Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity.
@article{Gonzalez2016EstimatingLB, title={Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity.}, author={Andrew Gonzalez and Bradley J. Cardinale and Ginger Allington and Jarrett E. K. Byrnes and K. Arthur Endsley and Daniel G. Brown and David U Hooper and Forest Isbell and Mary I. O’Connor and Michel Loreau}, journal={Ecology}, year={2016}, volume={97 8}, pages={ 1949-1960 } }
Global species extinction rates are orders of magnitude above the background rate documented in the fossil record. However, recent data syntheses have found mixed evidence for patterns of net species loss at local spatial scales. For example, two recent data meta-analyses have found that species richness is decreasing in some locations and is increasing in others. When these trends are combined, these papers argued there has been no net change in species richness, and suggested this pattern is…
202 Citations
Is local biodiversity declining or not? A summary of the debate over analysis of species richness time trends
- Environmental Science
- 2018
Estimates of local biodiversity change over time stand up to scrutiny.
- Environmental ScienceEcology
- 2017
New data and analyses are presented revealing fundamental flaws in a critique of two recent meta-analyses of local-scale temporal biodiversity change that raises points of uncertainty typical of all ecological studies, but does not provide an evidence-based alternative interpretation.
Biodiversity change is uncoupled from species richness trends: Consequences for conservation and monitoring
- Environmental Science
- 2018
It is shown how a set of species turnover indices provide more information content regarding temporal trends in biodiversity, as they reflect how dominance and identity shift in communities over time, and several limitations of species richness as a metric of biodiversity change are summarized.
Abundance decline in the avifauna of the European Union reveals cross‐continental similarities in biodiversity change
- Environmental ScienceEcology and evolution
- 2021
This work finds significant biodiversity loss in the native avifauna of the European Union (EU) and estimates a decline of 17–19% in the overall breeding bird abundance since 1980: a loss of 560–620 million individual birds.
Meta-analysis of multidecadal biodiversity trends in Europe
- Environmental ScienceNature Communications
- 2020
A quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe is reported, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa.
Estimates of local biodiversity change over time stand up to scrutiny
- Environmental SciencebioRxiv
- 2016
The critique raises points of uncertainty typical of all ecological studies, but it falls far short of providing an evidence-based alternative interpretation for the results, which are now supported by syntheses of hundreds of individual data sets of temporal biodiversity change.
Habitat change and biased sampling influence estimation of diversity trends
- Environmental ScienceCurrent Biology
- 2021
Cross-continental analysis of coastal biodiversity change
- Environmental SciencePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
- 2020
It is concluded that biodiversity metrics responsive to turnover provide a more accurate reflection of community change relative to conventional metrics (absolute richness or relative abundance) and are spatially broadly applicable.
The geography of biodiversity change in marine and terrestrial assemblages
- Environmental ScienceScience
- 2019
Examining spatial variation in species richness and composition change using more than 50,000 biodiversity time series from 239 studies found clear geographic variation in biodiversity change, suggesting that biodiversity change may be spatially structured.
Human activities influence the direction and magnitude of local biodiversity change over time
- Environmental Science
- 2017
In recent decades, environmental drivers of community change have been associated with changes in biodiversity from local to global scales. Here we evaluate the role of anthropogenic drivers in…
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