Abstract
AbstractQuantifying species population trends is crucial for monitoring progress towards global conservation targets, justifying investments, planning targeted responses and raising awareness about threatened species. Many global indicators are slow in response and report on common species, not on those at greatest risk of extinction. Here we develop a Threatened Species Index as a dynamic tool for tracking annual changes in Australia's imperiled birds. Based on the Living Planet Index method and containing more than 17,000 time series for 65 bird taxa surveyed systematically, the index at its second iteration shows an average reduction of 59% between 1985 and 2016, and 44% between 2000 and 2016. Decreases seem most severe for shorebirds and terrestrial birds and least severe for seabirds. The index provides a potential means for measuring performance against the Convention on Biological Diversity's Aichi Target 12, enabling governments, agencies and the public to observe changes in threatened species.
Highlights
Biodiversity continues to decline (Butchart et al, 2010; Tittensor et al, 2014) despite global agreements to preserve it
The Threatened Species Index was developed on data contributed by all relevant government agencies, individuals and organizations involved in survey and monitoring of imperiled Australian birds
Sixty-five government agencies, individuals and organizations involved in monitoring threatened and nearthreatened Australian bird taxa contributed 133,569 bird population time series for 96 taxa from a total of 1,444,510 single surveys conducted over 64 years
Summary
Biodiversity continues to decline (Butchart et al, 2010; Tittensor et al, 2014) despite global agreements to preserve it. Aichi Biodiversity Target 12 states: “By 2020, the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained” (CBD, 2010) Reporting against this target requires metrics that provide an integrated overview of population trends for threatened species. The Threatened Species Index was developed on data contributed by all relevant government agencies, individuals and organizations involved in survey and monitoring of imperiled Australian birds. This dataset was reduced according to a set of criteria (see Methods) and is available for download via www.tsx. Calculations from a baseline year of 2000, when the availability of monitoring data substantially increased across many taxa, are provided for comparison as supplementary material (Supplementary Material, Figure S1, S2, and S3)
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