To date, there is little evidence that phylogenetic diversity has contributed to nature conservation. Here, we discuss the scientific justification of using phylogenetic diversity in conservation and ...the reasons for its neglect. We show that, apart from valuing the rarity and richness aspect, commonly quoted justifications based on the usage of phylogenetic diversity as a proxy for functional diversity or evolutionary potential are still based on uncertainties. We discuss how a missing guideline through the variety of phylogenetic diversity metrics and their relevance for conservation might be responsible for the hesitation to include phylogenetic diversity in conservation practice. We outline research routes that can help to ease uncertainties and bridge gaps between research and conservation with respect to phylogenetic diversity.
Specialization is a concept based on a broad theoretical framework developed by evolutionary biologists and ecologists. In the past 10 years, numerous studies have reported that -– in many contexts ...-– generalist species are "“replacing"” specialist species. We review recent research on the concept of the ecological niche and species specialization, and conclude that (1) the observed worldwide decline in specialist species is predicted by niche theory, (2) specialist declines cause "“functional homogenization"” of biodiversity, and (3) such homogenization may be used to measure the impact of disturbance on communities. Homogenization at the community level could alter ecosystem functioning and productivity, as well as result in the deterioration of ecosystem goods and services. We propose community-level specialization as an indicator of the impact of global changes (habitat and climate disturbances) on biodiversity.
Global changes alter the dynamics of biodiversity, and are forecasted to continue or worsen in the decades to come. Modelling approaches used to anticipate these impacts are mainly based on the ...equivalence between spatial and temporal response to environmental forcings, generally called space‐for‐time substitution. However, several processes are known to generate deviations between spatial and temporal responses, potentially undermining the prediction based on space‐for‐time substitution. We here used high‐resolution data from the french breeding bird survey to quantify and map the deviation between spatial and temporal patterns of bird abundances resulting from the dynamics of 124 species monitored in 2133 sites between 2001 and 2012. Using independent empirical data, we then tested specific predictions linked to the determinants (anthropogenic activities) and processes (lagged responses to environmental changes) potentially generating these deviations. We found that deviations between spatial and temporal patterns of abundances were particularly structured in space for bird communities. Following our predictions, these space–time deviations were positively correlated with the human influence on ecosystems, and linked with colonization–extinction ratios and community completeness, two markers of ongoing delayed responses to environmental changes. Our results suggest that the deviations between spatial and temporal patterns are related to recent anthropogenic environmental changes and disequilibrium responses to these changes. Investigating deviations between spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity might open promising perspectives for a formal quantification of disequilibrium state of biodiversity at large spatial scale.
In this paper, we tested whether the spatial distribution of a given species in more or less fragmented and disturbed landscapes depends on the species habitat specialization. We studied 891 spatial ...replicates from the French Breeding Bird Survey (FBBS) monitored at least two years during 2001-2005, and two independent landscape databases measuring respectively landscape fragmentation and recent landscape disturbance on each FBBS replicate. We used a continuous habitat specialization index for the 105 most common bird species monitored by the FBBS. We further modelled the spatial variation in abundance of each species according to fragmentation and disturbance across FBBS replicates, accounting for habitat differences and spatial trends. We then tested whether more or less specialized species responded to landscape fragmentation and disturbance. We found that the more specialist a species, the more negative its spatial response to landscape fragmentation and disturbance. Although there was a very high variation around these tendencies indicating that there are many other drivers of species distribution, our results suggest that measuring specialization may be helpful in predicting which species are likely to thrive in human degraded landscapes. We also emphasize the need to consider both positive and negative species responses when assessing consequences of habitat change in communities.
Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 1030-1040 Functional and phylogenetic diversity are increasingly quantified in various fields of ecology and conservation biology. The need to maintain diversity turnover ...among sites, so-called beta-diversity, has also been raised in theoretical and applied ecology. In this study, we propose the first comprehensive framework for the large-scale mapping of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity and of their respective turnover. Using high-resolution data on the spatial distribution and abundance of birds at a country scale, we disentangled areas of mismatches and congruencies between biodiversity components. We further revealed unequal representation of each component in protected areas: functional diversity was significantly under-represented whereas taxonomic diversity was significantly over-represented in protected areas. Our results challenge the use of any one diversity component as a surrogate for other components and stress the need to adopt an integrative approach to biodiversity conservation.
Populations and ecological communities are changing worldwide, and empirical studies exhibit a mixture of either declining or mixed trends. Confusion in global biodiversity trends thus remains, while ...assessing such changes is of major social, political, and scientific importance. Part of this variability may arise from the difficulty to reliably assess global biodiversity trends. Here, we conducted a literature review of studies documenting the temporal dynamics of global biodiversity. We classified the differences among approaches, data, and methodology used by the reviewed papers to reveal common findings and sources of discrepancies. We show that reviews and meta‐analyses, along with the use of global indicators, are more likely to conclude that trends are declining. On the other hand, the longer the data are available, the more nuanced are the trends they generate. Our results also highlight the lack of studies providing information on the impact of synergistic pressures on a global scale, making it even more difficult to understand the driving factors of the observed changes and how to decide conservation plan accordingly. Finally, we stress the importance of taking into account the sources of confusion identified, as well as the complexity of biodiversity changes, in order to implement effective conservation strategies. In particular, biodiversity dynamics are almost systematically assumed to be linear, while non‐linear trends are largely neglected. Clarifying the sources of confusion in global biodiversity trends should strengthen large‐scale biodiversity monitoring and conservation.
The global scientific community has become increasingly diverse over recent decades, but is this ongoing development also reflected among top‐publishing authors and potential scientific leaders? We ...surveyed 13 leading journals in ecology, evolution, and conservation to investigate the diversity of the 100 top‐publishing authors in each journal between 1945 and 2019. Out of 1051 individual top‐publishing authors, only 11% are women. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Canada account for more than 75% of top‐publishing authors, while countries of the Global South (as well as Russia, Japan, and South Korea) were strikingly underrepresented. The number of top‐publishing authors who are women and/or are from the Global South is increasing only slowly over time. We outline transformative actions that scientific communities can take to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion at author, leadership, and society level. The resulting promotion of scientific innovation and productivity is essential for the development of global solutions in conservation science.
La compensation écologique s’appuie sur des hypothèses scientifiques dont les fondements épistémologiques demeurent souvent implicites. Le but de cet article est d’expliciter la manière dont ...l’écologie scientifique et les politiques d’aménagement posent le problème de la compensation des entités écologiques. Le bien-fondé de deux enjeux fondamentaux est analysé : la question de l’équivalence entre deux entités écologiques et celle du référentiel spatio-temporel pour mesurer la dynamique de ces entités. L’analyse d’un cas d’étude mobilisant le calcul d’une équivalence entre des pertes et des gains de biodiversité est proposée. Nous montrons comment le calcul des équivalences impose un espace-temps étranger aux dynamiques écologiques. Cet article propose de comprendre la compensation comme une prise en charge technoscientifique des problèmes écologiques. Cette approche facilite l’intégration des enjeux de biodiversité dans une politique d’aménagement en contournant la spécificité et la complexité des dynamiques écologiques.
Biodiversity offsetting relies on scientific hypotheses that are barely investigated. The aim of this paper is first to explore under what conditions it is possible to envisage biodiversity compensation from the perspectives of ecological science and planning policies. Two fundamental assumptions are scrutinized: the issue of substitution of a given ecological entity and the possibility to choose a given spatial and temporal reference for the dynamics of this entity. While scientific studies conducted on ecological systems have regularly emphasized the historicity of biological dynamics and the irrelevance of referring to a balance of nature, biodiversity offsetting principles rest on those out-dated assumptions. More specifically, the analysis of a practical case reveals that compensation proceeds by replacing the specificities of ecological entities by exogenous spatial and temporal framings. This process suggests that compensation should be viewed as a tool for the technoscientific reconfiguration of ecological problems. The temporal and spatial limits imposed by ecological entities are encapsulated in a political system specifically built to push back the boundaries of economic and urban development.
Many species have suffered large population declines due to the anthropogenic influence on ecosystems. Understanding historical population trends is essential for informing best efforts to preserve ...species. We propose a new method to reconstruct the past structure of a regional species pool, based on historical naturalist literature. Qualitative information collected from annotated checklists and reports can be relevant to identify major long-term community changes. We reviewed ornithological literature on the Camargue, the largest wetland in France. We reconstructed the entire breeding bird community from 1830 to 2009 and translated historical data into semi-quantitative data. This data permitted a calculation of a Community Commonness Index to measure the average level of abundance of species in a community. The Community Specialization and Community Temperature Indices were used to evaluate the potential long-term impact of land-use and climate changes on the composition of the regional bird species pool. We found a decrease in average abundance and specialization between 1950 and 1989, suggesting that changes in land-use negatively impacted the structure and composition of the local bird community by reducing species abundance and removing habitat-specialists (e.g. Southern Grey Shrike, Greater Short-toed Lark). These results are likely to be linked with a major loss of natural habitats in the Camargue between 1942 and 1984 when natural areas and traditional farmland were converted into intensive cultivated lands. We also found fluctuations among species with high versus low temperature preference. However, long-term effects of climate change on the bird community might be blurred by the impact of land-use changes. Overall, our results contrast with those obtained from well-monitored colonial waterbirds showing long-term increases. Our results plead for a more regular use of historical naturalist data when examining long-term changes in species communities as they allow the establishment of an older temporal point of reference and consideration of species not covered by traditional monitoring schemes.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Birds are tracking climate warming, but not fast enough Devictor, Vincent; Julliard, Romain; Couvet, Denis ...
Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological sciences/Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological Sciences,
12/2008, Letnik:
275, Številka:
1652
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Range shifts of many species are now documented as a response to global warming. But whether these observed changes are occurring fast enough remains uncertain and hardly quantifiable. Here, we ...developed a simple framework to measure change in community composition in response to climate warming. This framework is based on a community temperature index (CTI) that directly reflects, for a given species assemblage, the balance between low- and high-temperature dwelling species. Using data from the French breeding bird survey, we first found a strong increase in CTI over the last two decades revealing that birds are rapidly tracking climate warming. This increase corresponds to a 91 km northward shift in bird community composition, which is much higher than previous estimates based on changes in species range edges. During the same period, temperature increase corresponds to a 273 km northward shift in temperature. Change in community composition was thus insufficient to keep up with temperature increase: birds are lagging approximately 182 km behind climate warming. Our method is applicable to any taxa with large-scale survey data, using either abundance or occurrence data. This approach can be further used to test whether different delays are found across groups or in different land-use contexts.
PDF
