Biodiversity - Endangered species

Title

Birds as biodiversity surrogates: will supplementing birds with other taxa improve effectiveness?

Reference

Journal of Applied Ecology, 2012.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.02094.x

Author(s)

Larsen, F.W., Bladt, J., Balmford, A., Rahbek, C.,

Study type

Peer Review Journal    

Abstract

Most biodiversity is still unknown, and therefore, priority areas for conservation typically are identified based on the presence of surrogates, or indicator groups. Birds are commonly used as surrogates of biodiversity owing to the wide availability of relevant data and their broad popular appeal. However, some studies have found birds to perform relatively poorly as indicators. We therefore ask how the effectiveness of this approach can be improved by supplementing data on birds with information on other taxa.
Here, we explore two strategies using (i) species data for other taxa and (ii) genus- and family-level data for invertebrates (when available). We used three distinct species data sets for sub-Saharan Africa, Denmark and Uganda, which cover different spatial scales, biogeographic regions and taxa (vertebrates, invertebrates and plants).
We found that networks of priority areas identified on the basis of birds alone performed well in representing overall species diversity where birds were relatively speciose compared to the other taxa in the data sets. Adding species data for one taxon increased surrogate effectiveness better than adding genus- and family-level data. It became apparent that, while adding species data for other taxa increased overall effectiveness, predicting the best-performing additional taxon was difficult. Finally, we demonstrate that increasing overall effectiveness required supplementary data for several additional taxa.
Synthesis and applications. Good surrogates of biodiversity are necessary to help identify conservation areas that will be effective in preventing species extinctions. Birds perform fairly well as surrogates in cases where birds are relatively speciose, but overall effectiveness will be improved by adding additional data from other taxa, in particular from range-restricted species. Conservation solutions with focus on birds as biodiversity surrogate could therefore benefit from also incorporating species data from other taxa.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species       
Biodiversity >> Habitats >> Protected areas/Natura 2000

Keywords

Entry Source:

Shortlisted for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

View this study at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.02094.x/abstract
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Contact the study author at:

frankwugtlarsen@gmail.com

Title

Reference

Volume 4, Issue 6, pages 474–482, December 2011
EU funded

Author(s)

William R. T. Darwall, Robert A. Holland, Kevin G. Smith, David Allen,
Emma G. E. Brooks et al

Study type

Peer Review Journal    

Abstract

Human population growth and economic development threaten the integrity of freshwater ecosystems globally, reducing their ability to support biodiversity and provide ecosystem services. However, our knowledge of freshwater biodiversity is fragmented due to bias in conservation research toward primarily terrestrial or charismatic taxonomic groups. Here, we utilize the most comprehensive assessment of freshwater biodiversity for an entire continent to examine the implications of this shortfall. Results indicate that groups that have been the focus of most conservation research are poor surrogates for patterns of both richness and threat for many freshwater groups, and that the existing protected area network underrepresents freshwater species. Areas of highest species richness and threat are congruent with areas where reliance on ecosystem services by humans and pressures placed on freshwater ecosystems are high. These results have implications for targets to reduce biodiversity loss and safeguard associated ecosystem services on which millions of people depend globally.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Ecosystem services
Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species
Biodiversity >> Habitats >> Protected areas/Natura 2000

Keywords

Freshwater; biodiversity; Africa; surrogates; poverty; livelihoods; threatened; red list; protected areas; key biodiversity areas

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

View this study at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2011.00202.x/abstract
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Contact the study author at:

robert.holland@iucn.org

Title

Reference

Nature (2011) doi:10.1038/nature10650

Author(s)

Christian Hof, Miguel B. Araújo, Walter Jetz & Carsten Rahbek

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

Amphibian population declines far exceed those of other vertebrate groups, with 30% of all species listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The causes of these declines are a matter of continued research, but probably include climate change, land-use change and spread of the pathogenic fungal disease chytridiomycosis. Here we assess the spatial distribution and interactions of these primary threats in relation to the global distribution of amphibian species. We show that the greatest proportions of species negatively affected by climate change are projected to be found in Africa, parts of northern South America and the Andes. Regions with the highest projected impact of land-use and climate change coincide, but there is little spatial overlap with regions highly threatened by the fungal disease. Overall, the areas harbouring the richest amphibian faunas are disproportionately more affected by one or multiple threat factors than areas with low richness. Amphibian declines are likely to accelerate in the twenty-first century, because multiple drivers of extinction could jeopardize their populations more than previous, mono-causal, assessments have suggested.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species  
Climate change and energy >> Climate change adaptation >> Biodiversity impacts

Keywords

Entry Source:

Shortlisted for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

View this study at:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v480/n7378/full/nature10650.html
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This study is free to view

Contact the study author at:

Richard.murray-smith@astrazeneca.com

Title

Threatened groups of organisms valuable to medicine.

Reference

Chivian ES, Bernstein AS

Author(s)

Chivian ES, Bernstein AS. Chapter 6 in Chivian E, Bernstein A.

Study type

Book chapter

Abstract

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Ecosystem services
Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species >>Endangered species
Environment and health >> Biodiversity and human health

Keywords

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy Thematic Issue

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

There is a fee to view this book chapter
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LifeSciences/Ecology/
?view=usa&ci=9780195175097#Description
Free summary version: http://chge.med.harvard.edu/programs/bio/documents/
CHGE_Biodiversity_Booklet_Sept_2010.pdf

Contact the study author at:

eric_chivian@hms.harvard.edu

Title

Shoot, shovel and shut up: cryptic poaching slows restoration of a large carnivore in Europe

Reference

Proc. R. Soc. B
rspb20111275

Author(s)

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

Poaching is a widespread and well-appreciated problem for the conservation of many threatened species. Because poaching is illegal, there is strong incentive for poachers to conceal their activities, and consequently, little data on the effects of poaching on population dynamics are available. Quantifying poaching mortality should be a required knowledge when developing conservation plans for endangered species but is hampered by methodological challenges. We show that rigorous estimates of the effects of poaching relative to other sources of mortality can be obtained with a hierarchical state-space model combined with multiple sources of data. Using the Scandinavian wolf (Canis lupus) population as an illustrative example, we show that poaching accounted for approximately half of total mortality and more than two-thirds of total poaching remained undetected by conventional methods, a source of mortality we term as ‘cryptic poaching’. Our simulations suggest that without poaching during the past decade, the population would have been almost four times as large in 2009. Such a severe impact of poaching on population recovery may be widespread among large carnivores. We believe that conservation strategies for large carnivores considering only observed data may not be adequate and should be revised by including and quantifying cryptic poaching.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species       
Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Human impacts

Keywords

state-space models; poaching; wolf; Canis lupus; conservation

Entry Source:

Shortlisted for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/08/08/rspb.2011.1275.full
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Contact the study author at:

olof.liberg@slu.se

Title

The future of terrestrial mammals in the Mediterranean basin under climate change

Reference

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 27 September 2011 vol. 366 no. 1578 2681-2692

Author(s)

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

The Mediterranean basin is considered a hotspot of biological diversity with a long history of modification of natural ecosystems by human activities, and is one of the regions that will face extensive changes in climate. For 181 terrestrial mammals (68% of all Mediterranean mammals), we used an ensemble forecasting approach to model the future (approx. 2100) potential distribution under climate change considering five climate change model outputs for two climate scenarios. Overall, a substantial number of Mediterranean mammals will be severely threatened by future climate change, particularly endemic species. Moreover, we found important changes in potential species richness owing to climate change, with some areas (e.g. montane region in central Italy) gaining species, while most of the region will be losing species (mainly Spain and North Africa). Existing protected areas (PAs) will probably be strongly influenced by climate change, with most PAs in Africa, the Middle East and Spain losing a substantial number of species, and those PAs gaining species (e.g. central Italy and southern France) will experience a substantial shift in species composition.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species
Biodiversity >> Habitats >> Protected areas/Natura 2000
Climate change and energy >> Climate change adaptation >> Biodiversity impacts

Keywords

climate change; ensemble modelling; extinction risk; species distribution models; protected areas

Entry Source:

Shortlisted for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1578/2681
This study is free to view

Contact the study author at:

luigi.maiorano@unil.ch

Title

Does proactive biodiversity conservation save costs?

Reference

Biodiversity and Conservation
Volume 20, Number 5, 1045-1055,
DOI: 10.1007/s10531-011-0013-4

Author(s)

Martin Drechsler, Florian V. Eppink and Frank Wätzold

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

Ecologists usually argue for a proactive approach to species conservation-it
should start before a species is endangered and under substantial risk of extinction. In reality, however, conservation often only starts when species populations are already in a critical state. This may be the result of a policy process in which those actors who see only little or no benefits from conserving species try to delay conservation as long as possible to avoid its cost. A frequent consequence is that populations decline to critical levels so that once conservation policies set in due to legal obligations, political pressure or any other reason, additional conservation measures are required to re-establish the populations. We show that the costs associated with this policy process may be higher than those of a proactive policy. This is somewhat surprising because the costs of maintaining populations at a level at which they are not endangered may occur over a longer period. However, the costs of bringing species populations back to those levels may be so high that they outweigh the costs of the proactive approach. We develop simple cost functions that capture the main economic and ecological parameters relevant to our argument and apply them for an assessment of the costs of common hamster (Cricetus cricetus) conservation in the region of Mannheim, Germany. We find that a proactive approach would have saved between €17.2 and €36.4 mn compared to the existing policy where conservation was delayed until legal requirements forced local policy makers to implement a comprehensive hamster protection programme.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species

Keywords

Common hamster, Conservation management,  Conservation costs, Cost assessment, Proactive conservation

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k53674705r8h8v00/
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Contact the study author at:

e-mail: martin.drechsler@ufz.de

Title

General rules for managing and surveying networks of pests, diseases, and endangered species

Reference

PNAS May 17, 2011 vol. 108 no. 20 8323-8328 This study is free to view

Author(s)

Iadine Chades, Tara G. Martin, Samuel Nicol, Mark A. Burgman, Hugh P. Possingham and Yvonne M. Buckley

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

The efficient management of diseases, pests, or endangered species is an important global issue faced by agencies constrained by limited resources. The management challenge is even greater when organisms are difficult to detect. We show how to prioritize management and survey effort across time and space for networks of susceptible-infected-susceptible subpopulations. We present simple and robust rules of thumb for protecting desirable, or eradicating undesirable, subpopulations connected in typical network patterns (motifs). We further demonstrate that these rules can be generalized to larger networks when motifs are combined in more complex formations. Results show that the best location to manage or survey a pest or a disease on a network is also the best location to protect or survey an endangered species. The optimal starting point in a network is the fastest motif to manage, where line, star, island, and cluster motifs range from fast to slow. Managing the most connected node at the right time and maintaining the same management direction provide advantages over previously recommended outside-in strategies. When a species or disease is not detected and our belief in persistence decreases, our results recommend shifting resources toward management or surveillance of the most connected nodes. Our analytic approximation provides guidance on how long we should manage or survey networks for hard-to-detect organisms. Our rules take into account management success, dispersal, economic cost, and imperfect detection and offer managers a practical basis for managing networks relevant to many significant environmental, biosecurity, and human health issues.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species

Keywords

Conservation planning, decision theory, metapopulation, optimization, Markov decision process

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8323.short
This study is free to view

Contact the study author at:

iadine.chades@csiro.au

Title

Adapting global conservation strategies to climate change at the European scale: The otter as a flagship species

Reference

Biological Conservation
Volume 144, Issue 8, August 2011, Pages 2068-2080

Author(s)

Carmen Cianfrani, Gwenaëlle Le Lay, Luigi Maiorano, Héctor F. Satizábal, Anna Loy and Antoine Guisan

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

Climate change has created the need for new strategies in conservation planning that account for the dynamics of factors threatening endangered species.
Here we assessed climate change threat to the European otter, a flagship species for freshwater ecosystems, considering how current conservation areas will perform in preserving the species in a climatically changed future. We used an ensemble forecasting approach considering six modelling techniques applied to eleven subsets of otter occurrences across Europe. We performed a pseudo-independent and an internal evaluation of predictions. Future projections of species distribution were made considering the A2 and B2 scenarios for 2080 across three climate models: CCCMA-CGCM2, CSIRO-MK2 and HCCPR HADCM3. The current and the predicted otter distributions were used to identify priority areas for the conservation of the species, and overlapped to existing network of protected areas.
Our projections show that climate change may profoundly reshuffle the otter's potential distribution in Europe, with important differences between the two scenarios we considered. Overall, the priority areas for conservation of the otter in Europe appear to be unevenly covered by the existing network of protected areas, with the current conservation efforts being insufficient in most cases. For a better conservation, the existing protected areas should be integrated within a more general conservation and management strategy incorporating climate change projections. Due to the important role that the otter plays for freshwater habitats, our study further highlights the potential sensitivity of freshwater habitats in Europe to climate change.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species
Biodiversity >> Habitats >> Habitat management
Climate change and energy >> Climate change adaptation >> Biodiversity impacts

Keywords

Long-term conservation plan, Climate change, Freshwater ecosystem, Ensemble forecasting, Species distribution models

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy News Alert

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632071100125X
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Contact the study author at:

carmen.cianfrani@unil.ch

Title

To what extent are threatened European plant species conserved in seed banks?

Reference

Biological Conservation
Volume 144, Issue 5, May 2011, Pages 1494-1498

Author(s)

Sandrine Godefroid, Stéphane Rivière, Steve Waldren, Nikolaos Boretos, Ruth Eastwood and Thierry Vanderborght

Study type

Peer Review Journal

Abstract

The number of ex situ conservation facilities has grown dramatically in recent years, and they have become increasingly integrated under national and regional conservation initiatives. However, little information is available about the extent to which plant species are appropriately represented in ex situ collections. This paper assesses whether seed/spore collections stored in European seed banks cover or not, and to what extent, the species currently threatened with extinction in the wild. Although a substantial amount of the European flora (ca. 70%) is currently stored in seed banks, we highlight the relatively poor representation of threatened species: only 27% of the taxa listed on the European threatened plant list and 44% of the taxa listed in Annex II of the EU Habitat Directive are stored in European seed banks. Some taxonomical groups most at risk, e.g. Pteridophytes and Orchidaceae, are also under-represented in European seed banks. By examining the number of accessions per species and the number of seeds per accession, this study also gave some insight on how well species are conserved, considering that these two variables are surrogates for genetic diversity. We have highlighted that at least two thirds of the threatened species stored in European seed banks likely suffer from too low genetic diversity in the collections. These analyses were essential to identify those collections and additionally the standards needed to maximize the usefulness of future collections.

Policy theme(s)

Biodiversity >> Threats to biodiversity >> Endangered species

Keywords

Endangered species, ENSCONET, Ex situ conservation, Red lists, Seed bank,

Entry Source:

Selected for Science for Environment Policy

Referred to in EC doc:

N/A

View this study at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320711000383
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Contact the study author at:

sandrine.godefroid@br.fgov.be