Current Rate Of Biodiversity Loss Research Articles

Anticipating where are unknown aquatic insects in Europe to improve biodiversity conservation

AbstractAimUnderstanding biodiversity patterns is crucial for prioritizing future conservation efforts and reducing the current rates of biodiversity loss. However, a large proportion of species remain undescribed (i.e. unknown biodiversity), hindering our ability to conduct this task. This phenomenon, known as the ‘Linnean shortfall’, is especially relevant in highly diverse, yet endangered, taxonomic groups, such as insects. Here we explore the distributions of recently described freshwater insect species in Europe to (1) infer the potential location of unknown biodiversity hotspots and (2) determine the variables that can anticipate the distribution of unknown biodiversity.LocationThe European continent, including western Russia, Cyprus and Turkey.MethodsGeoreferenced information of all sites where new aquatic insect species were described across Europe from 2000 to 2020 was compiled. In order to understand the observed spatial patterns in richness of recently described species, spatial units were defined (level 6 of HydroBASINS) and associated with a combination of a set of socioeconomic, environmental and sampling effort descriptors. A zero‐inflated Poisson regression approach was used to model the richness of newly described species within each spatial unit.ResultsNine hundred and sixty‐six recently described species were found: 398 Diptera, 362 Trichoptera, 105 Coleoptera, 66 Plecoptera, 28 Ephemeroptera, 3 Neuroptera, 2 Lepidoptera and 2 Odonata. The Mediterranean Basin was the region with the highest number of recently described species (74%). The richness of recently described species per spatial unit across Europe was highest at mid‐elevation areas (between 400 and 1000 m), latitudes between 40 and 50° and in areas with yearly average precipitation levels of 500–1000 mm, a medium intensity of sampling effort and low population density. The percentage of protected areas in each study unit was not significantly related to the richness of recently described species. In fact, 70% of the species were found outside protected areas.Main conclusionsThe results highlight the urgent need to concentrate conservation efforts in freshwater ecosystems located at mid‐altitude areas and out of protected areas across the Mediterranean Basin. The highest number of newly described species in those areas indicates that further monitoring efforts are required to ensure the aquatic biodiversity is adequately known and managed within a context of growing human impacts in freshwater ecosystems.

The species awareness index as a conservation culturomics metric for public biodiversity awareness.

Although threats to global biodiversity are well known, slowing current rates of biodiversity loss remains a challenge. The Aichi targets set out 20 goals on which the international community should act to alleviate biodiversity decline, 1 of which (Target 1) aims to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity. Although conventional indicators for Target 1 are of low spatial and temporal coverage, conservation culturomics metrics show how biodiversity awareness can be quantified at the global scale. Following methods used for the Living Planet Index, we devised a species awareness index (SAI) to measure change in species awareness based on Wikipedia views. We calculated this index at the page level for 41,197 species listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) across 10 Wikipedia languages and >2 billion views from 1 July 2015 to 30 March 2020. Bootstrapped indices for the page-level SAI showed that overall awareness of biodiversity increased marginally over time, although there were differences among taxonomic classes and languages. Among taxonomic classes, overall awareness increased fastest for reptiles and slowest for amphibians. Among languages, overall species awareness increased fastest for Japanese and slowest for Chinese and German users. Although awareness of species as a whole increased and was significantly higher for traded species, from January 2016 through January 2020, change in awareness appeared not to be strongly related to whether the species is traded or is a pollinator. As a data source for public biodiversity awareness, the SAI could be integrated into the Conservation International Biodiversity Engagement Indicator.

Molecular and paleo‐climatic data uncover the impact of an ancient bottleneck on the demographic history and contemporary genetic structure of endangered Pinus uliginosa

AbstractWith the current rate of biodiversity loss, conservation management practices require a comprehensive understanding of eco‐evolutionary relationships, history, and genetic structure of species. Assessments of genetic diversity are crucial, especially in rare, endemic, or threatened forest tree species with small and isolated populations, such as peat bog pine (Pinus uliginosa N.). Here, we used a novel approach, combining genetic diversity assessment, ecological niche modeling, and population demography inference to explore the complex history of a few remnant populations of this endangered pine. To asses the relative influence of isolation and fragmentation on genetic diversity in the taxonomic context, the patterns of genetic variation found in P. uliginosa were contrasted with those observed in its close relatives with much bigger distribution ranges and larger populations (Pinus sylvestris, Pinus mugo, and Pinus uncinata). We found a similar level of genetic diversity across the species at nuclear loci but contrasting patterns of variability distribution at chloroplast markers. We detected the signatures of an ancient genetic bottleneck dated at around 26 400 years ago, indicating a drastic reduction in the population size of P. uligionosa during the Last Glacial Maximum. In addition, we found substantial differentiation between current populations as a result of enhanced genetic drift during long‐lasting isolation. The research suggests potential conservation management strategies for peat bog pine and emphasizes the importance of using complementary approaches for their successful development.

An interview‐based approach assessing interactions between seals and small‐scale fisheries informs the conservation strategy of the endangered Mediterranean monk seal

Abstract Small‐scale fisheries may pose a serious threat to the conservation of marine mammals. At the same time various factors have led to the decline of small‐scale fisheries, often making them unsustainable. Current rates of biodiversity loss and the reduction of fish stocks and fisheries dictate a thorough understanding of fisheries‐related issues and the implementation of effective management actions. The Mediterranean monk seal is one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth; its survival in the eastern Mediterranean Sea is threatened by negative interactions with fisheries. A nationwide questionnaire survey among fishers and port police authorities was carried out in Greece to describe the main characteristics of small‐scale fisheries, and to understand the nature and assess the magnitude of negative interactions between the monk seal and these fisheries. Questionnaire information was verified by a second round of interviews during landings. The main attributes of the fishers, their fishing boats, and their practices were characteristic of the small‐scale fisheries sector. Overfishing was considered the main reason for fish‐stock reduction, and negative interactions with marine mammals was considered the main issue for the fishing sector. Monk seals were present, caused damage, and got accidentally entangled in fishing gear throughout Greece. Damage to fishing gear was recorded mainly during spring and summer, and on average affected 21% of all fishing trips and 1% of nets deployed during a fishing trip. Based on these results, the implementation of general and specific nationwide fishery management and conservation actions are proposed. These actions are mainly aimed at improving fish stock status, changing the behaviour of the fishers, and mitigating seal–fishery interactions in Greece, while promoting the recovery of the Mediterranean monk seal in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Sperm collection and storage for the sustainable management of amphibian biodiversity

Current rates of biodiversity loss pose an unprecedented challenge to the conservation community, particularly with amphibians and freshwater fish as the most threatened vertebrates. An increasing number of environmental challenges, including habitat loss, pathogens, and global warming, demand a global response toward the sustainable management of ecosystems and their biodiversity. Conservation Breeding Programs (CBPs) are needed for the sustainable management of amphibian species threatened with extinction. CBPs support species survival while increasing public awareness and political influence. Current CBPs only cater for 10% of the almost 500 amphibian species in need. However, the use of sperm storage to increase efficiency and reliability, along with an increased number of CBPs, offer the potential to significantly reduce species loss. The establishment and refinement of techniques over the last two decades, for the collection and storage of amphibian spermatozoa, gives confidence for their use in CBPs and other biotechnical applications. Cryopreserved spermatozoa has produced breeding pairs of frogs and salamanders and the stage is set for Lifecycle Proof of Concept Programs that use cryopreserved sperm in CBPs along with repopulation, supplementation, and translocation programs. The application of cryopreserved sperm in CBPs, is complimentary to but separate from archival gene banking and general cell and tissue storage. However, where appropriate amphibian sperm banking should be integrated into other global biobanking projects, especially those for fish, and those that include the use of cryopreserved material for genomics and other research. Research over a broader range of amphibian species, and more uniformity in experimental methodology, is needed to inform both theory and application. Genomics is revolutionising our understanding of biological processes and increasingly guiding species conservation through the identification of evolutionary significant units as the conservation focus, and through revealing the intimate relationship between evolutionary history and sperm physiology that ultimately affects the amenability of sperm to refrigerated or frozen storage. In the present review we provide a nascent phylogenetic framework for integration with other research lines to further the potential of amphibian sperm banking.

Comparison between official priority studies guidelines and Protected Areas created in Brazil

The current rates of biodiversity loss are amongst the major global environmental problems, especially in the tropics. The creation of Protected Areas (PAs) is the most widespread strategy adopted for the minimization of such problem. However, official studies that guide the creation of PAs frequently do not convert their outcomes into conservation. This problem is not expected in Brazil, because scientific studies for the definition of priority areas for conservation were ordered by the same institutions in charge of the creation and management of PAs. In this paper, we compared the spatial distribution of PAs created in Brazil in the past decade with studies of priority areas for the protection of biodiversity. At a federal level of analysis, 19.44% of federal PAs are located in non-priority sites, which represents 0.47% of the total land area of federal PAs created. At a state level, 71.05% of state PAs are located in non-priority sites, which represents 60.68% of the total land area of state PAs created. In 2015, the total cost for the preservation of PAs in non-priority classes was US$ 17,539.30 (3.28% of the annual budget for federal PAs created after 2007) at federal level and US$ 541,745.02 (55.98% of the annual budget for state PAs created after 2008) at state level. The findings contribute to the development of strategies for the creation of new PAs in Brazil.

Correction: Process strengths determine the forms of the relationship between plant species richness and primary productivity.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185884.].

Do Wildlife Matter?

In today’s complex landscape, there is increasing competition for available space and resources. Global human population growth and associated landscape change, intensify space demands, resulting in the allocation of human priorities. At the 22nd Annual Conference of The Wildlife Society, held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wildlife professionals grappled over these challenges and the inevitable question of whether wildlife matter within our presentday convoluted world. Currently, there is a myriad of inter-related issues that we now face: human overpopulation, unsustainable lifestyles, large-scale factory farming of animals, vast monoculture landscapes, an alarming rate of global biodiversity loss, shrinking fresh water supplies, global climate change, and desperate human poverty. The Center for Biological Diversity (2014) indicates we are now experiencing the worst loss of species since the time of the dinosaurs, 65 million year ago. If the current rate of biodiversity loss continues, we will experience one of the most extreme extinction events since the age of the dinosaurs, primarily attributed to human overpopulation and overconsumption Wilson [1]. Even the concept of what is natural in today’s global landscape has us in debate. It is difficult for us to define what the term natural means any more. Many different groups have varying definitions of what nature is and we seldom even agree on how to define the term. There is no question that humans leave large footprints wherever we go. As Jennifer Wolch suggests, many contend that development makes use of “empty” land, improving the converted spaces Wolch [2] into the seemingly best use, not recognizing these “empty” spaces as critically important ecologically and biologically diverse environments.

Process strengths determine the forms of the relationship between plant species richness and primary productivity.

The current rates of biodiversity loss have exceeded the rates observed during the earth’s major extinction events, which spurs the studies of the ecological relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions, stability, and services to determine the consequences of biodiversity loss. Plant species richness-productivity relationship (SRPR) is crucial to the understanding of these relationships in plants. Most ecologists have reached a widespread consensus that the loss of plant diversity undoubtedly impairs ecosystem functions, and have proposed many processes to explain the SRPR. However, none of the available studies has satisfactorily described the forms and mechanisms clarifying the SRPR. Observed results of the SRPR forms are inconsistent, and studies have long debated the ecological processes explaining the SRPR. Here, I have developed a simple model that combines the positive and/or negative effects of sixteen ecological processes on the SRPR and models that describe the dynamics of complementary-selection effect, density effect, and the interspecific competitive stress influenced by other ecological processes. I can regulate the strengths of the effects of these ecological processes to derive the asymptotic, positive, humped, negative, and irregular forms of the SRPR, and verify these forms using the observed data. The results demonstrated that the different strengths of the ecological processes determine the forms of the SRPR. The forms of the SRPR can change with variations in the strengths of the ecological processes. The dynamic characteristics of the complementary-selection effect, density effect, and the interspecific competitive stress on the SRPR are diverse, and are dependent on the strengths and variation of the ecological processes. This report explains the diverse forms of the SRPR, clarifies the integrative effects of the different ecological processes on the SRPR, and deepens our understanding of the interactions that occur among these ecological processes.

Effects of recent environmental change on accuracy of inferences of extinction status.

Correctly classifying a species as extinct or extant is of critical importance if current rates of biodiversity loss are to be accurately quantified. Observing an extinction event is rare, so in many cases extinction status is inferred using methods based on the analysis of records of historic sighting events. The accuracy of such methods is difficult to test. However, results of recent experiments with microcosm communities suggest that the rate at which a population declines to extinction, potentially driven by varying environmental conditions, may alter one's ability accurately to infer extinction status. We tested how the rate of population decline, driven by historic environmental change, alters the accuracy of 6 commonly applied sighting-based methods used to infer extinction. We used data from small-scale experimental communities and recorded wild population extirpations. We assessed how accuracy of the different methods was affected by rate of population decline, search effort, and number of sighting events recorded. Rate of population decline and historic population size of the species affected the accuracy of inferred extinction dates; however, faster declines produced more accurate inferred dates of extinction, but only when population sizes were higher. Optimal linear estimation (OLE) offered the most reliable and robust estimates, though no single method performed best in all situations, and it may be appropriate to use a different method if information regarding historic search efforts is available. OLE provided the most accurate estimates of extinction when the number of sighting events used was >10, and future use of this method should take this into account. Data from experimental populations provide added insight into testing techniques to discern wild extirpation events. Care should be taken designing such experiments so that they mirror closely the abundance dynamics of populations affected by real-world extirpation events.

跨界保护区网络构建研究进展

跨界保护区网络是生物多样性保护网络的一种特殊形式，对保护国家或地区边界线附近丰富的生物多样性具有重要意义。构建跨界保护区网络已被列为《生物多样性公约》（Convention on Biological Diversity）框架下“保护区工作组”的一项战略任务，涉及生态、环境、经济、政治等多个领域，成为全球保护区研究领域的热点问题之一。然而，目前我国对跨界保护区的研究尚处于起步阶段，在如何构建不同尺度的跨界保护区网络等方面的研究仍有待进一步加强。在分析了全球、洲际、两个或多个国家和地区之间等不同尺度跨界保护区网络研究的基础上，综述了国内外基于“节点”-“廊道”模式的跨界保护区网络构建研究进展，并结合我国跨界保护区网络建设的实际情况，对我国未来跨界保护区网络构建研究进行了展望。;Current rate of biodiversity loss has been far greater than the natural rates from fossil record. The most common conservation strategy is the establishment of protected areas network. As a special form of biodiversity conservation networks, the transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) network is designed to protect key ecosystems and high biodiversity areas among different countries or regions. The establishment of TBPAs network had been listed as one of the major goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which concerned both ecological/environmental issues and social/political issues. The TBPAs network may span international, interprovincial, or regional boundaries, which is normally composed of transboundary nodes and corridors. However, the establishment mode of TBPAs network in different scales (e.g., the global scale, the continental scale, and among different countries or regions scale) is still poorly reviewed. And studies on TBPAs network in China is still in its initial stage. <br>In this paper, wereview related studies on TBPAs network in different scales, and methodological studies on the TBPAs network establishment based on the node - corridor mode. In general, the node of one TBPAs network should be areas with high conservation value, high species richness, more endangered species, or key biodiversity resources. And the development of transboundary corridor can connect different transboundary nodes into a TBPAs network, which can facilitate the flow of gene, energy, and substance. We also discuss the TBPAs network status across China, such as the TBPAs among China, Russia, and Mongolia in the northeast, the TBPAs among China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia in the northwest, and the TBPAs among China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the southwest. Finally, we recommend potential studies on TBPAs network in China: 1) enhancing the TBPAs network studies in larger scales; 2) proposing TBPAs network method and management model suitable to China; 3) evaluating the effectiveness of TBPAs network; 4) studying new issues related to the TBPAs network; and 5) developing integrated policy and institution of the TBPAs.

The geometric mean of relative abundance indices: a biodiversity measure with a difference

The 2010 Biodiversity Target of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), set in 2002, which stated that there should be ‘a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss' by 2010, highlighted the need for informative and tractable metrics that can be used to evaluate change in biological diversity. While the subsequent Aichi 2020 targets are more wide-ranging, they also seek to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss. The geometric mean of relative abundance indices, G, is increasingly being used to examine trends in biological diversity and to assess whether biodiversity targets are being met. Here, we explore the mathematical and statistical properties of G that make it useful for judging temporal change in biological diversity, and we discuss its advantages and limitations relative to other measures. We demonstrate that the index reflects trends in both abundance and evenness, and that it is not prone to bias when detectability of individuals varies by species. We note that it allows data from different surveys to be combined to generate a composite index. However, the index exhibits high variance and unstable behaviour when rarely-recorded species are included in the analyses.

Conservation of Mediterranean habitats and biodiversity countdowns: what information do we really need?

Abstract The relentless increase in both human activities and exploitation of marine resources is a threat to marine habitats and species. For marine systems, several protection initiatives have been outlined over the past decade to significantly reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional, and national levels, and to establish representative networks of marine protected areas with the aim of protecting 10–30% of marine habitats. Reliable estimates of the total area occupied by each habitat are crucial to set adequate protection initiatives. Habitat mapping requires a sound habitat classification. Many classification schemes have been developed in different areas of the world, sometimes based on questionable criteria. A critical analysis of the most recent marine habitat classification list produced for the Mediterranean Sea from the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA) showed that (i) 39% of habitats and associated species considered in the list are scarcely covered by scientific knowledge from Web‐based resources; (ii) 62% of the species/genera included in the list are primary producers; (iii) quantitative information about the geographical distribution of selected habitats and associated species is scant; and (iv) when available, information is largely unbalanced and biased towards the shallow western Mediterranean Sea. Improved inventories of marine habitats are needed to support accurate and consistent mapping activities. The combination of large‐scale mapping and sound habitat classifications will allow better estimates of biodiversity distribution, to reverse regional/global habitat loss rates through the achievement of conservation targets and deadlines that, for the moment, are systematically not met. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

B. Finland

During the year 2010, Finland focused intensely on policies related to biological diversity, the theme for the year declared by the United Nations. The world community had committed to the Biodiversity Target set out in the biodiversity regime (and endorsed by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and later by the UN General Assembly), which was to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth. Even though only modest progress was made towards this target, the tenth Conference of the Parties (COP-10), which was held in Nagoya, Japan, on 18-29 October, gave an extra impetus to the focus on biodiversity. Even though the Biodiversity Target was not achieved, COP-10 was able—after more than six years of negotiations—to adopt the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization. The agreement opens the way for countries that use genetic resources and those that provide such resources to enter into contracts based on prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms that contribute to economic development as well as to the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of its components.

2010 and beyond for Lepidoptera

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was an outcome of the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In 2002 the Convention committed the European Union (EU) and (currently) 192 other countries ‘‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level’’ (Anonymous 2010). The EU set an even more ambitious target: ‘‘...to protect and restore habitats and natural systems and halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010...’’ (Anonymous 2001). In March 2010, Butterfly Conservation held its 6th International Symposium on the topic, ‘The 2010 Target and Beyond for Lepidoptera’, to assess progress towards the target, report advances in conservation science, and look to the future. This volume presents a collection of papers from that meeting. Evidence presented at the Symposium from across the world was bleak, with no evidence that the EU and CBD target had been met (Asher et al. 2011; Brereton et al. 2011; Caritg et al. 2011; Fox et al. 2011; Groenendijk and Ellis 2011; Lewis and Senior 2011; Nakamura 2011; Safian et al. 2011; Stefanescu et al. 2011). At the global scale the general trend for Lepidoptera is one of decline, and the overall trend for biodiversity is of a continuous and accelerating decline. In May 2010 the CBD published its overall assessment of progress towards the 2010 target and reported failure (Anonymous 2010). The 2002 CBD and EU targets were ambitious, and, despite not being met, they did manage to place conservation and biodiversity firmly on global and national political and development agendas and provided mechanisms for raising public awareness. Failure can be a powerful stimulus to renewed action, especially if the reasons for failure are identified. New CBD 2020 targets are now being formulated (Djoghlaf 2010) alongside a vision for 2050. Initial progress suggests there will be a much closer integration of biodiversity with climate change adaptation/mitigation, ecosystem services, human health and the economic benefits of biodiversity (Djoghlaf 2010). Papers in this collection examine some of the likely impacts of climate change on Lepidoptera (e.g. de Vries et al. 2011; Wilson and Maclean 2011). Whilst climate change is an issue and will become an even bigger issue in the future, biodiversity loss is already a problem and likely to become worse unless measures are taken now. For some Lepidoptera there is a real and imminent threat of local, regional and global extinction. For such species, urgent action is needed now and climate change is a distant threat. The papers here outline the issues, and some demonstrate how approaches based on sound conservation science can improve the status of species, both preventing imminent extinction and making populations more resilient to future climate change (e.g. Ellis et al. 2011; Porter and Ellis 2011). Meeting the new CBD targets, will require well researched solutions and this volume contains contributions to the challenges ahead under the broad headings of the Science of Conservation Management and Landscape-scale Conservation. Jeremy Thomas, for example, distills a lifetime of experience working with endangered species to identify key factors of importance in butterfly conservation J. W. Dover (&) Institute for Environment, Sustainability and Regeneration, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DE, UK e-mail: j.w.dover@staffs.ac.uk

Toward Meaningful End Points of Biodiversity in Life Cycle Assessment

Halting current rates of biodiversity loss will be a defining challenge of the 21st century. To assess the effectiveness of strategies to achieve this goal, indicators and tools are required that monitor the driving forces of biodiversity loss, the changing state of biodiversity, and evaluate the effectiveness of policy responses. Here, we review the use of indicators and approaches to model biodiversity loss in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a methodology used to evaluate the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts of products. We find serious conceptual shortcomings in the way models are constructed, with scale considerations largely absent. Further, there is a disproportionate focus on indicators that reflect changes in compositional aspects of biodiversity, mainly changes in species richness. Functional and structural attributes of biodiversity are largely neglected. Taxonomic and geographic coverage remains problematic, with the majority of models restricted to one or a few taxonomic groups and geographic regions. On a more general level, three of the five drivers of biodiversity loss as identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are represented in current impact categories (habitat change, climate change and pollution), while two are missing (invasive species and overexploitation). However, methods across all drivers can be greatly improved. We discuss these issues and make recommendations for future research to better reflect biodiversity loss in LCA.

The biodiversity quality of butterfly sites: A metadata assessment

1. Recent political agreements mandate that the current rate of biodiversity loss is reduced by 2010 (the 2010 target). In Europe one of the 26 indicators given for this assessment is butterfly biodiversity which therefore requires butterfly biodiversity to be measured. Feest et al. (2010) advocates that this can be done using the concept of “Biodiversity Quality”. 2. “Biodiversity Quality” measurement requires data analysis based on a series of indices examined both independently and jointly, rather than the use of a single measure such as species richness or a single composite index. We show that, where the theoretical base of sampling is sound, data collected with a simple analytical procedure in mind, can generate far more information than envisaged initially. An example of the compilation of “Biodiversity Quality” indicators is given for a site in the Dutch butterfly monitoring scheme (de Vlinderstichting) and two sites are compared for difference. 3. A scheme showing how changes in the different indices might be interpreted to show change in biodiversity quality is given. 4. These butterfly data are important from the perspective of the 2010 targets because: (i) they represent invertebrates, which comprise over half of all terrestrial species; (ii) they are based on relatively long time series; and (iii) they provide a model against which similar programmes can be designed for other taxonomic groups.

The International Year of Biodiversity: A Celebration and Cogitation

To both celebrate and reflect upon this International Year of Biodiversity, Biotropica has invited opinion articles from a number of scientists across the globe. As lightly edited personal opinions, the commentaries reflect the diversity of passionate and often controversial views expressed across the scientific community. Thus, these commentaries should provide much food for thought, and hopefully some inspiration, on how we perceive biodiversity on our currently human-dominated planet and how we should respond to its loss. BY DECLARING 2010 AS THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY (see http://www.cbd.int/2010/about/), the United Nations has sought to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity and ‘to elevate biological diversity nearer to the top of the political agenda’ (Johns 2009). Perhaps it is also atonement for the conclusive failure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity Target, which sought to ‘achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth’ (COP 6 Decision VI/26.11). Although this background is not promising, we should certainly promote and publicize this Year of Biodiversity to both celebrate the considerable biodiversity that remains as well as to raise awareness of how much there is to lose. Biotropica is celebrating this Year of Biodiversity by presenting this Special Section on biodiversity, representing the variously diverse opinions and thoughts of tropical scientists from across the globe. We have asked these tropical biologists to present, from their own perspective, their views about some aspect of biodiversity, biodiversity research or conservation that they feel passionate about. To preserve the personal style of each contribution, the editorial hand has been applied lightly. The resulting collection of Commentaries gives plenty of material for thought, discussion and debate, and we hope that this will, indeed, be the legacy of this Special Section. More than this, though, we also hope that this collection of papers will stimulate our readers to be challenged to think beyond the matters that most immediately concern them in their research activities. No doubt all our readers already do this to some extent, in which case these Commentaries will add further food for thought. No doubt also that some of these Commentaries might enlighten you, dear reader, while others will infuriate you, but we hope that they will, collectively, be enjoyed. The topics covered by the Commentaries are diverse, and as such may be a good sketch of the diversity we encounter among tropical ecosystems and tropical biologists. As an editorial team, we did what most ecologists do: we categorized the commentaries into groups sharing similar characteristics and sought to identify the general patterns found within each category. We largely failed, but by doing so, we effectively succeeded in our original intention of soliciting the personal and diverse views of our invited contributors. This in turn has given us pause for thought. If this collection of established ecologists and conservationists is unable to deliver an overarching coherent perspective about what really matters in biodiversity research and conservation, then what chance is there of communicating the nature of the challenge of biodiversity loss, and solutions to this challenge, to a wider public and its political leadership? Maybe the solution is beyond the reach of the tropical ecology community, and maybe it lies in other fields of science and enquiry. Maybe the solutions should be founded far more in political activism and engagement than in pure or applied science. Or perhaps this diversity of views from scientists encapsulates the multiplicity of solutions that is needed for a truly successful approach. All of these possibilities are found in the diversity of Commentaries you will find in the following pages.

International year of biodiversity: missed targets and the need for better monitoring, real action and global policy

International year of biodiversity: missed targets and the need for better monitoring, real action and global policy

Development of a genetic indicator of biodiversity for farm animals

In 2002, Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity made a commitment to “achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level”. In order to assess progress towards the 2010 target a limited number of indicators of biodiversity need to be developed using existing data. The objectives of this study were i) to produce an indicator of genetic diversity for livestock species; and ii) to evaluate the proposed indicator in UK sheep and cattle. The indicator proposed is the species average effective population size ( N e) for the lower tail of the distribution of N e across breeds within the species. It is sensitive to i) genetic variation within breeds, as it is based on the N e of individual breeds, and ii) what is happening to breeds most at risk of disappearing. A total of 31 sheep and 20 cattle UK breed societies provided the information required for estimating N e. This represents 53% of sheep and 58% of cattle breeds native to the UK. For breeds with pedigrees available, N e was estimated from rates of change in inbreeding. For breeds with no pedigree information, N e was estimated from predictive equations assuming mass selection on a trait with a heritability of 0.4. For each species, the indicator was calculated by i) estimating N e for each breed; ii) calculating the distribution of N e; iii) finding the average N e for the lower 20% tail of the distribution. In step iii), 20% was chosen because, given the number of breeds with available information, it provides a good compromise between giving high weight to the breeds most at risk, without being too sensitive to events surrounding a single breed. For sheep, the indicator values were 36 and 41 animals for years 2001 and 2007, respectively. Equivalent values for cattle were 26 and 34. Bootstrapping was used to assess if these changes over time would have been observed with data from all native breeds. There was no evidence that the small increase in the value of the sheep indicator, predicted from the available sample of breed data, would have been observed with all breeds. However, there was evidence ( P < 0.05) to support that an increase would have been observed with data from all cattle breeds.