Biodiversity’s contributions to sustainable development

International concern to develop sustainably challenges us to act upon the inherent links between 23 our economy, society and environment, and is leading to increasing acknowledgement of 24 biodiversity’s importance. This Review discusses the breadth of ways in which biodiversity can 25 support sustainable development. It uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a basis for 26 exploring scientific evidence of the benefits delivered by biodiversity. It focuses on papers that 27 provide examples of how biodiversity components (i.e. ecosystems, species and genes) directly 28 deliver benefits that may contribute to the achievement of individual SDGs. It also considers how 29 biodiversity’s direct contributions to fulfilling some SDGs may indirectly support the achievement of 30 other SDGs to which biodiversity does not contribute directly. How the attributes (e.g. diversity, 31 abundance or composition) of biodiversity components influence the benefits delivered is also 32 presented, where described by the papers reviewed. While acknowledging potential negative 33 impacts and trade-offs between different benefits, the study concludes that biodiversity may 34 contribute to fulfilment of all SDGs

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

Convergence Semigroup Actions: Generalized Quotients

Continuous actions of a convergence semigroup are investigated in the category of convergence spaces. Invariance properties of actions as well as properties of a generalized quotient space are presented. © Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

Convergence Semigroup Categories

Properties of the category consisting of all objects of the form (X, S, λ) are investigated, where X is a convergence space, S is a commutative semigroup, and λ: X × S → X is a continuous action. A generalized quotient of each object is defined without making the usual assumption that for each fixed g ∈ S, λ(., g): X → X is an injection. © Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

Biodiversity’s contributions to sustainable development

International concern to develop sustainably challenges us to act upon the inherent links between 23 our economy, society and environment, and is leading to increasing acknowledgement of 24 biodiversity’s importance. This Review discusses the breadth of ways in which biodiversity can 25 support sustainable development. It uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a basis for 26 exploring scientific evidence of the benefits delivered by biodiversity. It focuses on papers that 27 provide examples of how biodiversity components (i.e. ecosystems, species and genes) directly 28 deliver benefits that may contribute to the achievement of individual SDGs. It also considers how 29 biodiversity’s direct contributions to fulfilling some SDGs may indirectly support the achievement of 30 other SDGs to which biodiversity does not contribute directly. How the attributes (e.g. diversity, 31 abundance or composition) of biodiversity components influence the benefits delivered is also 32 presented, where described by the papers reviewed. While acknowledging potential negative 33 impacts and trade-offs between different benefits, the study concludes that biodiversity may 34 contribute to fulfilment of all SDGs

Convergence Approach Spaces : Actions

Properties of continuous actions and pseudoquotients are studied in the category of convergence approach spaces. Invariance properties of continuous actions on convergence approach spaces are given. It is shown that the formation of pseudoquotient spaces is idempotent. Function space actions are also investigated