Importance of Baseline Specification in Evaluating Conservation Interventions and Achieving No Net Loss of Biodiversity

There is an urgent need to improve the evaluation of conservation interventions. This requires specifying an objective and a frame of reference from which to measure performance. Reference frames can be baselines (i.e., known biodiversity at a fixed point in history) or counterfactuals (i.e., a scenario that would have occurred without the intervention). Biodiversity offsets are interventions with the objective of no net loss of biodiversity (NNL). We used biodiversity offsets to analyze the effects of the choice of reference frame on whether interventions met stated objectives. We developed 2 models to investigate the implications of setting different frames of reference in regions subject to various biodiversity trends and anthropogenic impacts. First, a general analytic model evaluated offsets against a range of baseline and counterfactual specifications. Second, a simulation model then replicated these results with a complex real world case study: native grassland offsets in Melbourne, Australia. Both models showed that achieving NNL depended upon the interaction between reference frame and background biodiversity trends. With a baseline, offsets were less likely to achieve NNL where biodiversity was decreasing than where biodiversity was stable or increasing. With a no‐development counterfactual, however, NNL was achievable only where biodiversity was declining. Otherwise, preventing development was better for biodiversity. Uncertainty about compliance was a stronger determinant of success than uncertainty in underlying biodiversity trends. When only development and offset locations were considered, offsets sometimes resulted in NNL, but not across an entire region. Choice of reference frame determined feasibility and effort required to attain objectives when designing and evaluating biodiversity offset schemes. We argue the choice is thus of fundamental importance for conservation policy. Our results shed light on situations in which biodiversity offsets may be an inappropriate policy instrumen

Creating a frame of reference for conservation interventions

Understanding the context within which conservation interventions take place is critical to effective implementation. The context includes baseline status of conservation targets, and most likely counterfactual given recent trends in those targets i.e. what would have occurred in the absence of intervention. The baseline and counterfactual together provide a ‘frame of reference’ for judging conservation outcomes. It has recently been demonstrated that, since conservation interventions take place within dynamic systems, and involve either encouraging or discouraging changes in those systems, the reference frame against which interventions are evaluated fundamentally determines how much effort is required to achieve objectives, and whether they are deemed successful. In turn, this makes frames of reference crucial to planning and policy development. Counterfactuals are difficult to estimate, however, and subject to considerable uncertainty. They are consequently not widely specified in practice. We analyse the historical context, baseline and trends for Uzbekistan’s semi-arid Ustyurt plateau, as a case study development of a frame of reference for policymaking. Our framework incorporates physical, social, economic and institutional considerations. We conduct analyses of socio-ecological trends relevant to conservation targets in the region over the last 100 years – particularly the iconic, critically endangered saiga antelope Saiga tatarica – based upon primary data sets (e.g. vegetation surveys), secondary data sets obtained from collaborators (e.g. meteorological data), and satellite imagery. We demonstrate that an informative frame of reference can be developed even in the absence of exhaustive data on land use and landscape ecology. This is because the broader historical context, drivers of change, and interactions between these drivers are so influential upon the necessary design of conservation interventions. The approach taken here – of dividing trends and drivers of change into those that are physical, social, economic and institutional, and considering conservation targets in light of each in turn – provides a manageable structure for building a frame of reference. Additionally, it provides a means for making assumptions about the counterfactual explicit, leaving them open to critical evaluation. Finally, by developing alternative feasible counterfactuals, testable hypotheses can be outlined and used to improve future iterations of management plans—essentially, an adaptive management approach

Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed

Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (?10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity.ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously. - 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This work was conducted as a part of a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Synthesis Group funded by NSF Grants EF-0553768 and DEB#1545288 through the LTER Network Communications Office and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara. M.L.A. was supported by a fellowship from the Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), which also provided computing support. SESYNC is funded by NSF Grant DBI-1052875. Funding for individual experiments included in this analysis can be found in SI Appendix, section 7.Scopu

Minimum Information about an Uncultivated Virus Genome (MIUViG)

We present an extension of the Minimum Information about any (x) Sequence (MIxS) standard for reporting sequences of uncultivated virus genomes. Minimum Information about an Uncultivated Virus Genome (MIUViG) standards were developed within the Genomic Standards Consortium framework and include virus origin, genome quality, genome annotation, taxonomic classification, biogeographic distribution and in silico host prediction. Community-wide adoption of MIUViG standards, which complement the Minimum Information about a Single Amplified Genome (MISAG) and Metagenome-Assembled Genome (MIMAG) standards for uncultivated bacteria and archaea, will improve the reporting of uncultivated virus genomes in public databases. In turn, this should enable more robust comparative studies and a systematic exploration of the global virosphere