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Action to reduce anthropogenic impact on the environment and species within it will be most effective when targeted towards activities that have the greatest impact on biodiversity. To do this effectively we need to better understand the relative importance of different activities and how they drive changes in species’ populations. Here, we present a novel, flexible framework that reviews evidence for the relative importance of these drivers of change and uses it to explain recent alterations in species’ populations. We review drivers of change across four hundred species sampled from a broad range of taxonomic groups in the UK. We found that species’ population change (~1970–2012) has been most strongly impacted by intensive management of agricultural land and by climatic change. The impact of the former was primarily deleterious, whereas the impact of climatic change to date has been more mixed. Findings were similar across the three major taxonomic groups assessed (insects, vascular plants and vertebrates). In general, the way a habitat was managed had a greater impact than changes in its extent, which accords with the relatively small changes in the areas occupied by different habitats during our study period, compared to substantial changes in habitat management. Of the drivers classified as conservation measures, low-intensity management of agricultural land and habitat creation had the greatest impact. Our framework could be used to assess the relative importance of drivers at a range of scales to better inform our policy and management decisions. Furthermore, by scoring the quality of evidence, this framework helps us identify research gaps and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate has been widely regarded as the main determinant of the geographical distribution of species. Biotic interactions between co-occurring species, however, are an important additional influence. We review the importance of interactions with food and nectar plants (as resources) in determining the distribution of phytophagous and pollinating insects (as consumers). We use biological recording datasets for seven taxonomic groups to quantify the relationship between the geographical distributions within Britain of 1265 phytophagous insects and their associated food plants, representing 9128 interactions in total. We find a consistent pattern across taxonomic groups in that individual phytophagous insect species rarely utilize the full range of their food plants and the relationship between the range sizes of insects and their food plants is not a simple linear one. For a small selection of phytophagous species where data are available, we highlight an association between changes in range and interactions with associated food plant species. Climate-driven range expansion may be constrained through disruption of trophic relationships between phytophagous insects and their food plants if they respond differently to abiotic drivers. By contrast, range expansion may be facilitated by temporary escape from natural enemies and/or exploitation of novel food plants that enable a broader set of habitats to be utilized. In a changing environment, some existing interactions will be disrupted but opportunities for novel interactions will also emerge, producing new assemblages and changes in distributions that will be dynamic yet hard to predict. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, ●●, ●●-●●. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are large variations in the responses of species to the environmental changes of recent decades, heightening interest in whether their traits may explain inter-specific differences in range expansions and contractions. Using a long-term distributional dataset, we calculated range changes of grasshoppers and crickets in Britain between the 1980s and the 2000s and assessed whether their traits (resource use, life history, dispersal ability, geographic location) explain relative performance of different species. Our analysis showed large changes in the distributions of some species, and we found a positive relationship between three traits and range change: ranges tended to increase for habitat generalists, species that oviposit in the vegetation above ground, and for those with a southerly distribution. These findings accord well with the nature of environmental changes over this period (climatic warming; reductions in the diversity and increases in the height of vegetation). However, the trait effects applied mainly to just two species, Conocephalus discolor and Metrioptera roeselii, which had shown the greatest range increases. Once they were omitted from the analysis, trait effects were no longer statistically significant. Previous studies on these two species emphasised wing-length dimorphism as the key to their success, resulting in a high phenotypic plasticity of dispersal and evolutionary-ecological feedback at their expanding range margins. This, combined with our results, suggests that an unusual combination of traits have enabled these two species to undertake extremely rapid responses to recent environmental changes. The fact that our results are dominated by two species only became apparent through cautious testing of the results’ robustness, not through standard statistical checks. We conclude that trait-based analyses may contribute to the assessment of species responses to environmental change and provide insights into underlying mechanisms, but results need to be interpreted with caution and may have limited predictive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we determine annual estimates of occupancy and species trends for 5,293 UK bryophytes, lichens, and invertebrates, providing national scale information on UK biodiversity change for 31 taxonomic groups for the time period 1970 to 2015. The dataset was produced through the application of a Bayesian occupancy modelling framework to species occurrence records supplied by 29 national recording schemes or societies (n = 24,118,549 records). In the UK, annual measures of species status from fine scale data (e.g. 1 × 1 km) had previously been limited to a few taxa for which structured monitoring data are available, mainly birds, butterflies, bats and a subset of moth species. By using an occupancy modelling framework designed for use with relatively low recording intensity data, we have been able to estimate species trends and generate annual estimates of occupancy for taxa where annual trend estimates and status were previously limited or unknown at this scale. These data broaden our knowledge of UK biodiversity and can be used to investigate variation in and drivers of biodiversity change. Measurement(s) Occupancy • Species • biodiversity assessment objective Technology Type(s) occupancy modelling • biological records • Trends Factor Type(s) species Sample Characteristic - Organism Lichens • Invertebrates • Bryophytes Sample Characteristic - Location United Kingdom Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.9977426 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important for conservationists to be able to assess the risks that climate change poses to species, in order to inform decision making. Using standardised and repeatable methods, we present a national-scale assessment of the risks of range loss and opportunities for range expansion that climate change could pose for over 3000 plants and animals. Species were selected by their occurrence in England, the primary focus of the study, but climate change impacts were assessed across Great Britain, widening their geographical relevance. A basic risk assessment that compared projected future changes in potential range with recently observed changes classified 21% of species as being at high risk and 6% at medium risk of range loss under a B1 climate change scenario. A greater number of species were classified as having a medium (16%) or high (38%) opportunity to potentially expand their distribution. A more comprehensive assessment, incorporating additional ecological information, including potentially confounding and exacerbating factors (e.g. dispersal, habitat availability and other constraints), was applied to 402 species, of which 35% were at risk of range loss and 42% may expand their range extent. This study covers a temperate region with a significant proportion of species at their poleward range limit; the balance of risks and opportunities from climate change may be different elsewhere. The outcome of both risk assessments varied between taxonomic groups, with bryophytes and vascular plants containing the greatest proportion of species at risk from climate change. Upland habitats contained more species at risk than other habitats. Whilst the overall pattern was clear, confidence was generally low for individual assessments, with the exception of well-studied taxa such as birds. In response to climate change, nature conservation needs to plan for changing species distributions and an uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]