Rewilding is gaining importance across Europe, as agricultural abandonment trajectories provide opportunities for large‐scale ecosystem restoration. However, its effective implementation is hitherto ...limited, in part due to a lack of monitoring of rewilding interventions and their interactions. Here, we provide a first assessment of rewilding progress across seven European sites. Using an iterative and participatory Delphi technique to standardize and analyze expert‐based knowledge of these sites, we 1) map rewilding interventions onto the three central components of the rewilding framework (i.e. stochastic disturbances, trophic complexity and dispersal), 2) assess rewilding progress by quantifying 19 indicators spanning human forcing and ecological integrity and 3) compile key success and threat factors for rewilding progress. We find that the most common interventions were keystone species reintroductions, whereas the least common targeted stochastic disturbances. We find that rewilding scores have improved in five sites, but declined in two, partly due to competing socio‐economic trends. Major threats for rewilding progress are related to land‐use intensification policies and persecution of keystone species. Major determinants of rewilding success are its societal appeal and socio‐economic benefits to local people. We provide an assessment of rewilding that is crucial in improving its restoration outcomes and informed implementation at scale across Europe in this decade of ecosystem restoration.
Fencing is a ubiquitous part of the landscape across the Great Plains of North America. This can fragment habitats and reduce the ability of wildlife to move between patches. A relatively novel ...conservation tool aimed at mitigating these impacts is the use of wildlife‐friendly fencing. However, there is still an incomplete understanding as to how this tool affects ungulate movement and whether it increases habitat connectivity across barriers. Using camera trap data from three properties across the American Prairie Reserve, Montana, we investigated the effects of fencing on four ungulate species. Averaged across species and demographics, this wildlife‐friendly fencing design increased the probability that ungulates successfully crossed a fence by 33% and reduced the time taken to cross by 54%, but has limited effects on species' crossing behavior. Responses to the wildlife‐friendly fencing differed between species, sex, and age class. The greatest improvement in permeability was detected for mule deer, females, and juvenile groups. Yet, permeability remained lowest for elk, juveniles, and males overall at both fence types. Understanding these differences between groups is important when improving or selecting fence designs, and we highlight vulnerable groups that may require further study when implementing this conservation tool.
Abstract
Conservation gardening (CG) represents a socio-ecological approach to address the decline of native plant species and transform the gardening industry into an innovative conservation tool. ...However, essential information regarding amenable plants, their ecological requirements for gardening, and commercial availability remains limited and not readily available. In this study, we present a workflow using Germany as a case study to bridge this knowledge gap. We synthesized the Red Lists of all 16 federal states in Germany, and text-mined a comprehensive platform for garden plants, as well as multiple German producers of native plants. To provide accessible information, we developed a user-friendly app (
https://conservation-gardening.shinyapps.io/app-en/
) that offers region-specific lists of CG plants, along with practical guidance for planting and purchasing. Our findings reveal that a median of 845 plant species are red-listed across federal states (ranging from 515 to 1123), with 41% of these species amenable to gardening (ranging from 29 to 53%), resulting in a total of 988 CG species. Notably, 66% of these species (650) are already available for purchase. Additionally, we observed that many CG plants exhibit drought tolerance and require less fertilizer on average, with implications for long-term urban planning and climate adaptation. Collaborating with gardening experts, we present a selection of purchasable CG balcony plants for each federal state, highlighting the feasibility of CG even for individuals without gardens. With a multitude of declining plants amenable to gardening and the vital role of gardens as refuges and green corridors, CG holds substantial potential to catalyze transformative change in bending the curve of biodiversity loss.
Societal Impact Statement
Plants play fundamental roles in ecosystems, yet merely 10% of species have an assessment of their global extinction risk. Through the integration of national Red Lists and ...comprehensive global plant distribution data, we identify previously unassessed plant species in Europe that are threatened throughout their geographic range and thus at risk of global extinction. Our workflow can be replicated to facilitate the integration of disparate national monitoring efforts around the world and help accelerate global plant risk assessments.
Summary
A comprehensive extinction risk assessment for plant species is a global biodiversity target. However, currently, only 10% of plant diversity is assessed in the global Red List of Threatened Species. To guide conservation and restoration actions in times of accelerated species extinction, plant risk assessments must be expedited.
Here, we examine the extinction risk of vascular plant species in Europe through the integration of two data streams: (1) national Red Lists and (2) global plant distribution data from Kew's Plants of the World Online database. For each species listed on a national Red List, we create a list of countries that form part of its range and indicate the threat status in these countries, allowing us to calculate the percentage of the range in which a given species is listed as threatened.
We find that 7% to 9% of European vascular plant diversity is threatened in its entire range, the majority of which are single‐country endemics. Of these globally threatened species, 84% currently have no assessment in the global Red List.
With increasing national biodiversity monitoring commitments shaping the post‐2020 policy environment, we anticipate that integrating national Red Lists with global plant distribution data is a scalable workflow that can help accelerate global risk assessments of plants.
Plants play fundamental roles in ecosystems, yet merely 10% of species have an assessment of their global extinction risk. Through the integration of national Red Lists and comprehensive global plant distribution data, we identify previously unassessed plant species in Europe that are threatened throughout their geographic range and thus at risk of global extinction. Our workflow can be replicated to facilitate the integration of disparate national monitoring efforts around the world and help accelerate global plant risk assessments.
Aim
Although non‐native and invasive plants often pose a significant threat to biodiversity, global‐scale studies have yet to conclusively demonstrate a systematic pattern of reduced native plant ...diversity in areas affected by these invasions. Here, we aim to explore the association of non‐native and invasive plants with the species richness and evenness of plant communities from the local to global scale.
Location
Global.
Methods
We use the world's largest vegetation plot repository—sPlot—to compare species richness and community evenness between invaded (by invasive or non‐natives) and native plots of equal size, paired within 32 km2 grid cells distributed across all continents. Aggregating plots at the cell, biome and global level, we also quantified differences in gamma diversity at different spatial scales.
Results
We found that invaded plots had higher species richness and similar community evenness, a trend largely consistent across biomes. The higher total species richness was not the result of additional invasive or non‐native species, as the number of native species was also higher in invaded plots. These patterns persisted at larger spatial scales. Cell, biome and global gamma species richness of invaded plots were consistently higher than of native plots. All these patterns held regardless of whether the non‐native species in a plot were invasive or non‐invasive.
Main Conclusions
Our study reveals a globally consistent pattern: plant diversity, both total and native, is higher when invasive or non‐native plants are present, spanning spatial scales from local to global. Although we cannot infer causal effects, our results challenge the prevailing hypothesis that non‐native and invasive species universally depress plant diversity.
In times of unprecedented climate change, ecological restoration efforts have a strong focus on forests for the purpose of carbon sequestration. Grasslands, in contrast, remain relatively neglected ...in global restoration policies. Concurrently, we are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis—it is estimated that 1 million species are globally threatened with extinction. Here, we present analyses from central Europe and southern Brazil that show that the majority of our endangered plant species are in fact found in open ecosystems. Using Germany as an example, we show that we could reduce plant extinction risk by up to 82% if we restore open, grassy ecosystems. This also holds true for southern Brazil, where grassland species constitute the single largest share of endangered species, but where grassy ecosystems continue to be systematically neglected by restoration policies. We further expand on our biodiversity argument to include the role that grassland restoration can play in mitigating climate change. We posit that ramping up grassland restoration efforts may not only be our best bet to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, but it will also make a critical contribution to the resilience of ecosystems in the dynamic decades to come. It is time for grassland restoration to receive higher priority in global restoration efforts and policy.
Ungulate populations are increasing across Europe with important implications for forest plant communities. Concurrently, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition continues to eutrophicate forests, ...threatening many rare, often more nutrient-efficient, plant species. These pressures may critically interact to shape biodiversity as in grassland and tundra systems, yet any potential interactions in forests remain poorly understood. Here, we combined vegetation resurveys from 52 sites across 13 European countries to test how changes in ungulate herbivory and eutrophication drive long-term changes in forest understorey communities. Increases in herbivory were associated with elevated temporal species turnover, however, identities of winner and loser species depended on N levels. Under low levels of N-deposition, herbivory favored threatened and small-ranged species while reducing the proportion of non-native and nutrient-demanding species. Yet all these trends were reversed under high levels of N-deposition. Herbivores also reduced shrub cover, likely exacerbating N effects by increasing light levels in the understorey. Eutrophication levels may therefore determine whether herbivory acts as a catalyst for the "N time bomb" or as a conservation tool in temperate forests.
Societal Impact Statement
Plants play fundamental roles in ecosystems, yet merely 10% of species have an
assessment of their global extinction risk. Through the integration of national Red
Lists and ...comprehensive global plant distribution data, we identify previously
unassessed plant species in Europe that are threatened throughout their geographic
range and thus at risk of global extinction. Our workflow can be replicated to facilitate
the integration of disparate national monitoring efforts around the world and
help accelerate global plant risk assessments.
Summary
• A comprehensive extinction risk assessment for plant species is a global biodiversity
target. However, currently, only 10% of plant diversity is assessed in the
global Red List of Threatened Species. To guide conservation and restoration
actions in times of accelerated species extinction, plant risk assessments must be
expedited.
• Here, we examine the extinction risk of vascular plant species in Europe through
the integration of two data streams: (1) national Red Lists and (2) global plant distribution
data from Kew's Plants of the World Online database. For each species
listed on a national Red List, we create a list of countries that form part of its range
and indicate the threat status in these countries, allowing us to calculate the percentage
of the range in which a given species is listed as threatened.
• We find that 7% to 9% of European vascular plant diversity is threatened in its
entire range, the majority of which are single-country endemics. Of these globally
threatened species, 84% currently have no assessment in the global Red List.
• With increasing national biodiversity monitoring commitments shaping the post-
2020 policy environment, we anticipate that integrating national Red Lists with
global plant distribution data is a scalable workflow that can help accelerate global
risk assessments of plants.
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