Threats to seabirds: A global assessment

We present the first objective quantitative assessment of the threats to all 359 species of seabirds, identify the main challenges facing them, and outline priority actions for their conservation. We applied the standardised Threats Classification Scheme developed for the IUCN Red List to objectively assess threats to each species and analysed the data according to global IUCN threat status, taxonomic group, and primary foraging habitat (coastal or pelagic). The top three threats to seabirds in terms of number of species affected and average impact are: invasive alien species, affecting 165 species across all the most threatened groups; bycatch in fisheries, affecting fewer species (100) but with the greatest average impact; and climate change/severe weather, affecting 96 species. Overfishing, hunting/trapping and disturbance were also identified as major threats to seabirds. Reversing the top three threats alone would benefit two-thirds of all species and c. 380 million individual seabirds (c. 45% of the total global seabird population). Most seabirds (c. 70%), especially globally threatened species, face multiple threats. For albatrosses, petrels and penguins in particular (the three most threatened groups of seabirds), it is essential to tackle both terrestrial and marine threats to reverse declines. As the negative effects of climate change are harder to mitigate, it is vital to compensate by addressing other major threats that often affect the same species, such as invasive alien species, bycatch and overfishing, for which proven solutions exist

On a Rare Visit to Texas

<p>Species' sensitivity scores are calculated as their niche breadth*reliance, with higher values indicating species less sensitive to changes in resource abundance or availability. Equivalent, PECBMS-only <i>BREAKPOINT</i> sets for the forest type and region indicators are presented in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0097217#pone.0097217.s014" target="_blank">Table S7</a>. ‘0/1’ identifies species that were interchangeable in any given breakpoint set due to equal sensitivity scores – see specific note for each indicator for further details.</p><p><i>*Species also included in current pan-European forest bird indicator (for full list see</i><a href="http://www.ebcc.info/index.php?ID=459" target="_blank">http://www.ebcc.info/index.php?ID=459</a>).</p>a<p>Either species could be included.</p>b<p>Any one of three could be included.</p>c<p>Any two of three could be included.</p

Quantifying the Detrimental Impacts of Land-Use and Management Change on European Forest Bird Populations

The ecological impacts of changing forest management practices in Europe are poorly understood despite European forests being highly managed. Furthermore, the effects of potential drivers of forest biodiversity decline are rarely considered in concert, thus limiting effective conservation or sustainable forest management. We present a trait-based framework that we use to assess the detrimental impact of multiple land-use and management changes in forests on bird populations across Europe. Major changes to forest habitats occurring in recent decades, and their impact on resource availability for birds were identified. Risk associated with these changes for 52 species of forest birds, defined as the proportion of each species' key resources detrimentally affected through changes in abundance and/or availability, was quantified and compared to their pan-European population growth rates between 1980 and 2009. Relationships between risk and population growth were found to be significantly negative, indicating that resource loss in European forests is an important driver of decline for both resident and migrant birds. Our results demonstrate that coarse quantification of resource use and ecological change can be valuable in understanding causes of biodiversity decline, and thus in informing conservation strategy and policy. Such an approach has good potential to be extended for predictive use in assessing the impact of possible future changes to forest management and to develop more precise indicators of forest health

State of the world's birds

We present an overview of the global spatiotemporal distribution of avian biodiversity, changes in our knowledge of that biodiversity, and the extent to which it is imperilled. Birds are probably the most completely inventoried large taxonomic class of organisms, permitting a uniquely detailed understanding of how the Anthropocene has shaped their distributions and conservation status in space and time. We summarize the threats driving changes in bird species richness and abundance, highlighting the increasingly synergistic interactions between threats such as habitat loss, climate change, and overexploitation. Many metrics of avian biodiversity are exhibiting globally consistent negative trends, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List Index showing a steady deterioration in the conservation status of the global avifauna over the past three decades. We identify key measures to counter this loss of avian biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, which will necessitate increased consideration of the social context of bird conservation interventions in order to deliver positive transformative change for nature

Generation lengths of the world's birds and their implications for extinction risk

Birds have been comprehensively assessed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List more times than any other taxonomic group. However, to date, generation lengths have not been systematically estimated to scale population trends when undertaking assessments, as required by the criteria of the IUCN Red List. We compiled information from major databases of published life-history and trait data for all birds and imputed missing life-history data as a function of species traits with generalized linear mixed models. Generation lengths were derived for all species, based on our modeled values of age at first breeding, maximum longevity, and annual adult survival. The resulting generation lengths varied from 1.42 to 27.87 years (median 2.99). Most species (61%) had generation lengths <3.33 years, meaning that the period of 3 generations—over which population declines are assessed under criterion A—was <10 years, which is the value used for IUCN Red List assessments of species with short generation times. For these species, our trait-informed estimates of generation length suggested that 10 years is a robust precautionary value for threat assessment. In other cases, however, for whole families, genera, or individual species, generation length had a substantial impact on their estimated extinction risk, resulting in higher extinction risk in long-lived species than in short-lived species. Although our approach effectively addressed data gaps, generation lengths for some species may have been underestimated due to a paucity of life-history data. Overall, our results will strengthen future extinction-risk assessments and augment key databases of avian life-history and trait data

Measuring the Impact of Conservation : The Growing Importance of Monitoring Fauna, Flora and Funga

Many stakeholders, from governments to civil society to businesses, lack the data they need to make informed decisions on biodiversity, jeopardising efforts to conserve, restore and sustainably manage nature. Here we review the importance of enhancing biodiversity monitoring, assess the challenges involved and identify potential solutions. Capacity for biodiversity monitoring needs to be enhanced urgently, especially in poorer, high-biodiversity countries where data gaps are disproportionately high. Modern tools and technologies, including remote sensing, bioacoustics and environmental DNA, should be used at larger scales to fill taxonomic and geographic data gaps, especially in the tropics, in marine and freshwater biomes, and for plants, fungi and invertebrates. Stakeholders need to follow best monitoring practices, adopting appropriate indicators and using counterfactual approaches to measure and attribute outcomes and impacts. Data should be made openly and freely available. Companies need to invest in collecting the data required to enhance sustainability in their operations and supply chains. With governments soon to commit to the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the time is right to make a concerted push on monitoring. However, action at scale is needed now if we are to enhance results-based management adequately to conserve the biodiversity and ecosystem services we all depend on.This paper was made possible by funding from the Swiss Network for International Studies to the University of Lausanne (L.F. and P.J.S.) and its partners under the project: "Unblocking the flow of biodiversity data for multi-stakeholder environmental sustainability management". The research was carried out, in part, by GNG at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). PAVB was supported by the project MACRISK-PTDC/BIA-CBI/0625/2021, through the FCT-FundacAo para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia. YNB acknowledges support from the Audemars-Watkins Foundation for the CBCR's protected area monitoring work featured in this paper.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measuring the Impact of Conservation: The Growing Importance of Monitoring Fauna, Flora and Funga

Many stakeholders, from governments to civil society to businesses, lack the data they need to make informed decisions on biodiversity, jeopardising efforts to conserve, restore and sustainably manage nature. Here we review the importance of enhancing biodiversity monitoring, assess the challenges involved and identify potential solutions. Capacity for biodiversity monitoring needs to be enhanced urgently, especially in poorer, high-biodiversity countries where data gaps are disproportionately high. Modern tools and technologies, including remote sensing, bioacoustics and environmental DNA, should be used at larger scales to fill taxonomic and geographic data gaps, especially in the tropics, in marine and freshwater biomes, and for plants, fungi and invertebrates. Stakeholders need to follow best monitoring practices, adopting appropriate indicators and using counterfactual approaches to measure and attribute outcomes and impacts. Data should be made openly and freely available. Companies need to invest in collecting the data required to enhance sustainability in their operations and supply chains. With governments soon to commit to the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the time is right to make a concerted push on monitoring. However, action at scale is needed now if we are to enhance results-based management adequately to conserve the biodiversity and ecosystem services we all depend on

A Niche-Based Framework to Assess Current Monitoring of European Forest Birds and Guide Indicator Species' Selection

Concern that European forest biodiversity is depleted and declining has provoked widespread efforts to improve management practices. To gauge the success of these actions, appropriate monitoring of forest ecosystems is paramount. Multi-species indicators are frequently used to assess the state of biodiversity and its response to implemented management, but generally applicable and objective methodologies for species' selection are lacking. Here we use a niche-based approach, underpinned by coarse quantification of species' resource use, to objectively select species for inclusion in a pan-European forest bird indicator. We identify both the minimum number of species required to deliver full resource coverage and the most sensitive species' combination, and explore the trade-off between two key characteristics, sensitivity and redundancy, associated with indicators comprising different numbers of species. We compare our indicator to an existing forest bird indicator selected on the basis of expert opinion and show it is more representative of the wider community. We also present alternative indicators for regional and forest type specific monitoring and show that species' choice can have a significant impact on the indicator and consequent projections about the state of the biodiversity it represents. Furthermore, by comparing indicator sets drawn from currently monitored species and the full forest bird community, we identify gaps in the coverage of the current monitoring scheme. We believe that adopting this niche-based framework for species' selection supports the objective development of multi-species indicators and that it has good potential to be extended to a range of habitats and taxa

A quantitative global review of species population monitoring

Abstract: Species monitoring, defined here as the repeated, systematic collection of data to detect long‐term changes in the populations of wild species, is a vital component of conservation practice and policy. We created a database of nearly 1200 schemes, ranging in start date from 1800 to 2018, to review spatial, temporal, taxonomic, and methodological patterns in global species monitoring. We identified monitoring schemes through standardized web searches, an online survey of stakeholders, in‐depth national searches in a sample of countries, and a review of global biodiversity databases. We estimated the total global number of monitoring schemes operating at 3300–15,000. Since 2000, there has been a sharp increase in the number of new schemes being initiated in lower‐ and middle‐income countries and in megadiverse countries, but a decrease in high‐income countries. The total number of monitoring schemes in a country and its per capita gross domestic product were strongly, positively correlated. Schemes that were active in 2018 had been running for an average of 21 years in high‐income countries, compared with 13 years in middle‐income countries and 10 years in low‐income countries. In high‐income countries, over one‐half of monitoring schemes received government funding, but this was less than one‐quarter in low‐income countries. Data collection was undertaken partly or wholly by volunteers in 37% of schemes, and such schemes covered significantly more sites and species than those undertaken by professionals alone. Birds were by far the most widely monitored taxonomic group, accounting for around half of all schemes, but this bias declined over time. Monitoring in most taxonomic groups remains sparse and uncoordinated, and most of the data generated are elusive and unlikely to feed into wider biodiversity conservation processes. These shortcomings could be addressed by, for example, creating an open global meta‐database of biodiversity monitoring schemes and enhancing capacity for species monitoring in countries with high biodiversity. Article impact statement: Species population monitoring for conservation purposes remains strongly biased toward a few vertebrate taxa in wealthier countries

Protecting Important Sites for Biodiversity Contributes to Meeting Global Conservation Targets

Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of conservation efforts and now cover nearly 13% of the world's land surface, with the world's governments committed to expand this to 17%. However, as biodiversity continues to decline, the effectiveness of PAs in reducing the extinction risk of species remains largely untested. We analyzed PA coverage and trends in species' extinction risk at globally significant sites for conserving birds (10,993 Important Bird Areas, IBAs) and highly threatened vertebrates and conifers (588 Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, AZEs) (referred to collectively hereafter as ‘important sites’). Species occurring in important sites with greater PA coverage experienced smaller increases in extinction risk over recent decades: the increase was half as large for bird species with>50% of the IBAs at which they occur completely covered by PAs, and a third lower for birds, mammals and amphibians restricted to protected AZEs (compared with unprotected or partially protected sites). Globally, half of the important sites for biodiversity conservation remain unprotected (49% of IBAs, 51% of AZEs). While PA coverage of important sites has increased over time, the proportion of PA area covering important sites, as opposed to less important land, has declined (by 0.45–1.14% annually since 1950 for IBAs and 0.79–1.49% annually for AZEs). Thus, while appropriately located PAs may slow the rate at which species are driven towards extinction, recent PA network expansion has under-represented important sites. We conclude that better targeted expansion of PA networks would help to improve biodiversity trends