Essential Biodiversity Variables

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Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) is a putative set of parameters intended to be the minimum set of broadly agreed upon necessary and sufficient biodiversity variables for at least national to global monitoring, researching, and forecasting of biodiversity. [1] They are being developed by an interdisciplinary group of governmental and academic research partners. The initiative aims for a harmonised global biodiversity monitoring system. EBVs would be used to inform biodiversity change indicators, such as the CBD Biodiversity Indicators for the Aichi Targets. [2]

Contents

The concept is partly based on the earlier Essential Climate Variables. [3] [4] It can be generalised as the minimum set of variables for describing and predicting a system's state and dynamics. Areas with more developed EV lists include climate, ocean, and biodiversity. [5]

EBV Classes / Categories

The current candidate EBVs occupy six classes of Essential Biodiversity Variable: genetic composition, species populations, species traits, community composition, ecosystem structure, and ecosystem function. [1] Within each class are a few to several variables.

EBV ClassEBVNotes
Genetic compositionCo-ancestry
Allelic diversity
Population genetic differentiation
Breed and variety diversity
Species populationsSpecies distributionAddressed in. [6] Track from space. [7]
Population abundanceAddressed in. [6]
Population age / size structure
Species traits

(subject of [8] )

PhenologyTrack from space. [7] GlobDiversity RS-enabled EBV (land surface phenology). [9]
Body massVegetation height—track from space. [7]
Natal dispersal distance
Migratory behaviour
Demographic traits
Physiological traitsTrack from space. [7] GlobDiversity RS-enabled EBV (canopy chlorophyll concentration). [9]
Community compositionTaxonomic diversity
Species interactions
Ecosystem functionNet primary productionTrack from space. [7]
Secondary production
Nutrient retention
Disturbance regimeTrack from space. [7] Should not be a candidate EBV, due to being non-biological in nature. [10]
Ecosystem structureHabitat structure
Ecosystem extent and fragmentationTrack from space. [7] GlobDiversity RS-enabled EBV (fragmentation). [9]
Ecosystem composition by functional type

Associated projects and organisations

As of 2017, participants in the project consist of the GlobDiversity project (funded by the European Space Agency) [11] under GEO BON (Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network; a cooperative project of international universities), [12] and the GLOBIS-B project (Global Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity Research; funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme) [13]

Development

The concept was first proposed in 2012 [14] [15] and developed in the following years. [3] [5] [7]

The GLOBIS-B global cooperation project, aimed to advance the challenge of practical implementation of EBVs by supporting interoperability and cooperation activities among diverse biodiversity infrastructures, started in 2015. [16] The GlobDiversity project of GEO BON, led by the University of Zurich, started in 2017, focusing on specification and engineering of three RS-enabled EBVs. [9] [17]

The scope and screening of potential variables is under ongoing discussion. [10] [18] [19] [8] [20] [21]

This includes definition of the species distribution EBV and population abundance EBV, operationalisation of the EBV framework, data and tools for building EBV data products, workflow for building EBV data products, metadata and data sharing standards; [6] and possible integration of abiotic variables (e.g. those emphasised in the Ecosystem Integrity framework) with biotic variables (emphasised in the EBV framework) to achieve comprehensive ecosystem monitoring. [22]

"EBV data products" refers to the end product in the EBV information supply chain, from raw observations, to EBV-usable data, to EBV-ready data, to EBV data products. Each of these three types of EBV datasets could be used to produce indicators. [6] Data sources for EBVs are categorised into four types: extensive and intensive monitoring schemes, ecological field studies, and remote sensing. [23] Each have their own often complementary properties, implying that data integration will be important for creation of representative EBVs, as well as identifying and filling data gaps.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biodiversity</span> Variety and variability of life forms

Biodiversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is greater in the tropics as a result of the warm climate and high primary productivity in the region near the equator. Tropical forest ecosystems cover less than one-fifth of Earth's terrestrial area and contain about 50% of the world's species. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity for both marine and terrestrial taxa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation biology</span> Study of threats to biological diversity

Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Habitat conservation</span> Management practice for protecting types of environments

Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.

An ecological or environmental crisis occurs when changes to the environment of a species or population destabilizes its continued survival. Some of the important causes include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife conservation</span> Practice of protecting wild plant and animal species and their habitats

Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habitat destruction, degradation, fragmentation, overexploitation, poaching, pollution, climate change, and the illegal wildlife trade. The IUCN estimates that 42,100 species of the ones assessed are at risk for extinction. Expanding to all existing species, a 2019 UN report on biodiversity put this estimate even higher at a million species. It is also being acknowledged that an increasing number of ecosystems on Earth containing endangered species are disappearing. To address these issues, there have been both national and international governmental efforts to preserve Earth's wildlife. Prominent conservation agreements include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). There are also numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) dedicated to conservation such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marxan</span>

MARXAN is a family of software designed to aid systematic reserve design on conservation planning. With the use of stochastic optimisation routines Marxan generates spatial reserve systems that achieve particular biodiversity representation goals with reasonable optimality. Over the years, Marxan has grown from its standard two zone application to consider more complex challenges like incorporating connectivity, probabilities and multiple zones. Along the way, Marxan’s user community has also built plug-ins and interfaces to assist with planning projects.

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) coordinates international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It links existing and planned Earth observation systems and supports the development of new ones in cases of perceived gaps in the supply of environment-related information. It aims to construct a global public infrastructure for Earth observations consisting of a flexible and distributed network of systems and content providers.

Ecological threshold is the point at which a relatively small change or disturbance in external conditions causes a rapid change in an ecosystem. When an ecological threshold has been passed, the ecosystem may no longer be able to return to its state by means of its inherent resilience. Crossing an ecological threshold often leads to rapid change of ecosystem health. Ecological threshold represent a non-linearity of the responses in ecological or biological systems to pressures caused by human activities or natural processes. Critical load, regime shift, critical transition and tipping point are examples of other closely related terms.

Ecological forecasting uses knowledge of physics, ecology and physiology to predict how ecological populations, communities, or ecosystems will change in the future in response to environmental factors such as climate change. The goal of the approach is to provide natural resource managers with information to anticipate and respond to short and long-term climate conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defaunation</span> Loss or extinctions of animals in the forests

Defaunation is the global, local, or functional extinction of animal populations or species from ecological communities. The growth of the human population, combined with advances in harvesting technologies, has led to more intense and efficient exploitation of the environment. This has resulted in the depletion of large vertebrates from ecological communities, creating what has been termed "empty forest". Defaunation differs from extinction; it includes both the disappearance of species and declines in abundance. Defaunation effects were first implied at the Symposium of Plant-Animal Interactions at the University of Campinas, Brazil in 1988 in the context of Neotropical forests. Since then, the term has gained broader usage in conservation biology as a global phenomenon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecosystem management</span> Natural resource management

Ecosystem management is an approach to natural resource management that aims to ensure the long-term sustainability and persistence of an ecosystem's function and services while meeting socioeconomic, political, and cultural needs. Although indigenous communities have employed sustainable ecosystem management approaches implicitly for millennia, ecosystem management emerged explicitly as a formal concept in the 1990s from a growing appreciation of the complexity of ecosystems and of humans' reliance and influence on natural systems.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Key Biodiversity Area</span>

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) are geographical regions that have been determined to be of international importance in terms of biodiversity conservation, using globally standardized criteria published by the IUCN as part of a collaboration between scientists, conservation groups, and government bodies across the world. The purpose of Key Biodiversity Areas is to identify regions that are in need of protection by governments or other agencies. KBAs extend the Important Bird Area (IBA) concept to other taxonomic groups and are now being identified in many parts of the world. Examples of types of KBAs include Important Plant Areas (IPAs), Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in the High Seas, Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites, Prime Butterfly Areas, Important Mammal Areas and Important Sites for Freshwater Biodiversity, with prototype criteria developed for freshwater molluscs and fish and for marine systems. The determination of KBAs often brings sites onto the conservation agenda that hadn't previously been identified as needing protection due to the nature of the two non-exclusive criteria used to determine them; vulnerability; and irreplaceability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biodiversity loss</span> Extinction of species or loss of species in a given habitat

Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent. It is temporary if the damage that led to the loss is reversible in time, for example through ecological restoration. If this is not possible, then the decrease is permanent. The cause of most of the biodiversity loss is, generally speaking, human activities that push the planetary boundaries too far. These activities include habitat destruction and land use intensification. Further problem areas are air and water pollution, over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decline in insect populations</span> Ecological trend recorded since the late 20th century

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References

  1. 1 2 "What are EBVs?". GEO BON. 2015-01-26. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  2. ↑ "Aichi Biodiversity Targets". www.cbd.int. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  3. 1 2 Pereira, H. M.; Ferrier, S.; Walters, M.; Geller, G. N.; Jongman, R. H. G.; Scholes, R. J.; Bruford, M. W.; Brummitt, N.; Butchart, S. H. M. (2013-01-18). "Essential Biodiversity Variables". Science. 339 (6117): 277–278. Bibcode:2013Sci...339..277P. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.394.5235 . doi:10.1126/science.1229931. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   23329036. S2CID   36683730.
  4. ↑ "Essential Climate Variables". World Meteorological Organization. 2017-06-27. Archived from the original on December 17, 2023. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  5. 1 2 Antonio, Bombelli; Ivette, Serral (2015). "D2.2. EVs current status in different communities and way to move forward".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. 1 2 3 4 Kissling, W. Daniel; Ahumada, Jorge A.; Bowser, Anne; Fernandez, Miguel; Fernández, Néstor; García, Enrique Alonso; Guralnick, Robert P.; Isaac, Nick J. B.; Kelling, Steve (2018). "Building essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) of species distribution and abundance at a global scale". Biological Reviews. 93 (1): 600–625. doi: 10.1111/brv.12359 . hdl: 11572/184229 . ISSN   1469-185X. PMID   28766908.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Skidmore, Andrew K.; Pettorelli, Nathalie; Coops, Nicholas C.; Geller, Gary N.; Hansen, Matthew; Lucas, Richard; Mücher, Caspar A.; O'Connor, Brian; Paganini, Marc (2015-07-23). "Environmental science: Agree on biodiversity metrics to track from space". Nature. 523 (7561): 403–405. Bibcode:2015Natur.523..403S. doi: 10.1038/523403a . PMID   26201582.
  8. 1 2 "GLOBIS-B Essential Biodiversity Variables Workshop on Species Traits held in Amsterdam GLOBIS-B". www.globis-b.eu (in Dutch). Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "The GlobDiversity project has started". GEO BON. 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  10. 1 2 Schmeller, Dirk S.; Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste; Bowser, Anne; Arvanitidis, Christos; Costello, Mark J.; Fernandez, Miguel; Geller, Gary N.; Hobern, Donald; Kissling, W. Daniel (2017-11-01). "An operational definition of essential biodiversity variables". Biodiversity and Conservation. 26 (12): 2967–2972. doi:10.1007/s10531-017-1386-9. ISSN   0960-3115. S2CID   24399755.
  11. ↑ "The GlobDiversity Project".
  12. ↑ "Group on earth Observations". 2018-01-17.
  13. ↑ "GLOBIS-B".
  14. ↑ "Frascati Workshop Essential Biodiversity Variables Term of Reference" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 December 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  15. ↑ "Report EBV Meeting Frascati 26-29 February 2012" (PDF).
  16. ↑ Kissling, W. Daniel; Hardisty, Alex; García, Enrique Alonso; Santamaria, Monica; Leo, Francesca De; Pesole, Graziano; Freyhof, Jörg; Manset, David; Wissel, Silvia (2015-07-03). "Towards global interoperability for supporting biodiversity research on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs)" (PDF). Biodiversity. 16 (2–3): 99–107. doi: 10.1080/14888386.2015.1068709 . ISSN   1488-8386.
  17. ↑ "GEO BON Strategy for Development of EBVs" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-03-24. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  18. ↑ "GLOBIS-B contributes to a better definition of EBVs GLOBIS-B". www.globis-b.eu (in Dutch). Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  19. ↑ Brummitt, Neil; Regan, Eugenie C.; Weatherdon, Lauren V.; Martin, Corinne S.; Geijzendorffer, Ilse R.; Rocchini, Duccio; Gavish, Yoni; Haase, Peter; Marsh, Charles J.; Schmeller, Dirk S. (2017-09-01). "Taking stock of nature: Essential biodiversity variables explained" (PDF). Biological Conservation. 213: 252–255. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2016.09.006. ISSN   0006-3207.
  20. ↑ Turak, Eren; Harrison, Ian; Dudgeon, David; Abell, Robin; Bush, Alex; Darwall, William; Finlayson, C. Max; Ferrier, Simon; Freyhof, Jörg; Hermoso, Virgilio; Juffe-Bignoli, Diego; Linke, Simon; Nel, Jeanne; Patricio, Harmony C.; Pittock, Jamie; Raghavan, Rajeev; Revenga, Carmen; Simaika, John P.; De Wever, Aaike (2017-09-01). "Essential Biodiversity Variables for measuring change in global freshwater biodiversity". Biological Conservation. 213: 272–279. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2016.09.005. ISSN   0006-3207.
  21. ↑ Vihervaara, Petteri; Auvinen, Ari-Pekka; Mononen, Laura; Törmä, Markus; Ahlroth, Petri; Anttila, Saku; Böttcher, Kristin; Forsius, Martin; Heino, Jani; Heliölä, Janne; Koskelainen, Meri; Kuussaari, Mikko; Meissner, Kristian; Ojala, Olli; Tuominen, Seppo; Viitasalo, Markku; Virkkala, Raimo (2017-04-01). "How Essential Biodiversity Variables and remote sensing can help national biodiversity monitoring". Global Ecology and Conservation. 10: 43–59. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2017.01.007 . ISSN   2351-9894.
  22. ↑ Haase, Peter; Tonkin, Jonathan D.; Stoll, Stefan; Burkhard, Benjamin; Frenzel, Mark; Geijzendorffer, Ilse R.; Häuser, Christoph; Klotz, Stefan; Kühn, Ingolf; McDowell, William H.; Mirtl, Michael; Müller, Felix; Musche, Martin; Penner, Johannes; Zacharias, Steffen; Schmeller, Dirk S. (2018-02-01). "The next generation of site-based long-term ecological monitoring: Linking essential biodiversity variables and ecosystem integrity". Science of the Total Environment. 613–614: 1376–1384. Bibcode:2018ScTEn.613.1376H. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.111 . ISSN   0048-9697. PMID   29898505.
  23. ↑ Proença, Vânia; Martin, Laura Jane; Pereira, Henrique Miguel; Fernandez, Miguel; McRae, Louise; Belnap, Jayne; Böhm, Monika; Brummitt, Neil; García-Moreno, Jaime; Gregory, Richard D.; Honrado, João Pradinho; Jürgens, Norbert; Opige, Michael; Schmeller, Dirk S.; Tiago, Patrícia; Van Swaay, Chris A.M. (2017-09-01). "Global biodiversity monitoring: From data sources to Essential Biodiversity Variables". Biological Conservation. 213: 256–263. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.07.014 . ISSN   0006-3207.
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