Microsoft Research Ltd
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Related Funding Activities
Inspire4Nature
Start Date: Start date not available
End Date: End date not available
Funder: European Commission
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP220100189
Start Date: 10-2022
End Date: 09-2026
Amount: $484,029.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity