How are we monitoring biodiversity? Indicators for evaluating and benchmarking species and habitat monitoring programmes in Europe

The monitoring of species and habitats is essential to biodiversity conservation. Although guidelines for biodiversity monitoring have been published since at least 1920, we know little on current practices in existing monitoring programmes. To fill this gap, we collected metadata on 646 species and habitat monitoring programmes in Europe and characterised current practices in monitoring. We developed metadata-based indicators for sampling design, sampling effort and data analysis to evaluate current practices, to study the importance of socio-economic factors in monitoring and to provide benchmarks for the comparison of programmes. We find that the starting year, motivation, funding source and geographic scope of monitoring influenced at least one of the indicators in both species and habitat based programmes. More specifically, sampling design scores varied by funding source and motivation in species monitoring and decreased with time (starting year) in habitat monitoring. Sampling effort decreased with time in both species and habitat monitoring and varied by funding source and motivation in species monitoring. Finally, the frequency of using hypothesis-testing statistics was lower in species monitoring than in habitat monitoring and it varied with geographic scope in both. The perception of the minimum change detectable by the programme (‘precision’) matched spatial sampling effort in species monitoring but was rarely estimated in habitat monitoring. We conclude that there are many signs of promising developments in biodiversity monitoring but also that there are options for improvement in sampling design, sampling effort and data analysis. Our results thus partially confirm recent concerns over the quality of biodiversity monitoring programmes. Although monitoring programmes differ greatly in their objectives, our general indicators provide benchmarks for the comparison of programmes that can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in individual monitoring programmes. This knowledge then can be used to improve current practices, design new monitoring programmes, identify best practices and standardise performance across monitoring programmes. For more details, please see [1] and references therein. Reference [1] Lengyel Sz, Kosztyi B, Schmeller DS, Henry P-Y, Kotarac M, Lin Y-P, Henle K. 2018. Evaluating and benchmarking biodiversity monitoring: Metadata-based indicators for sampling design, sampling effort and data analysis. Ecological Indicators 85: 624-633.peerReviewe

Risk Assessment of Aquatic Invasive Species Introductions via We stern

The present Atlas of Biodiversity Risk is the first of its kind to describe and summarise in a comprehensive, easy-to-read and richly illustrated form the major pressures, impacts and risks of biodiversity loss at a global level. The main risks identified are caused by global climate and land use change, environmental pollution, loss of pollinators and biological invasions. The impacts and consequences of biodiversity loss are analyzed with a strong focus on socio-economic drivers and their effects on society. Three scenarios of potential futures are the baseline for predicting impacts and explore options for mitigating adverse effects at several spatio-temporal scales. Elements of these futures are modeled, tested and illustrated. The Atlas is divided into sections which mostly deal with particular pressures. It furthermore is based on case studies from a large set of countries, which are completed by introductory and concluding chapters for each section. The Atlas combines the main outcomes of the large European project ALARM (performed by 68 partner organisations from 35 countries from Europe as well as other continents) with some core outputs of numerous further research networks. A total number of 366 authors from 180 institutions in 43 countries provided information and contributed to the Atlas. The Atlas is addressed to a wide spectrum of users. Scientists will find summaries of well-described methods, approaches and case studies. Conservationists and policy makers will use the conclusions and recommendations based on academic research output and presented in a comprehensive and easy-to-read way. Lecturers and teachers will find good examples to illustrate the main challenges in our century of global environmental changes. The Atlas is an indispensible tool to any library or institution in biodiversity and environmental sciences. Finally, all people concerned with environmental issues will find the Atlas a powerful weapon in their fight for saving the life on our Planet!Settele J, Penev LD, Georgiev TA, Grabaum R, Grobelnik V, Hammen V, Klotz S, Kotarac M, Kühn I, editors. Atlas of the Biodiversity Risk. Sofia; Moscow: Pensoft Publishers; 2010. p. 140–3