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The legacy of the ‘SL > SS principle’, that a single or a few large habitat patches (SL) conserve more species than several small patches (SS), is evident in decisions to protect large patches while down-weighting small ones. However, empirical support for this principle is lacking, and most studies find either no difference or the opposite pattern (SS > SL). To resolve this dilemma, we propose a research agenda by asking, ‘are there consistent, empirically demonstrated conditions leading to SL > SS?’ We first review and summarize ‘single large or several small’ (SLOSS) theory and predictions. We found that most predictions of SL > SS assume that between-patch variation in extinction rate dominates the outcome of the extinction–colonization dynamic. This is predicted to occur when populations in separate patches are largely independent of each other due to low between-patch movements, and when species differ in minimum patch size requirements, leading to strong nestedness in species composition along the patch size gradient. However, even when between-patch variation in extinction rate dominates the outcome of the extinction–colonization dynamic, theory can predict SS > SL. This occurs if extinctions are caused by antagonistic species interactions or disturbances, leading to spreading-of-risk of landscape-scale extinction across SS. SS > SL is also predicted when variation in colonization dominates the outcome of the extinction–colonization dynamic, due to higher immigration rates for SS than SL, and larger species pools in proximity to SS than SL. Theory that considers change in species composition among patches also predicts SS > SL because of higher beta diversity across SS than SL. This results mainly from greater environmental heterogeneity in SS due to greater variation in micro-habitats within and across SS habitat patches (‘across-habitat heterogeneity’), and/or more heterogeneous successional trajectories across SS than SL. Based on our review of the relevant theory, we develop the ‘SLOSS cube hypothesis’, where the combination of three variables – between-patch movement, the role of spreading-of-risk in landscape-scale population persistence, and across-habitat heterogeneity – predict the SLOSS outcome. We use the SLOSS cube hypothesis and existing SLOSS empirical evidence, to predict SL > SS only when all of the following are true: low between-patch movement, low importance of spreading-of-risk for landscape-scale population persistence, and low across-habitat heterogeneity. Testing this prediction will be challenging, as it will require many studies of species groups and regions where these conditions hold. Each such study would compare gamma diversity across multiple landscapes varying in number and sizes of patches. If the prediction is not generally supported across such tests, then the mechanisms leading to SL > SS are extremely rare in nature and the SL > SS principle should be abandoned.

Biodiversity underpins the fundamental elements for human well-being including food security, human health and access to clean water. In 2010, the Aichi Targets were adopted by world leaders to address the crisis of biodiversity loss. Despite conservation efforts, none of the Aichi Targets have been fully met. However, comprehensive analysis of the reasons for failure in terms of implementation mechanisms is, to date, rare and limited in scope. Here, we demonstrate that most parties did not set effective national targets in accordance with the Aichi Targets, and investments, knowledge and accountability for biodiversity conservation have been inadequate to enable effective implementation. We recommend that the new global targets under the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework should be adopted by parties as the minimum national targets to achieve the 2050 Vision. We propose that financial resources for biodiversity conservation are substantially increased through a variety of sources, including the deployment of new economic instruments such as payments for ecosystem services. In addition, science-policy interfaces at all levels need to be strengthened to integrate scientific, Indigenous and local knowledge to support decision-making. We suggest that a compliance and accountability mechanism, based on monitoring systems, is created to provide transparent and credible review of parties' implementation of the new global targets.

In the current Anthropocene Era, with numerous escalating challenges for biodiversity conservation, the inclusion of the social dimension into management decisions regarding wildlife and protected areas is critical to their success. By conducting 354 questionnaires in a Mediterranean protected area (the Biosphere Reserve of Bardenas Reales, Northern Spain), we aim to determine sociodemographic factors influencing knowledge levels and perceptions of species and functional groups as, emblematic and threatened. We found that hunters and animal husbandry workers knew more species than other social actors. Additionally, the perception of functional groups as threatened or emblematic differed between social actor groups, with statistically significant associations between perceptions and the characteristics of respondents. Interestingly, we found that although elusive steppe species are globally considered as endangered, these species were the least known by all social actor groups and rarely perceived as emblematic. This research is a novel approach and provides a better understanding of how perceptions can facilitate conservation decisions, particularly regarding endangered species

International audience; Species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it remains unknown whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. Here, we analysed the trajectories of 1827 plant species over time intervals of up to 78 years at 141 sites across mountain summits, forests, and lowland grasslands in Europe. We found, albeit with relatively small effect sizes, displacements of smaller- by larger-ranged species across habitats. Communities shifted in parallel towards more nutrient-demanding species, with species from nutrient-rich habitats having larger ranges. Because these species are typically strong competitors, declines of smaller-ranged species could reflect not only abiotic drivers of global change, but also biotic pressure from increased competition. The ubiquitous component of turnover based on species range size we found here may partially reconcile findings of no net loss in local diversity with global species loss, and link community-scale turnover to macroecological processes such as biotic homogenisation.

Context Land cover change is a global multi-scale process affecting ecosystems, with potential implications for ecological processes and for the biological communities that support them. Land cover changes are especially relevant for protected areas where long-term ecosystem stability is a critical aspect of protecting and maintaining high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Objectives To understand the extent of land cover change impact on global ecosystem stability of protected areas across time and space. Methods Here we analysed 23 years of global spatial and temporal distribution of land cover change its occurrence within protected areas. We investigated whether higher land cover change rates occurred inside or outside protected areas, identified the main type of changes, and their distribution by UN region. Results Our results show that from 1992 to 2015, 4.89% of the world’s land surface changed from one land cover to another, with 97.9% of this change persisting until the end of the time period. We found that regions with higher land cover change, tend to have a higher incidence of change close to protected areas, suggesting a spillover effect on these areas. Also, the proportion of change inside and outside protected areas varied considerably across UN Regions. Conclusions Our results suggest that to reach current global conservation targets, it is not enough to increase the targets of protected area coverage. Instead, governments and conservation management agencies should account for regional specificities, and pay attention to the territories surrounding protected areas to develop strategies to reduce spillover effects.

Urban expansion poses a serious threat to biodiversity. Given that the expected area of urban land cover is predicted to increase by 2-3 million km2 by 2050, urban environments are one of the most widespread human-dominated land-uses affecting biodiversity. Responses to urbanization differ greatly among species. Some species are unable to tolerate urban environments (i.e., urban avoiders), others are able to adapt and use areas with moderate levels of urbanization (i.e., urban adapters), and yet others are able to colonize and even thrive in urban environments (i.e., urban exploiters). Quantifying species-specific responses to urbanization remains an important goal, but our current understanding of urban tolerance is heavily biased toward traditionally well-studied taxa (e.g., mammals and birds). We integrated a continuous measure of urbanization-night-time lights-with over 900,000 species' observations from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to derive a comprehensive analysis of species-specific (N = 158 species) responses of butterflies to urbanization across Europe. The majority of butterfly species included in our analysis avoided urban areas, regardless of whether species' urban affinities were quantified as a mean score of urban affinity across all occurrences (79%) or as a species' response curve to the whole urbanization gradient (55%). We then used species-specific responses to urbanization to assess which life history strategies promote urban affinity in butterflies. These trait-based analyses found strong evidence that the average number of flight months, likely associated with thermal niche breath, and number of adult food types were positively associated with urban affinity, while hostplant specialism was negatively associated with urban affinity. Overall, our results demonstrate that specialist butterflies, both in terms of thermal and diet preferences, are most at risk from increasing urbanization, and should thus be considered in urban planning and prioritized for conservation.

The ideal free distribution theory predicts that mobile species distribute themselves among habitat patches so as to optimize their fitness. Changes in land use alter the quality of habitat patches and thereby affect the distribution of species. Following the loss of native habitat, habitat specialists are expected to move to patches where native habitat still remains in order to survive. Competition for resources in habitat remnants should consequently increase. As generalists are able to use other habitats, generalists are expected to gradually disappear in remnants in order to avoid increasing competition with specialists. Here, we test these predictions by studying the response of habitat specialist and generalist birds to land-use change in Brazil's southern grasslands. Using a space-for-time substitution approach, we surveyed bird communities in native grassland sites (~4 ha) in 31 regions (10 × 10 km) with differing levels of conversion to agriculture (1–94%). We found a higher abundance of specialists in native grassland patches with increasing agricultural cover in the region, while the total number of individuals in remnants remained constant. At the same time, the share of generalists in total abundance and total species richness decreased. To gain insights into whether these patterns could be driven by shifts in competition, we tested whether generalists that continued to co-occur with specialists in remnants, had less dietary overlap with specialists. As a consequence of community composition in remnants, a higher proportion of generalists were omnivorous and the average generalist species fed less on seeds, whereas the average specialist species fed more on seeds when agricultural cover was high in the region. Our results, therefore, support predictions of the ideal free distribution theory. Specialists that are assumed to have a low survivorship outside of their specialized habitat, distribute to remnants of this habitat when it is converted elsewhere, while generalists, being able to survive in other habitats, disappear gradually in remnants. Such a process could partly explain the segregation of habitat specialist and generalist birds observed in many agricultural landscapes. Finally, our results suggest that native habitat remnants can be important temporary refugia for specialists.

We present a dataset that assembles occurrence records of alien tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) in the Iberian Peninsula, a coherent biogeographically unit where introductions of alien species have occurred for millennia. These data have important potential applications for ecological research and management, including the assessment of invasion risks, formulation of preventive and management plans, and research at the biological community level on alien species. This dataset summarizes inventories and data sources on the taxonomy and distribution of alien tetrapods in the Iberia Peninsula, comprising known locations from published literature, expert knowledge and citizen science platforms. An expert-based assessment process allowed the identification of unreliable records (misclassification or natural dispersion from native range), and the classification of species according to their status of reproduction in the wild. Distributional data was harmonized into a common area unit, the 10 × 10 km Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system (n = 6,152 cells). The year of observation and/or year of publication were also assigned to the records. In total, we assembled 35,940 unique distribution records (UTM × species × Year) for 253 species (6 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 218 birds and 13 mammals), spanning between 1912 and 2020. The species with highest number of distribution records were the Mediterranean painted frog Discoglossus pictus (n = 59 UTM), the pond slider Trachemys scripta (n = 471), the common waxbill Estrilda astrild (n = 1,275) and the house mouse Mus musculus (n = 4,043), for amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, respectively. Most alien species recorded are native to Africa (33%), followed by South America (21%), Asia (19%), North America (12%) and Oceania (10%). Thirty-six species are classified by IUCN as threatened in their native range, namely 2 Critically Endangered (CR), 6 Endangered (EN), 8 Vulnerable (VU), and 20 species Near Threatened (NT). Species maps are provided in DataSet1, as well R code and GIS layers to update them as new records are obtained.

Land-use change is currently the main driver of biodiversity loss. Projections of land-use change are often used to estimate potential impacts on biodiversity of future pathways of human development. However, such analyses frequently neglect that species can persist in human-modified habitats. Our aim was to estimate changes in biodiversity, considering affinities for multiple habitats, for three different land-use scenarios. Two scenarios focused on more sustainable trajectories of land-use change, based on either technological improvements (Pathway A) or societal changes (Pathway B), and the third reflected the historical or business-as-usual trends (Pathway 0). Using Portugal as a case study, we produced spatially-explicit projections of land-use change based on these pathways, and then we assessed the resulting changes in bird species richness and composition projected to occur by 2050 in each of the scenarios. By 2050, alpha and gamma diversity were projected to decrease, relative to 2010, in Pathway 0 and increase in Pathways A and B. However, different pathways favored different species groups, and presented strong regional differences. In the technological improvement pathway, loss of extensive agricultural areas led to an increase in both natural and extensive forest areas. In this pathway, forest species increase at the expense of farmland species, while in the societal change pathway the reverse occurs, as extensive agricultural areas were projected to increase. We show that while multiple positive pathways (A and B) for biodiversity can be envisioned, they will lead to differential impacts on biodiversity depending on the transformational changes in place and the regional socio-economic context. Our results suggest that considering compositional aspects of biodiversity can be critical in choosing the appropriate regional land-use policies.

[Aim] Farmland abandonment or “ecological rewilding” shapes species distribution and ecological process ultimately affecting the biodiversity and functionality of ecosystems. Land abandonment predictions based on alternative future socioeconomic scenarios allow foretell the future of biota in Europe. From here, we predict how these forecasts may affect large-scale distribution of the Cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus), an apex scavenger closely linked to Mediterranean agro-grazing systems., [Location] Iberian Peninsula., [Methods] Firstly, we modelled nest-site and foraging habitat selection in relation to variables quantifying physiography, trophic resources and human disturbance. Secondly, we evaluate to what extent land abandonment may affect the life traits of the species and finally we determined how potential future distribution of the species would vary according to asymmetric socioeconomic land-abandonment predictions for year 2040., [Results] Cinereous vultures selected breeding areas with steep slopes and low human presence whereas foraging areas are characterized by high abundance of European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and wild ungulates. Liberalization of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could potentially transform positively 66% of the current nesting habitat, favouring the recovery of mature forest. Contrarily, land abandonment would negatively affect the 63% of the current foraging habitat reducing the availability of preferred food resources (wild European rabbit). On the other hand, the maintenance of the CAP would determine lower frequencies (24%–22%) of nesting and foraging habitat change., [Main conclusions] Land abandonment may result into opposite effects on the focal species because of the increase in nesting habitats and wild ungulates populations and, on the other hand, lower availability of open areas with poorer densities of European rabbits. Land-abandonment models’ scenarios are still coarse-grained; the apparition of new human uses in natural areas may take place at small-sized and medium-sized scales, ultimately adding complexity to the prediction on the future of biota and ecosystems., I.G.‐B. was supported by a Pre‐Doctoral contract from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES‐2014‐070597). A.CA. was supported by a contract Juan de la Cierva Incorporación (IJCI‐2014‐20744; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain) and a PostDoc contract Programa Viçent Mut of Govern Balear, Spain (PD/039/2017). This work was partially funded by projects RNM‐1925 (Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía) and CGL2015‐66966‐C2‐1‐2‐R MINECO/FEDER EU and the Severo Ochoa Excellence Award from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SEV‐2012‐0262). T.A.M. thanks partial support by CEAUL (funded by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013).

The Belt and Road Initiative will greatly influence the future of global trade. However, it may also promote permanent environmental degradation. We call for rigorous strategic environmental and social assessments, raising the bar for environmental protection worldwide.

The inclusion of perceptions, interests and needs of stakeholders in biodiversity conservation is critical for the long-term protection of endangered species. Yet, the social dimensions of endangered species conservation are often overlooked. We examined the social perceptions of the conservational importance of the globally endangered Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) in one of the most important breeding areas worldwide: the Bardenas Reales Protected Area, northern Spain. We assessed the factors that influence the stakeholders' views of its conservation importance and identified the management strategies that would have social support. We found that the understandings of the Egyptian vulture differed among stakeholders. Hunters had the highest level of knowledge about its presence, threatened status and role as provider of ecosystem services. Livestock keepers recognized the worth of the Egyptian vulture for carcass removal, whereas other regulating services (e.g. biological control) were frequently acknowledged by tourists. Hunters and livestock keepers were more critical about the effectiveness of ongoing conservation strategies for preserving the Egyptian vulture than tourists. Moreover, each stakeholder group identified different actions for the conservation of the Egyptian vulture in the area. The consideration of the diversity of conservation actions suggested by stakeholders could catalyze broader support for the preservation of the Egyptian vulture., ACA was supported by a Post-Doctoral grant from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (SFRH/BPD/91609/2012; Portugal) and a contract Juan de la Cierva Incorporación (IJCI-2014-20744; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain). OC and HMP were supported by iDiv - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, funded by German Research Foundation grant FZT 118.7.

The species-area relationship (SAR) has been often used to project species extinctions as a consequence of habitat loss. However, recent studies have suggested that the SAR may overestimate species extinctions, at least in the short-term. We argue that the main reason for this overestimation is that the classic SAR ignores the persistence of species in human-modified habitats. We use data collected worldwide to analyse what is the fraction of bird and plant species that remain in different human-modified habitats at the local scale after full habitat conversion. We observe that both taxa have consistent responses to the different land-use types, with strongest reductions in species richness in cropland across the globe, and in pasture in the tropics. We show that the results from these studies cannot be linearly scaled from plots to large regions, as this again overestimates the impacts of land-use change on biodiversity. The countryside SAR provides a unifying framework to incorporate both the effect of species persistence in the landscape matrix and the non-linear response of the proportion of species extinctions to sampling area, generating more realistic projections of biodiversity loss.

Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) consolidate information from varied biodiversity observation sources. Here we demonstrate the links between data sources, EBVs and indicators and discuss how different sources of biodiversity observations can be harnessed to inform EBVs. We classify sources of primary observations into four types: extensive and intensive monitoring schemes, ecological field studies and satellite remote sensing. We characterize their geographic, taxonomic and temporal coverage. Ecological field studies and intensive monitoring schemes inform a wide range of EBVs, but the former tend to deliver short-term data, while the geographic coverage of the latter is limited. In contrast, extensive monitoring schemes mostly inform the population abundance EBV, but deliver long-term data across an extensive network of sites. Satellite remote sensing is particularly suited to providing information on ecosystem function and structure EBVs. Biases behind data sources may affect the representativeness of global biodiversity datasets. To improve them, researchers must assess data sources and then develop strategies to compensate for identified gaps. We draw on the population abundance dataset informing the Living Planet Index (LPI) to illustrate the effects of data sources on EBV representativeness. We find that long-term monitoring schemes informing the LPI are still scarce outside of Europe and North America and that ecological field studies play a key role in covering that gap. Achieving representative EBV datasets will depend both on the ability to integrate available data, through data harmonization and modeling efforts, and on the establishment of new monitoring programs to address critical data gaps.

Many decision-makers are looking to science to clarify how nature supports human well-being. Scientists' responses have typically focused on empirical models of the provision of ecosystem services (ES) and resulting decision-support tools. Although such tools have captured some of the complexities of ES, they can be difficult to adapt to new situations. Globally useful tools that predict the provision of multiple ES under different decision scenarios have proven challenging to develop. Questions from decision-makers and limitations of existing decision-support tools indicate three crucial research frontiers for incorporating cutting-edge ES science into decision-support tools: (1) understanding the complex dynamics of ES in space and time, (2) linking ES provision to human well-being, and (3) determining the potential for technology to substitute for or enhance ES. We explore these frontiers in-depth, explaining why each is important and how existing knowledge at their cutting edges can be incorporated to improve ES decision-making tools.

Pode ser encontrado material suplementar em https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.18.13429.suppl1 Citizen science has become a mainstream approach to collect information and data on many different scientific subjects. In this study, we assess the effectiveness of engagement and meaningful experience of participants in citizen science projects. We use motivational measures calculated from a web survey where respondents answered questions regarding to their motivation to participate in BioDiversity4All, a Portuguese citizen science project. We adapted the intrinsic motivation inventory (IMI) and considered seven categories of measurement: Interest/Enjoyment, Perceived Competence, Effort/Importance, Perceived Choice, Value/Usefulness, Project Relatedness, and Group Relatedness each of them with statements rated on a seven-point Likert scale. We received 149 survey responses, corresponding to 10.3 % of BioDiversity- 4All Newsletter’s receivers. We analyzed for possible differences among the categories pertaining to gender, age, level of education and level of participation in the project. Finally, we assessed the different patterns of motivation existing among the users. No statistical differences were found between genders, age classes and levels of education for the averages in any category of analysis. However, IMI categories presented different results for respondents with different levels of participation. The highest value of Interest/Enjoyment and Perceived Competence was obtained by the group of respondents that participate a lot and the lowest by the ones that never participated. Project Relatedness had the highest value for all groups except for the group that never participated. This group had completely different motivations from the other groups, showing the lowest levels in categories such as Perceived Competence, Value/Usefulness, Project Relatedness and Group Relatedness. In conclusion, the results from our work show that working deeply on people’s involvement is fundamental to increase and maintain their participation on citizen science projects. If, for initial recruitment and in countries with low participation culture, mechanisms of external motivation may be necessary, to guarantee higher levels of long term participation, citizen science projects should foster intrinsic motivations which can be done by incorporating in project design experiences of relatedness, capacity building, positive feedback and adapted participation modes. FCT/MCTES info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Opportunistic citizen data documenting species observations – i.e. observations collected by citizens in a non-standardized way – is becoming increasingly available. In the absence of scientific observations, this data may be a viable alternative for a number of research questions. Here we test the ability of opportunistic species records to provide predictions of the realized distribution of species and if species attributes can act as indicators of the reliability and completeness of these data. We use data for 39 reptile and amphibian species across mainland Portugal as a case study. We collected distribution data from two independent sources: a national citizen-science project and a scientific. We measure and compare the climatic niche width of the species as represented by each of the two data sources. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) were used to relate a set of response variables describing the species’ morphology, life-history, communication, type of locomotion, habitat and geographic distribution, to observed differences in niche widths. We also performed species distribution models (SDMs) for each of the two types of data using generalized additive models. We found that 12 species had more than 50% of their climate niche covered by citizen science data. Results from GLMMs suggested that the number of grid cells in which a species occurs and its use of forest habitat were positively related to the comprehensiveness of the sampling of climatic niches by citizen science data. Variation in the p of SDMs for both types of data (as measured by the true skill statistic; TSS) was highly similar but SDMs from citizen science data had an overall lower performance. Nevertheless a few species achieved good predictions (TSS > 0.6) using these data. We conclude that species observations in citizen science projects can provide accurate predictions of species realized distributions, however, efforts should be made to identify the conditions under which these data are more likely to provide reliable representations of the species niches.

Fil: Díaz, Sandra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Departamento de Diversidad Biológica y Ecología. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina. Fil: Díaz, Sandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina. Fil: Zafra Calvo, Noelia. Future Earth; España. Fil: Purvis, Andy. Natural History Museum; Reino Unido. Fil: Verburg, Peter H. VU University Amsterdam. Institute for Environmental Studies: Países Bajos. Fil: Obura, David. Coastal Oceans Research and Development Indian Ocean; Kenia. Fil: Leadley, Paul. Université Paris-Sud. Ecologie Systématique Evolution; Francia. Fil: Chaplin Kramer, Rebecca. Stanford University. Natural Capital Project; Estados Unidos. Fil: De Meester, Luc. Leibniz Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei; Alemania. Fil: Dulloo, Ehsan. Bioversity International; Mauricio. Fil: Martín- López, Berta. Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Faculty of Sustainability; Alemania. Fil: Shaw, Rebecca. The World Wide Fund for Nature; Estados Unidos. Fil: Visconti, Piero. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Ecosystem Services and Management Program; Austria. Fil: Broadgate, Wendy. Future Earth; Suecia. Fil: Bruford, Michael W. Cardiff University. School of Biosciences and Sustainable Places Institute; Reino Unido. Fil: Burgess, Neil D. UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Reino Unido. Fil: Cavender Bares, Jeannine. University of Minnesota. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior; Estados Unidos. Fil: DeClerck, Fabrice. EAT Foundation; Noruega. Fil: Fernández Palacios, José María. Universidad de La Laguna. Instituto Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias; España. Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Hill, Samantha L. L. UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Reino Unido. Fil: Isbell, Forest. University of Minnesota. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior; Estados Unidos. Fil: Khoury, Colin K. International Center for Tropical Agriculture; Colombia. Fil: Krug, Cornelia B. University of Zurich. Department of Geography; Suiza. Fil: Liu, Jianguo. Michigan State University; Estados Unidos. Fil: Maron, Martine. The University of Queensland; Australia. Fil: McGowan, Philip J. K. Newcastle University. School of Natural and Environmental Sciences; Reino Unido. Fil: Pereira, Henrique M. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research; Alemania. Fil: Reyes García, Victoria. Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies; España. Fil: Rocha, Juan. Future Earth; Suecia. Fil: Rondinini, Carlo. Sapienza University of Rome. Department of Biology and Biotechnologies. Global Mammal Assessment Program; Italia. Fil: Shannon, Lynne. University of Cape Town. Department of Biological Sciences; Sudáfrica. Fil: Shin, Yunne-Jai. University of Cape Town. Department of Biological Sciences; Sudáfrica. Fil: Snelgrove, Paul V. R. Memorial University of Newfoundland. Departments of Ocean Sciences and Biology; Canada. Fil: Spehn, Eva M. Swiss Academy of Sciences. Swiss Biodiversity Forum; Suiza. Fil: Strassburg, Bernardo. Pontifical Catholic University. Department of Geography and the Environment. Rio Conservation and Sustainability Science Centre; Brasil. Fil: Subramanian, Suneetha M. United Nations University. Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability; Japón. Fil: Tewksbury, Joshua J. University of Colorado; Estados Unidos. Fil: Watson, James E. M. Wildlife Conservation Society; Estados Unidos. Fil: Zanne, Amy E. George Washington University. Department of Biological Sciences; Estados Unidos. Global biodiversity policy is at a crossroads. Recent global assessments of living nature (1, 2) and climate (3) show worsening trends and a rapidly narrowing window for action. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recently announced that none of the 20 Aichi targets for biodiversity it set in 2010 has been reached and only six have been partially achieved (4). Against this backdrop, nations are now negotiating the next generation of the CBD's global goals [see supplementary materials (SM)], due for adoption in 2021, which will frame actions of governments and other actors for decades to come. In response to the goals proposed in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) made public by the CBD (5), we urge negotiators to consider three points that are critical if the agreed goals are to stabilize or reverse nature's decline. First, multiple goals are required because of nature's complexity, with different facets—genes, populations, species, deep evolutionary history, ecosystems, and their contributions to people—having markedly different geographic distributions and responses to human drivers. Second, interlinkages among these facets mean that goals must be defined and developed holistically rather than in isolation, with potential to advance multiple goals simultaneously and minimize trade-offs between them. Third, only the highest level of ambition in setting each goal, and implementing all goals in an integrated manner, will give a realistic chance of stopping—and beginning to reverse—biodiversity loss by 2050.

Scenario-based modelling is a powerful tool to describe relationships between plausible trajectories of drivers, possible policy interventions, and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Model inter-comparisons are key in quantifying uncertainties and identifying avenues for model improvement but have been missing among the global biodiversity and ecosystem services modelling communities. The biodiversity and ecosystem services scenario-based inter-model comparison (BES-SIM) aims to fill this gap. We used global land-use and climate projections to simulate possible future impacts on terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services using a variety of models and a range of harmonized metrics. The goal of this paper is to reflect on the steps taken in BES-SIM, identify remaining methodological challenges, and suggest pathways for improvement. We identified five major groups of challenges; the need to: 1) better account for the role of nature in future human development storylines; 2) improve the representation of drivers in the scenarios by increasing the resolution (temporal, spatial and thematic) of land-use as key driver of biodiversity change and including additional relevant drivers; 3) explicitly integrate species- and trait-level biodiversity in ecosystem services models; 4) expand the coverage of the multiple dimensions of biodiversity and ecosystem services; and finally, 5) incorporate time-series or one-off historical data in the calibration and validation of biodiversity and ecosystem services models. Addressing these challenges would allow the development of more integrated global projections of biodiversity and ecosystem services, thereby improving their policy relevance in supporting the interlinked international conservation and sustainable development agendas.

Essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) are designed to support the detection and quantification of biodiversity change and to define priorities in biodiversity monitoring. Unlike most primary observations of biodiversity phenomena, EBV products should provide information readily available to produce policy-relevant biodiversity indicators, ideally at multiple spatial scales, from global to subnational. This information is typically complex to produce from a single set of data or type of observation, thus requiring approaches that integrate multiple sources of in situ and remote sensing (RS) data. Here we present an up-to-date EBV concept for biodiversity data integration and discuss the critical components of workflows for EBV production. We argue that open and reproducible workflows for data integration are critical to ensure traceability and reproducibility so that each EBV endures and can be updated as novel biodiversity models are adopted, new observation systems become available, and new data sets are incorporated. Fulfilling the EBV vision requires strengthening efforts to mobilize massive amounts of in situ biodiversity data that are not yet publicly available and taking full advantage of emerging RS technologies, novel biodiversity models, and informatics infrastructures, in alignment with the development of a globally coordinated system for biodiversity monitoring.

The loss of biodiversity at the global scale has been difficult to reconcile with observations of no net loss at local scales. Vegetation surveys across European temperate forests show that this may be explained by the replacement of small-ranged species with large-ranged ones, driven by nitrogen deposition. Biodiversity time series reveal global losses and accelerated redistributions of species, but no net loss in local species richness. To better understand how these patterns are linked, we quantify how individual species trajectories scale up to diversity changes using data from 68 vegetation resurvey studies of seminatural forests in Europe. Herb-layer species with small geographic ranges are being replaced by more widely distributed species, and our results suggest that this is due less to species abundances than to species nitrogen niches. Nitrogen deposition accelerates the extinctions of small-ranged, nitrogen-efficient plants and colonization by broadly distributed, nitrogen-demanding plants (including non-natives). Despite no net change in species richness at the spatial scale of a study site, the losses of small-ranged species reduce biome-scale (gamma) diversity. These results provide one mechanism to explain the directional replacement of small-ranged species within sites and thus explain patterns of biodiversity change across spatial scales.

Rewilding has been both promoted and criticized in recent years. Benefits include flexibility to react to environmental change and the promotion of opportunities for society to re-connect with nature. Criticisms include the lack of a clear conceptualization of rewilding,insufficient knowledge about the possible outcomes, and the perception that rewilding excludes people from landscapes. Here, we present a framework for rewilding that addresses thesecriticisms. We suggest rewilding should target trophic complexity, natural disturbances, and dispersal, as interacting ecosystem processes that can improve ecosystem resilience and maintain biodiversity. We propose a structured approach to rewilding projects that include assessment of the contributions of nature to people and the social-ecological constraints on restoration., Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation -FCT, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad

Aim Land-use change is a major threat to biodiversity globally. Roads cause direct mortality and limitation of individual movements, which may isolate populations and affect their viability in the long term. Here we provide the first comprehensive global assessment of the exposure of terrestrial mammalian carnivores to roads using an integrated modelling framework. Location Global. Methods We estimated critical road densities and critical patch sizes for each species based on a spatially explicit model and life-history traits. We calculated the distribution of landscape fragment sizes for each carnivore species by intersecting global road density with each species range. The proportion of a species’ geographical range with fragments below the critical patch size is used as an index of the vulnerability to roads. Results We found that the carnivores expected to be most exposed to roads belong to families Felidae, Ursidae, Mustelidae, Canidae and Procyonidae. Approximately one-third of the species most affected have not been identified by the IUCN as threatened by roads. Our model projects time to extinction that may be as low as one century for some species, such as the endangered Iberian lynx. Species are expected to be more exposed in areas with medium to high road density but, surprisingly, also in areas where road density is relatively low. Hotspots of the number of species locally endangered by roads occur in North America and Asia. Main conclusions Our results suggest the need to reassess the status and threats of those species that have not been previously recognized as strongly affected by roads. Our framework can be applied at different spatial scales, to assess the effects of the development of the road network and inform prioritization schemes for road building, and to identify areas for conservation, and species requiring particular mitigation and restoration measures.

Rewilding has emerged as an audacious conservation approach aiming at restoring wild species interactions and their regulation of ecosystem processes by focusing on the key role of species that have been extensively extirpated by humans. Rewilding has gained increasing attention from scientists, conservationists and the mass-media. Yet, it has raised highly divergent perspectives as to which ecological processes and species assemblages should be restored. Here we argue that a pragmatic and immediate approach to rewilding unequivocally focused on preserving and restoring the structural and functional complexity of ecosystems must become a primary component of biodiversity conservation. We propose a process-oriented formulation of the rewilding hypothesis as a general guide to assess the conservation benefits of reverting defaunation. Finally, we identify the need for a framework where the benefits, risks, and costs of rewilding can be evaluated in relation to restoration baselines and the intensity of interventions required to achieve conservation goals.

Railway ecology is an emerging discipline. In this review, we focus on what is known today regarding the impacts of railways on wildlife, and on the methods to identify, monitor, and mitigate these impacts. Wildlife-train collisions are the most often reported impact, although railway lines can also represent barriers to animal movement, bisecting populations or reducing wildlife access to resources. Little is known on the impact of habitat loss and fragmentation due to railways alone, or on their disturbance effects, including pollution (noise, chemical, light), and on the potential to provide habitat connectivity or surrogate habitats for native species in degraded landscapes. Molecular techniques are one of the most promising methods to study the impacts of railways, as genetic analyses are useful to identify both population sub-structuring, and to assess the potential restoration of functional connectivity by mitigation measures like wildlife passes, or to estimate effective population sizes. Field work is necessary to provide credible mortality rates, which, combined with computer simulations, can allow for estimations of the impact of mortality on population viability. Studies should ideally have Before-After-Control-Impact designs and be long-term. We need to improve mortality estimates, and to understand how impacts threaten population dynamics. We need to go from local-scale studies (e.g., animals use the underpasses) to landscape-scale (i.e., where to place these underpasses to maximize the connectivity at regional/populational levels). Finally, we need to expand our knowledge on less studied, less charismatic species, and to explore the potential environmental benefits of green practices on railway corridors.

Linear infrastructures (e.g. roads, railways or power lines) promote a myriad of negative impacts on wildlife around the world, of which direct mortality is the most visible one. When high mortality rates are found, mitigation measures are often discussed and applied. On the other hand, the lack of mortality is commonly interpreted as evidence of low impact on wildlife. We argue that the lack of mortality may actually mask two pervasive effects of linear infrastructures on animal populations: past massive mortality, causing local extinctions, or strong barrier effects due to the inability or reluctance of individuals to traverse the infrastructure corridor. In order to obtain a sound impact assessment of the linear infrastructures on wildlife, research is needed that integrates long-term mortality data with information on the abundance of the focal species, their genetic patterns and movement behavior. We discuss the implications of these impacts for both infrastructures and landscape management. Keywords: Barrier effect, Fences, Population depletion, Power lines, Railways, Roadkill, Roads, Transportation networks

Human activities are accelerating global biodiversity change and have resulted in severely threatened ecosystem services. A large proportion of terrestrial biodiversity is harbored by soil, but soil biodiversity has been omitted from many global biodiversity assessments and conservation actions, and understanding of global patterns of soil biodiversity remains limited. In particular, the extent to which hotspots and coldspots of aboveground and soil biodiversity overlap is not clear. We examined global patterns of these overlaps by mapping indices of aboveground (mammals, birds, amphibians, vascular plants) and soil (bacteria, fungi, macrofauna) biodiversity that we created using previously published data on species richness. Areas of mismatch between aboveground and soil biodiversity covered 27% of Earth's terrestrial surface. The temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome had the highest proportion of grid cells with high aboveground biodiversity but low soil biodiversity, whereas the boreal and tundra biomes had intermediate soil biodiversity but low aboveground biodiversity. While more data on soil biodiversity are needed, both to cover geographic gaps and to include additional taxa, our results suggest that protecting aboveground biodiversity may not sufficiently reduce threats to soil biodiversity. Given the functional importance of soil biodiversity and the role of soils in human well-being, soil biodiversity should be considered further in policy agendas and conservation actions by adapting management practices to sustain soil biodiversity and considering soil biodiversity when designing protected areas.Disparidades Mundiales entre la Biodiversidad Sobre y Bajo el Suelo Resumen Las actividades humanas están acelerando el cambio en la biodiversidad mundial y han tenido como resultado unos servicios ambientales severamente amenazados. Una gran proporción de la biodiversidad terrestre está albergada en el suelo, pero la biodiversidad de este ha sido omitida de varias evaluaciones mundiales de biodiversidad y de las acciones de conservación, además de que el entendimiento de los patrones mundiales de la biodiversidad del suelo permanece limitado; particularmente, la extensión del traslape entre los puntos fríos y calientes de biodiversidad sobre y bajo suelo no está clara. Examinamos los patrones mundiales de estos traslapes mapeando los índices de biodiversidad sobre el suelo (mamíferos, aves, anfibios y plantas vasculares) y bajo el suelo (bacterias, hongos y macrofauna) que creamos con datos previamente publicados de la riqueza de especies. Las áreas de disparidad entre la biodiversidad sobre y bajo el suelo cubrieron el 27% de la superficie terrestre del planeta. El bioma de los bosques templados de plantas frondosas y mixtas tuvo la proporción más alta de celdas de cuadrícula con una biodiversidad alta sobre el suelo, pero baja para en el subsuelo, mientras que los biomas boreales y de la tundra tuvieron una biodiversidad intermedia bajo el suelo, pero baja para el sobre suelo. Aunque se requieren más datos sobre la biodiversidad del suelo, tanto para cubrir los vacíos geográficos como para incluir a taxones adiciones, nuestros resultados sugieren que la protección a la biodiversidad sobre el suelo puede no reducir suficientemente las amenazas para la biodiversidad del suelo. Dada la importancia funcional de la biodiversidad del suelo y el papel de los suelos en el bienestar humano, se debería considerar a la biodiversidad del suelo mucho más en las agendas políticas y en las acciones de conservación, adaptando a las prácticas de manejo para que mantengan a la biodiversidad del suelo y la consideren cuando designen áreas protegidas.人类活动正在导致全球生物多样性的快速变化, 并已严重影响到生态系统服务功能。陆地生物多样性中很大一部分存在于土壤之中, 然而, 许多全球生物多样性评估和保护行动都没有考虑土壤生物多样性, 人们对全球土壤生物多样性格局的认识也十分有限, 特别是对地表生物多样性和土壤生物多样性的热点地区及贫瘠地区的重叠程度知之甚少。为了研究全球地表生物多样性和土壤生物多样性的重叠情况, 我们利用已发表的物种丰富度数据设计了地表生物多样性 (哺乳动物、鸟类、两栖类、维管植物) 及土壤生物多样性 (细菌、真菌、大型动物群) 指标, 用于绘制相应的地图。结果显示, 地表和土壤生物多样性不匹配的地区占地球陆地面积的 27% 。在温带阔叶林和混交林生物群中, 地表生物多样性高而土壤生物多样性低的栅格占比最高, 而寒带和苔原生物群则是土壤生物多样性中等而地表生物多样性低。虽然还有待增加土壤生物多样性的数据以囊括更多地理区域和生物类群, 但我们的结果已经表明, 保护地表生物多样性可能不足以减少对土壤生物多样性的威胁。鉴于土壤生物多样性的重要功能以及土壤对人类福祉的作用, 应在政策议程和保护行动中更多地考虑土壤生物多样性, 如调整管理实践以保护土壤生物多样性、在保护区设计中纳入土壤生物多样性等等。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】.

Rewilding is emerging as a promising restoration strategy to enhance the conservation status of biodiversity and promote self-regulating ecosystems whilst re-engaging people with nature. Overcoming the challenges in monitoring and reporting rewilding projects would improve its practical implementation and maximise its conservation and restoration outcomes. Here, we present a novel approach for measuring and monitoring progress in rewilding that respond to a pressing need for developing monitoring guidelines informed by the best available science. We devised a bi-dimensional framework for assessing the recovery of processes and their natural dynamics through a) decreasing human forcing on ecological processes and b) increasing natural complexity of ecosystems. The framework incorporates the reduction of material inputs and outputs associated with human management, as well as the restoration of natural stochasticity and disturbance regimes, landscape connectivity and trophic complexity. Furthermore, we provide a list of potential activities for increasing ecosystem complexity after reviewing the evidence for the effectiveness of common restoration actions. For illustration purposes, we apply the framework to three flagship restoration projects in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Argentina. This approach has the potential to broaden the scope of ecological restoration, facilitate sound decision-making and connect the science and practice of rewilding., Comunidad de Madrid, REMEDINAL-3, National Science Centre in Poland

Unbiased scientific reporting is crucial for data and research synthesis. Previous studies suggest that statistically significant results are more likely to be published and more likely to be submitted to high impact journals. However, the most recent research on statistical significance in relation to journal impact factors in ecological research was published more than two decades ago or addressed a small subset of the literature. Here, we extract p-values from all articles published in 11 journals in 2012 and 2014 across a wide range of impact factors with six journals sampled in both years. Our results indicate that the proportion of statistically significant results increases with rising impact factor. Such a trend can have important consequences for syntheses of ecological data and it highlights the importance of covering a wide range of impact factors when identifying published studies for data syntheses. This trend can also lead to a biased understanding of the probability of true effects in ecology and conservation. We caution against the possible downplaying of non-significant results by either journals or authors.

Although it is generally recognized that global biodiversity is declining, few studies have examined long-term changes in multiple biodiversity dimensions simultaneously. In this study, we quantified and compared temporal changes in the abundance, taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity of bird assemblages, using roadside monitoring data of the North American Breeding Bird Survey from 1971 to 2010. We calculated 12 abundance and diversity metrics based on 5-year average abundances of 519 species for each of 768 monitoring routes. We did this for all bird species together as well as for four subgroups based on breeding habitat affinity (grassland, woodland, wetland, and shrubland breeders). The majority of the biodiversity metrics increased or remained constant over the study period, whereas the overall abundance of birds showed a pronounced decrease, primarily driven by declines of the most abundant species. These results highlight how stable or even increasing metrics of taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic diversity may occur in parallel with substantial losses of individuals. We further found that patterns of change differed among the species subgroups, with both abundance and diversity increasing for woodland birds and decreasing for grassland breeders. The contrasting changes between abundance and diversity and among the breeding habitat groups underscore the relevance of a multifaceted approach to measuring biodiversity change. Our findings further stress the importance of monitoring the overall abundance of individuals in addition to metrics of taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic diversity, thus confirming the importance of population abundance as an essential biodiversity variable.

Linear infrastructures, one of several forms of land-use, are a major driver of biodiversity loss. Roads impact populations at many levels, with direct road mortality and barrier effect contributing to decreased population abundance, higher isolation and subdivision, and therefore to increased extinction risk. In this paper, we compared the effect of road mortality and of the barrier effect on population isolation, persistence and size, and assessed the interaction of these effects with dispersal. We used a spatially explicit, process-based model of population dynamics in landscapes fragmented by varying levels of road density. We modelled a barrier effect independently from road mortality by varying the probability with which individuals avoid crossing roads. Both road mortality and the barrier effect caused population isolation. While road mortality alone had stronger negative effects than the barrier effect without extra mortality, the latter also resulted in decreased population size. Yet, road avoidance could, in some cases, rescue populations from extinction. Populations with a large dispersal distance were more negatively affected as road mortality increased. However, when there was no road mortality they maintained larger sizes than populations with a short dispersal distance. Our results highlight the much higher relative importance of road mortality than the barrier effect for population size and persistence, and the importance of assessing relevant species traits for effective long-term transportation planning and conservation management. Our model can be used in species-specific situations and with real landscape configurations in applications such as conservation planning info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Which distribution commonly used to fit a species abundance distribution gives the best fit across several area sizes? We approach this problem by looking at the moments of the distribution and compare these with those the distribution based on empirical data on tree species collected in Barro Colorado Island, Panama. We conclude that no single distribution gives the best fit at all scales.

One of the main tasks when dealing with the impacts of infrastructures on wildlife is to identify hotspots of high mortality so one can devise and implement mitigation measures. A common strategy to identify hotspots is to divide an infrastructure into several segments and determine when the number of collisions in a segment is above a given threshold, reflecting a desired significance level that is obtained assuming a probability distribution for the number of collisions, which is often the Poisson distribution. The problem with this approach, when applied to each segment individually, is that the probability of identifying false hotspots (Type I error) is potentially high. The way to solve this problem is to recognize that it requires multiple testing corrections or a Bayesian approach. Here, we apply three different methods that implement the required corrections to the identification of hotspots: (i) the familywise error rate correction, (ii) the false discovery rate, and (iii) a Bayesian hierarchical procedure. We illustrate the application of these methods with data on two bird species collected on a road in Brazil. The proposed methods provide practitioners with procedures that are reliable and simple to use in real situations and, in addition, can reflect a practitioner’s concerns towards identifying false positive or missing true hotspots. Although one may argue that an overly cautionary approach (reducing the probability of type I error) may be beneficial from a biological conservation perspective, it may lead to a waste of resources and, probably worse, it may raise doubts about the methodology adopted and the credibility of those suggesting it.

Much biodiversity data is collected worldwide, but it remains challenging to assemble the scattered knowledge for assessing biodiversity status and trends. The concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) was introduced to structure biodiversity monitoring globally, and to harmonize and standardize biodiversity data from disparate sources to capture a minimum set of critical variables required to study, report and manage biodiversity change. Here, we assess the challenges of a ‘Big Data’ approach to building global EBV data products across taxa and spatiotemporal scales, focusing on species distribution and abundance. The majority of currently available data on species distributions derives from incidentally reported observations or from surveys where presence-only or presence–absence data are sampled repeatedly with standardized protocols. Most abundance data come from opportunistic population counts or from population time series using standardized protocols (e.g. repeated surveys of the same population from single or multiple sites). Enormous complexity exists in integrating these heterogeneous, multi-source data sets across space, time, taxa and different sampling methods. Integration of such data into global EBV data products requires correcting biases introduced by imperfect detection and varying sampling effort, dealing with different spatial resolution and extents, harmonizing measurement units from different data sources or sampling methods, applying statistical tools and models for spatial inter- or extrapolation, and quantifying sources of uncertainty and errors in data and models. To support the development of EBVs by the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), we identify 11 key workflow steps that will operationalize the process of building EBV data products within and across research infrastructures worldwide. These workflow steps take multiple sequential activities into account, including identification and aggregation of various raw data sources, data quality control, taxonomic name matching and statistical modelling of integrated data. We illustrate these steps with concrete examples from existing citizen science and professional monitoring projects, including eBird, the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring network, the Living Planet Index and the Baltic Sea zooplankton monitoring. The identified workflow steps are applicable to both terrestrial and aquatic systems and a broad range of spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales. They depend on clear, findable and accessible metadata, and we provide an overview of current data and metadata standards. Several challenges remain to be solved for building global EBV data products: (i) developing tools and models for combining heterogeneous, multi-source data sets and filling data gaps in geographic, temporal and taxonomic coverage, (ii) integrating emerging methods and technologies for data collection such as citizen science, sensor networks, DNA-based techniques and satellite remote sensing, (iii) solving major technical issues related to data product structure, data storage, execution of workflows and the production process/cycle as well as approaching technical interoperability among research infrastructures, (iv) allowing semantic interoperability by developing and adopting standards and tools for capturing consistent data and metadata, and (v) ensuring legal interoperability by endorsing open data or data that are free from restrictions on use, modification and sharing. Addressing these challenges is critical for biodiversity research and for assessing progress towards conservation policy targets and sustainable development goals., published version, peerReviewed

Restoration ecology is gaining momentum on the international conservation scene. In particular, restoring degraded ecosystems is central to Aichi Biodiversity Targets 14 and 15 set by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Depending on the definition of degradation, from 2 to 47% of the global land surface could require restoration. Here, we review the range of goals and approaches to restoration, from active interventions to more passive approaches such as rewilding. We identify biodiversity offsets, payments for ecosystem services and agri-enviromental schemes as enabling policy mechanisms for restoration. Finally, we assess national conservation targets to examine the potential multifaceted impacts of achieving Aichi Targets 14 and 15 on biodiversity and society.

The ability to monitor changes in biodiversity, and their societalimpact, is critical to conserving species and managingecosystems. While emerging technologies increase thebreadth and reach of data acquisition, monitoring efforts arestill spatially and temporally fragmented, and taxonomicallybiased. Appropriate long-term information remains thereforelimited. The Group on Earth Observations BiodiversityObservation Network (GEO BON) aims to provide a generalframework for biodiversity monitoring to support decisionmakers.Here, we discuss the coordinated observing systemadopted by GEO BON, and review challenges and advances inits implementation, focusing on two interconnected corecomponents — the Essential Biodiversity Variables as astandard framework for biodiversity monitoring, and theBiodiversity Observation Networks that support harmonizedobservation systems — while highlighting their societalrelevance.

PT acknowledges support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MCTES) (SFRH/BD/89543/2012). ACH acknowledges support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MCTES) (UID/BIA/50027/2013) and from FEDER through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006821). TAM thanks partial support by CEAUL (funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013). CC acknowledges support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) FCT for funds to GHTM - UID/Multi/04413/2013. We thank all volunteers who participate in BioDiversity4All project. Opportunistic citizen science databases are becoming an important way of gathering information on species distributions. These data are temporally and spatially dispersed and could have limitations regarding biases in the distribution of the observations in space and/or time. In this work, we test the influence of landscape variables in the distribution of citizen science observations for eight taxonomic groups. We use data collected through a Portuguese citizen science database (biodiversity4all.org). We use a zero-inflated negative binomial regression to model the distribution of observations as a function of a set of variables representing the landscape features plausibly influencing the spatial distribution of the records. Results suggest that the density of paths is the most important variable, having a statistically significant positive relationship with number of observations for seven of the eight taxa considered. Wetland coverage was also identified as having a significant, positive relationship, for birds, amphibians and reptiles, and mammals. Our results highlight that the distribution of species observations, in citizen science projects, is spatially biased. Higher frequency of observations is driven largely by accessibility and by the presence of water bodies. We conclude that efforts are required to increase the spatial evenness of sampling effort from volunteers. Publisher PDF

© The Author(s) 2017., Species abundance distributions (SAD) are central to the description of diversity and have played a major role in the development of theories of biodiversity and biogeography. However, most work on species abundance distributions has focused on one single spatial scale. Here we used data on arthropods to test predictions obtained with computer simulations on whether dispersal ability influences the rate of change of SADs as a function of sample size. To characterize the change of the shape of the SADs we use the moments of the distributions: the skewness and the raw moments. In agreement with computer simulations, low dispersal ability species generate a hump for intermediate abundance classes earlier than the distributions of high dispersal ability species. Importantly, when plotted as function of sample size, the raw moments of the SADs of arthropods have a power law pattern similar to that observed for the SAD of tropical tree species, thus we conjecture that this might be a general pattern in ecology. The existence of this pattern allows us to extrapolate the moments and thus reconstruct the SAD for larger sample sizes using a procedure borrowed from the field of image analysis based on scaled discrete Tchebichef moments and polynomials., This work was funded by the FCT project MOMENTOS (PTDC/ BIA-BIC/5558/2014). AMCS was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF 331623 ‘COMMSTRUCT’) and by a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship (IJCI-2014-19502) funded by the Spanish ‘Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad’. IRA was supported by a FCT Fellowship (SFRH/BPD/102804/2014)

Forests are under increasing pressure globally and the establishment of protected areas has long been used as a conservation tool to preserve them. Seven categories of protected areas have been defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with different management objectives and protection levels. However, recent studies raised questions over whether protected areas are effective in preventing ecosystem degradation and whether IUCN categories vary in their effectiveness. In this study, we analysed forest loss and trends between 2001 and 2014 within IUCN protected areas at a global scale and within sixteen Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem services (IPBES) subregions, relevant for international policy. As habitat protection can be driven by the location of protected areas and as the amount of forest within protected sites is highly unequal, we reported the forest loss integrating the proximity of roads and population, as well as the amount of initial forest in 2000. Our results show that worldwide, the highest protection categories experienced less forest loss than those allowing more human intervention, although this result was reversed in three IPBES subregions. Moreover, in four subregions there was more forest loss within protected areas than outside. We also found accelerating rates of forest loss in protected areas across all IUCN categories, more pronounced in the highest protection IUCN categories. Our results highlight the importance of moving the discussion of the post-2020 biodiversity framework for protected areas beyond simple general areal targets and that areas with poor implementation effectiveness should benefit from additional support.

Road mortality affects natural populations worldwide. Although the effects of road mortality are often documented, studies assessing the impact of road mortality on the viability of the affected populations are not so common. In fact, road mortality data are often limited to a small number of years from which it is difficult to build statistical models to assess the impact of road mortality on population trends, including the probability of extinction. In the last decades several studies have reported a considerable decline in barn owl (Tyto alba) populations attributed mainly to land use change and to the expansion of the road network to accommodate traffic growth. For instance, road monitoring programs show high road mortality rates ranging from 0.07 owls/km/year to 2.61 owls/km/year. We developed a stochastic, age-structured model to evaluate the impact of road-kills on barn owl populations and their risk of extinction. Using this model we identified the range of parameters that are most likely to apply to a population in southern Portugal and assessed how road mortality has affected this population. Three important results are: the number of individuals of the barn owl population exhibits high intra and inter-annual variability, even an annual road mortality rate of 5% reduces barn owl populations to half of their original size, and probability of extinction increases dramatically when annual road mortality exceeds 30% and it is largely independent of the original population size. Although simulations seem to show that road mortality is still below the values for which there is risk of extinction, we recommend authorities to closely monitor the owls’ numbers temporal trends and to take the necessary measures to reduce road mortality.

As societies realise the importance of maintaining biodiversity and, accordingly, acknowledge the need for monitoring, minimizing and compensating the impacts of socioeconomic activities, including transportation, more scientists will be called to address these societal challenges. Railway Ecology is emerging in this context as a relatively new field to identify and provide solutions to the specific environmental problems associated with the building and operation of railways, particularly their impacts on wildlife. This is an interdisciplinary field that uses and draws methods from other disciplines, ranging from ecology and genetics, to statistics and computer simulations. Here, we summarize the guidelines to address railway-related biodiversity conservation problems as they were identified in the several chapters of this book, and recommend lines for future research.

A large number of diversity metrics are available to study and monitor biodiversity, and their responses to biodiversity changes are not necessarily coherent with each other. The choice of biodiversity metrics may thus strongly affect our interpretation of biodiversity change and, hence, prioritization of resources for conservation. Therefore it is crucial to understand which metrics respond to certain changes, are the most sensitive to change, show consistent responses across different communities, detect early signals of species decline, and are insensitive to demographic stochasticity. Here we generated synthetic communities and simulated changes in their composition according to 9 scenarios of biodiversity change to investigate the behaviour of 12 biodiversity metrics. Metrics showed diverse abilities to detect changes under different scenarios. Sørensen similarity index, arithmetic and geometric mean abundance, and species and functional richness were the most sensitive to community changes. Sørensen similarity index, species richness and geometric abundance showed consistent responses across all simulated communities and scenarios. Sørensen similarity index and geometric mean abundance were able to detect early signals of species decline. Geometric mean abundance, and functional evenness under certain scenarios, had the greatest ability to distinguish directional trends from stochastic changes, but Sørensen similarity index and geometric mean abundance were the only indices to show consistent signals under all replicates and scenarios. Classic abundance-weighted heterogeneity indices (e.g. Shannon index) were insensitive to certain changes or showed misleading responses, and are therefore unsuitable for comparison of biological communities. We therefore suggest that separate metrics of species composition, richness, and abundance should be reported instead of (or in addition to) composite metrics like the Shannon index., We thank R D Gregory and another anonymous reviewer for providing constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This article is based upon work from COST Action ES1101 “Harmonising Global Biodiversity Modelling” (Harmbio), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)

Vulture 'restaurants' across southern Europe are serving up carcasses in an attempt to rescue these endangered birds. We contend that such outlets are no true replacement for the naturally random food pulses associated with wildlife carrion.

The involvement of non-professionals in scientific research and environmental monitoring, termed Citizen Science (CS), has now become a mainstream approach for collecting data on earth processes, ecosystems and biodiversity. This chapter examines how CS might contribute to ongoing efforts in biodiversity monitoring, enhancing observation and recording of key species and systems in a standardised manner, thereby supporting data relevant to the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs), as well as reaching key constituencies who would benefit Biodiversity Observation Networks (BONs). The design of successful monitoring or observation networks that rely on citizen observers requires a careful balancing of the two primary user groups, namely data users and data contributors (i.e., citizen scientists). To this end, this chapter identifies examples of successful CS programs as well as considering practical issues such as the reliability of the data, participant recruitment and motivation, and the use of emerging technologies.

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.

The tropics have by far the highest species diversity on Earth. Over two-thirds of terrestrial vertebrates occur in tropical moist forests ( 1 ). The species diversity is also highest in the tropics for several other taxa, such as vascular plants and arthropods, and in other realms, including freshwater and marine ecosystems. These latitudinal gradients were described decades ago ( 2 ), but recent work has yielded detailed knowledge of species-richness patterns. For example, Hurlbert and Jetz suggest that global maps of terrestrial vertebrate species richness are now accurate at resolutions of 100 to 200 km ( 3 ). Yet, little is known about the global patterns of genetic diversity. On page 1532 of this issue, Miraldo et al. help to fill this gap by presenting a global map of intraspecific (within-species) genetic diversity of amphibians and terrestrial mammals ( 4 ).