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Biodiversity Trends in Europe
By: Mireille.de.Heer - Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Source: Journal of Philosophical Transactions: Biological
Committed to global efforts of reducing the erosion of biodiversity, the EU member countries have adopted a global target of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. This has highlighted the need for indicators that will allow policy makers to track progress towards these ambitious goals.
To address this need, a new indicator of trends in species abundance and distribution at the Pan-European scale has been developed by an international project coordinated by the UNEP World Monitoring Centre.
The indicator focuses on eco-regions that combine biogeographical regions and the major habitat types in Europe in order to cover the main variability in Europe's biodiversity. It uses data collected by various NGOs in different contexts (i.e. conservation, research, public information, and policy support). Since this great amount of data has been collected by different methods during the past three decades, all the data is re-expressed as the proportional change in species abundance between the year 1970 (used as baseline) and the year 2000 (used as an approximation of the present situation).
The ecoregional indices (calculated by integrating species population trends by country weighted by the ecoregion area) can be aggregated across countries, biogeographical regions and habitats, and as such they could provide a useful tool for monitoring progress towards 2010 biodiversity targets.
In the trial analysis of the indicator, the scientists used data from over 2 000 historical trends in national populations of birds, butterflies and mammals, for a total of 273 species. The obtained results suggest a decline of species populations in nearly all habitats. The largest decline has been calculated for farmland, where species populations declined by an average of 23% between 1970 and 2000.
The novelty of this indicator is that it permits the use of already available data, integrates trends on different species and taxonomic groups, and can be aggregated across habitats and countries. The researchers argue that this type of indicator might be very useful in measuring the trends of biodiversity loss across EU. Furthermore, since it can be used at different scales (national, regional), this indicator could provide insights into trends that may require special attention at particular scales of policy and decision making.
However, the scientists also highlight its main constraints. These include limited sensitivity of the historical data and consequent conservative estimates of species decline; a potential danger of ambiguity because increases in opportunistic species can mask the loss of other species; and failure to account for pre-1970 population declines.
Therefore, the authors of the indicator recommend mobilizing additional existing data, particularly for plants and fishes, and elaborating further the criteria for compiling representative sets of species. They also point out that for a frequent and reliable update of the indicator, sound, sensitive and harmonized biodiversity monitoring programmes are needed in all Pan-European countries.
Source : De Heer, M., Kapos, Valerie; Ten Brink, B.J.E. (2005) “Biodiversity trends in Europe: development and testing of a species trend indicator for evaluating progress towards the 2010 target “, Journal of Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences (Royal Society of London), 360(1454): 297-308.
For more information :http://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/717101001.html
Contact : Mireille.de.Heer@mnp.nl
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