Vânia Proença

Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale

Human-driven global change is causing ongoing declines in biodiversity worldwide. In order to address these declines, decision-makers need accurate assessments of the status of and pressures on biodiversity. However, these are heavily constrained by incomplete and uneven spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. For instance, data from regions such as Europe and North America are currently used overwhelmingly for large-scale biodiversity assessments due to lesser availability of suitable data from other, more biodiversity-rich, regions. These data-poor regions are often those experiencing the strongest threats to biodiversity, however. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the existing gaps in global biodiversity monitoring. Here, we review current knowledge on best practice in capacity building for biodiversity monitoring and provide an overview of existing means to improve biodiversity data collection considering the different types of biodiversity monitoring data. Our review comprises insights from work in Africa, South America, Polar Regions and Europe; in government-funded, volunteer and citizen-based monitoring in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The key steps to effectively building capacity in biodiversity monitoring are: identifying monitoring questions and aims; identifying the key components, functions, and processes to monitor; identifying the most suitable monitoring methods for these elements, carrying out monitoring activities; managing the resultant data; and interpreting monitoring data. Additionally, biodiversity monitoring should use multiple approaches including extensive and intensive monitoring through volunteers and professional scientists but also harnessing new technologies. Finally, we call on the scientific community to share biodiversity monitoring data, knowledge and tools to ensure the accessibility, interoperability, and reporting of biodiversity data at a global scale.

A Synthesis is Emerging between Biodiversity–Ecosystem Function and Ecological Resilience Research: Reply to Mori

A recent paper by Mori [1] states the need for a unification of studies of ‘engineering’ and ‘ecological’ frameworks of resilience. Engineering resilience focuses on the capacity of a system to recover to equilibrium following some kind of perturbation, while ecological resilience (ER) explicitly recognizes multiple stable states and the capacity for systems to resist ‘regime shifts’ between alternative states. We find Moris argument somewhat surprising given the number of recent biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (B-EF) studies that incorporate aspects of both resistance and recovery (e.g., see references in [2,3]).

Comparing Extinction Rates: Past, Present, and Future

The last centuries were marked by a steep increase of human population and by the intensification of anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and natural communities. Today, the rate of species extinction is almost two orders of magnitude higher than the natural background extinction rate, and may escalate one or two orders of magnitude further according to the projections of future extinctions. If realized, projected extinction rates would be comparable to the extinction rates during past mass extinctions. This article looks at past, present, and future rates of extinction for a critical discussion on the severity, potential risks, and uncertainty associated with current and projected rates of extinction.

Monitoring Essential Biodiversity Variables at the Species Level

The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) is developing a monitoring framework around a set of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) which aims at facilitating data integration, spatial scaling and contributing to the filling of gaps. Here we build on this framework to explore the monitoring of EBV classes at the species level: species populations, species traits and community composition. We start by discussing cross-cutting issues on species monitoring such as the identification of the question to be addressed, the choice of variables, taxa and spatial sampling scheme. Next, we discuss how to monitor EBVs for specific taxa, including mammals, amphibians, butterflies and plants. We show how the monitoring of species EBVs allows monitoring changes in the supply of ecosystem services. We conclude with a discussion of challenges in upscaling local observations to global EBVs and how indicator and model development can help address this challenge.

Maintaining Disturbance-Dependent Habitats

Natural disturbances, or the lack thereof, contributed to shape Earth’s landscapes and maintain its diversity of ecosystems. In particular, natural fire dynamics and herbivory by wild megafauna played an essential role in defining European landscapes in pre-agricultural times. The advent of agriculture and the development of complex societies exacerbated the decline of European megafauna, leading to local and global extinctions of many species, and substantial alterations of fire regimes. Those natural phenomena were over time gradually and steadily replaced by anthropogenic disturbances. Yet, for the first time since the Black Death epidemic, agricultural land-use is decreasing in Europe. Less productive marginal areas have been progressively abandoned as crop and livestock production has become concentrated on the most fertile and easier to cultivate land. With little or no substitute for the anthropogenic disturbances associated with these abandoned agricultural practices, there is growing concern that disturbance-dependent communities may disappear, along with their associated ecosystem services. Nonetheless, rewilding can give an opportunity to tackle the issue of farmland abandonment. This chapter first depicts the historical European landscapes and the role of two natural disturbances, herbivory and fire. The importance of disturbance-dependent habitats is then highlighted by drawing attention to the alpha and beta diversity that they sustain. Finally, the chapter investigates options for rewilding abandoned land to maintain disturbance-dependent and self-sustained habitats for which we suggest active restoration in the early stages of abandonment. This may be achieved via prescribed burning and support or introduction, when necessary, of populations of wild mammals.

From Abandoned Farmland to Self-Sustaining Forests: Challenges and Solutions

Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal; IN+, Centro de Estudos em Inovacao, Tecnologia e Politicas de Desenvolvimento, Area Cientifica de Ambiente e Energia, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Avenida Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal; Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Group, Centro de Investigacao em Biodiversidade e Recursos Geneticos, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre s/n, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal

Ecosystem Changes, Biodiversity Loss and Human Well-Being

Biodiversity is the diversity of life on earth at various organizational levels, from genes to species and ecosystems. Biodiversity comprises the dynamic web of organisms and the interactions between them and the environment. Biodiversity is fundamental for the maintenance of ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are direct benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems, such as food and clean water, or indirect benefits, such as climate regulation and pollination. Human well-being is dependent on ecosystem services and thus on the condition of ecosystems. However, humans are placing increasing pressure on ecosystems, due to the exponential growth of world population over the past decades and increasing consumption patterns. As a result, ecosystems are being degraded and destroyed, resources are collapsing, and the loss of biodiversity has reached unprecedented levels. Ecosystem conditions are seriously threatened along with the maintenance of the benefits provided by ecosystems. The effects on human well-being are felt at several scales from local communities to the global population. Human well-being is being affected worldwide by the consequences of ecosystem changes and biodiversity loss, which include natural disasters, health problems, and poverty. Environmental sustainability is a key concept for the future, being fundamental to find solutions that preserve biodiversity and ecosystems, without disregarding peoples needs for ecosystem services and economical development.

Changes in the ecosystem services provided by forests and their economic valuation: a review

In this chapter we discuss the trends in forest change and the associated drivers, the economic value of forests, the principles and challenges in evaluating the economic value of forests, and the role of valuation in informing decision-making. We address current major forest conservation initiatives at different scales and the mechanisms involved, whether supported by economic valuation or not. Today, 30 % of the world’s forests are designated for productive functions, 24 % for multiple uses, 11.5 % for biodiversity conservation, 8.2 % for protective functions, and 3.7 % for social functions. The remaining 22.6 % are designated for other uses or remain unclassified. Global trends indicate that although the area of intensively managed forest continues to expand, the global extent of conservation and protective forests is also increasing as a result of political efforts to preserve and restore the ecological functions of forests. Forest management practices are potentially better supported by extended cost–benefit analyses that require an economic valuation of the whole array of benefits, whether market or non-market, provided by forests. Although we acknowledge other values and decision-making and support tools, the focus of the chapter is on the economic valuation approach. Our review in this chapter was guided by the goal of updating previous reviews of these topics. We have provided additional evidence that forests contribute to human well-being in many ways, and use the concept of ecosystem services as a building block to better understand, frame, and assess the economic benefits we derive from well-functioning forests.

Highly productive sown biodiverse pastures with low invasion risk

Driscoll et al. (1) have recently drawn attention to the risk of new pasture plants becoming invasive, because the same biological traits that promote pasture productivity may also facilitate the invasion of natural areas. The authors indicate some aspects that could mitigate the risk of invasion: namely, the use of native species to develop new pasture plants, the avoidance of new characteristics associated with environmental weeds, and the selection of new characteristics that limit invasion risk. Here we describe a system that meets the above criteria—specifically, the last one—through the existence of a mismatch between the environmental conditions found in managed and in natural areas, such that improved pasture plants face environmental limitations in natural areas while keeping a high performance in managed ones.

Remotely sensed indicators and open-access biodiversity data to assess bird diversity patterns in Mediterranean rural landscapes.

Changes in ecosystem area are often used to assess human impacts on habitats and estimate biodiversity change. However, because species respond to structural changes at fine spatial scales the use of area alone may not capture all relevant changes. Operational costs limit the assessment of biodiversity change at a simultaneously fine spatial resolution and large scales. The development of cost-effective and expedite methods to monitor biodiversity change is therefore required. We use open access satellite imagery and biodiversity data to investigate the importance of variables of habitat extent and structure in explaining species richness and community dissimilarity of forest and open-land birds at the regional scale. Moreover, because Mediterranean landscapes are subject to seasonal dynamics, we explore the indicator value of remotely sensed variables measured in spring and summer. A large-scale dataset of bird occurrence data, including 8042 observations and 78 species, distributed by 40 landscape-sized cells, was assembled from GBIF after controlling for data quality. We found that summer satellite imagery, when the green perennial vegetation is more apparent, is particularly suited to model the diversity patterns of forest species, because distribution of tree cover in the landscape is well captured. Summer data is also useful to monitor the perennial elements that shape landscape structure and the habitat of open-land species. Specifically, mean NDVI and a second-order NDVI texture variable, were found to be good indicators of forest and open-land habitats, respectively. The use of spring imagery appears to be useful to monitor habitat structure within open-land habitat patches. Overall, NDVI texture measures were found to be good predictors of bird diversity patterns at large scales. Also, we were able to successfully conduct a regional scale analysis using open-access data, which illustrates their potential to inform large scale biodiversity monitoring.