Search

Conservation biologists have a daunting task of understanding the causes of species decline associated with anthropogenic factors and predicting the extinction risk of a growing number of endangered species. By reducing variances of estimates with information on closely related species, phylogenetic information among species can bridge gaps in information on species with small range sizes when modelling large numbers of endangered species. However, modelling many species with the Gaussian process (GP), which underlies the evolutionary process of phylogenetic random effects, remains a challenge owing to the computational burden in estimating the large variance–covariance matrix.Here, we applied a phylogenetic generalised mixed model with random slopes and random intercepts to 1010 endangered vascular plant taxa in Japan following phylogenetic GPs implemented by nearest neighbour GP (NNGP) approximation. NNGP enables flexibility in changing the proximity on the phylogenetic tree of species from which information is borrowed to reduce the variances of estimates with a realistic computational burden. We evaluated the effectiveness of phylogenetic models by comparing the predictive performance and descriptive power of phylogenetic and non‐phylogenetic models and identified the anthropogenic factors contributing to the decline of each of the studied endangered species.We found that the model with phylogenetic information had better prediction performance than the model without phylogenetic information. The results showed that across all explanatory variables, the phylogenetic model could detect interspecific differences in response to environmental factors in a number of species more clearly. Combined with the phylogenetic signal results, we could also detect a phylogenetic bias in the species that could benefit from the positive effects of protected areas but reduce the local extinctions of 95% of all studied taxa.In conclusion, our model, considering phylogenetic information with NNGP, allows the elucidation of factors causing the decline of many endangered species. In future analyses, the estimation of extinction probability linked to environmental change might be applied to future climate–land use scenarios, advancing the comprehensive assessment of biodiversity degradation and threats to species at multiple scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land abandonment may decrease biodiversity but also provides an opportunity for rewilding. It is therefore necessary to identify areas that may benefit from traditional land management practices and those that may benefit from a lack of human intervention. In this study, we conducted comparative field surveys of butterfly occurrence in abandoned and inhabited settlements in 18 regions of diverse climatic zones in Japan to test the hypotheses that species-specific responses to land abandonment correlate with climatic niches and habitat preferences. Hierarchical models that unified species occurrence and habitat preferences revealed that negative responses to land abandonment were associated with species that have cold climatic niches and use open habitats, suggesting that species negatively impacted by land abandonment will decline more due to future climate warming. Maps representing species gains and losses due to land abandonment, which were created from the model estimates, showed similar geographical patterns, but some areas exhibited high species losses relative to gains. Our hierarchical modelling approach was useful for scaling up local-scale effects of land abandonment to a macro-scale assessment, which is crucial to developing spatial conservation strategies in the era of depopulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating a win-win relationship between biodiversity and human well-being is one of the major current challenges for environmental policy. One way to approach this challenge is to identify sites with both high biodiversity and high human interest in urban areas. Here, we propose a new systematic approach to identify such sites by using land prices and biodiversity indexes for butterflies and birds from a nationwide perspective. As a result, we found sites that are valuable to humans and to other organisms, including national red-list species, and they are located in sites with cultural heritages and near seaside. By referencing the habitat features and landscape characteristics of these sites, we can establish high quality environments that provide a benefit to both humans and biodiversity in urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land abandonment may decrease biodiversity but also provides an opportunity for rewilding. It is therefore necessary to identify areas that may benefit from traditional land management practices and those that may benefit from a lack of human intervention. In this study, we conducted comparative field surveys of butterfly occurrence in abandoned and inhabited settlements in 18 regions of diverse climatic zones in Japan to test the hypotheses that species-specific responses to land abandonment correlate with climatic niches and habitat preferences. Hierarchical models that unified species occurrence and habitat preferences revealed that negative responses to land abandonment were associated with species that have cold climatic niches and use open habitats, suggesting that species negatively impacted by land abandonment will decline more due to future climate warming. Maps representing species gains and losses due to land abandonment, which were created from the model estimates, showed similar geographical patterns, but some areas exhibited high species losses relative to gains. Our hierarchical modelling approach was useful for scaling up local-scale effects of land abandonment to a macro-scale assessment, which is crucial to developing spatial conservation strategies in the era of depopulation.