How does global land-use change reshape ecological assemblages over time?
Lead Research Organisation:
The Natural History Museum
Department Name: Life Sciences
Abstract
Terrestrial biodiversity is declining globally because of human impacts, of which land-use change has so far been the most important. When people change how land is used, many of the species originally present decline or disappear from the area, while others previously absent become established. Although some species are affected immediately, others might only respond later as the consequences of the land-use change ripple through the ecosystem. Such delayed or protracted responses, which we term 'biotic lag', have largely been ignored in large-scale models so far. Another shortcoming of much previous work is that it has focused on numbers of species, rather than what they do. Because 'winners' from the change are likely to be ecologically different from 'losers', the land-use change impacts how the assemblage functions, as well as how many species it contains. Understanding how - and how quickly - land-use change affects local assemblages is crucial for supporting better land-use decisions in the decades to come, as people try to strike the balance between short-term needs for products from ecosystems and the longer-term need for sustainability.
The most obvious way to assess the global effects of land-use change on local ecological communities would be to have monitored how land use and the community have changed over a large, representative set of sites over many decades. The sites have to be representative to avoid a biased result, and the long time scale is needed because the responses can unfold over many years. Because there is no such set of sites, less direct approaches are needed. We are planning to scour the ecological literature for comparisons of communities before and after land-use change. We can correct for bias because we have estimates of how common different changes in land use have been; and we will model how responses change over time after a land-use change so that we can use longer-term and shorter-term studies alike. There are many hundreds of suitable studies, and we will ask the researchers who produced them to share their data with us; we will then make them available to everyone at the end of the project.
We will combine data on species' abundances before and after the land-use change with information about their ecological roles, to reveal how - and how quickly - changing land use affects the relative abundances of the various species and the ecological structure and function of the community. Does conversion of natural habitats to agriculture tend to favour smaller species over large ones, for instance, and if so how quickly? Is metabolism faster in more human-dominated land uses? These analyses will require new compilations of trait data for several ecologically important and highly diverse arthropod groups; to produce these, we will make use of the expertise, collections and library of the Natural History Museum.
In an earlier NERC-funded project (PREDICTS: www.predicts.org.uk), we have already compiled over 500 data sets - provided by over 300 different researchers - that compared otherwise-matched sites where land use differed. The PREDICTS database has amassed over 2,000,000 records, from over 18,000 sites in 88 countries. The database contains more than 1% as many species as have been formally described. Our analyses of this unprecedentedly large and representative data set indicates that land-use change has had a marked global impact on average local diversity. However, because PREDICTS' data sets are spatial rather than temporal comparisons, they are not well-suited to analysing the dynamics of how assemblages respond to land-use change. More fundamentally, PREDICTS' assumption that spatial comparisons are an adequate substitute for temporal data now needs testing. This proposal will deliver the necessary tests, as well as producing the most comprehensive picture of how land-use change reshapes ecological assemblages through time.
The most obvious way to assess the global effects of land-use change on local ecological communities would be to have monitored how land use and the community have changed over a large, representative set of sites over many decades. The sites have to be representative to avoid a biased result, and the long time scale is needed because the responses can unfold over many years. Because there is no such set of sites, less direct approaches are needed. We are planning to scour the ecological literature for comparisons of communities before and after land-use change. We can correct for bias because we have estimates of how common different changes in land use have been; and we will model how responses change over time after a land-use change so that we can use longer-term and shorter-term studies alike. There are many hundreds of suitable studies, and we will ask the researchers who produced them to share their data with us; we will then make them available to everyone at the end of the project.
We will combine data on species' abundances before and after the land-use change with information about their ecological roles, to reveal how - and how quickly - changing land use affects the relative abundances of the various species and the ecological structure and function of the community. Does conversion of natural habitats to agriculture tend to favour smaller species over large ones, for instance, and if so how quickly? Is metabolism faster in more human-dominated land uses? These analyses will require new compilations of trait data for several ecologically important and highly diverse arthropod groups; to produce these, we will make use of the expertise, collections and library of the Natural History Museum.
In an earlier NERC-funded project (PREDICTS: www.predicts.org.uk), we have already compiled over 500 data sets - provided by over 300 different researchers - that compared otherwise-matched sites where land use differed. The PREDICTS database has amassed over 2,000,000 records, from over 18,000 sites in 88 countries. The database contains more than 1% as many species as have been formally described. Our analyses of this unprecedentedly large and representative data set indicates that land-use change has had a marked global impact on average local diversity. However, because PREDICTS' data sets are spatial rather than temporal comparisons, they are not well-suited to analysing the dynamics of how assemblages respond to land-use change. More fundamentally, PREDICTS' assumption that spatial comparisons are an adequate substitute for temporal data now needs testing. This proposal will deliver the necessary tests, as well as producing the most comprehensive picture of how land-use change reshapes ecological assemblages through time.
Planned Impact
We have identified three major beneficiaries from our proposal outside of academia, as follows:
1. International science-policy organisations and processes. Outputs from our empirical models have the potential to inform international agreements and processes, such as the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). IPBES's rapid assessment of scenarios and modelling of biodiversity and ecosystem services requires information on how to model impacts of drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem services. We will liaise directly with this IPBES deliverable through project partners Prof Simon Ferrier & Dr Jörn Scharlemann. GEO BON's modelling working group (WG7) has set as its top priority "Global estimation of change in retention of terrestrial biodiversity as a function of observed change in habitat condition and climate", while its third priority is "Global projection of change in retention and protection of terrestrial biodiversity under future scenarios of land use and climate." We will liaise directly with the GEO BON working group, through project partners Prof Simon Ferrier and Dr Jörn Scharlemann, and will also liaise with UNEP's next Global Environment Outlook (GEO6) through Dr Neil Burgess (Consultant, and Head of Programme, Science, at UNEP-WCMC); we will discuss with both processes to ensure that the models we run have maximum applicability. Our databases of before-and-after comparisons and functional trait data will also be of relevance to these organisations and processes. As with our ongoing PREDICTS project, we will seek endorsement for this project from GEO BON, making clear that we will pass all our data holdings to GEO BON at the end of the project. UNEP-WCMC will use our modelling framework for biodiversity projections in response to requests from decision-makers, including the international conventions, governments and businses. Because we will be developing our framework in partnership with UNEP-WCMC and other project partners, it will translate directly into evaluations of policy options for land and biodiversity management.
2. UK and other national governments: Model outputs and projections at sub-global spatial resolution will be of interest to national governments for national-scale biodiversity assessments and conservation planning. UNEP-WCMC will make national summaries available via the 'conservation dashboard' on its home page. As well as influencing international policy processes, UNEP-WCMC also performs many projects for national governments and institutions (including the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs in the UK); as part of our collaboration with UNEP-WCMC, we will provide predictions to inform these projects, where relevant. Additionally, the UK government is a member of GEO, though Defra, so may benefit directly if this project fulfils part of their obligations.
3. Members of the public: The NHM has a proactive Press Office that is experienced in engaging with national and international media and in coordinating publicity between multiple institutional press offices. Press Office staff will draft and release press releases in conjunction with the PI and Researcher Co-I, to coincide with publication of significant research results, thereby disseminating the work as widely as possible. The NHM also runs informal learning activities on site in South Kensington, including popular public presentations on research results as part of the regular "Nature Live" series of talks. These daily talks, of 30 minutes' duration, focus on aspects of NHM science output in an informal setting and allow direct public access to scientists. Nature Live talks are attended by diverse audiences that represent all sociodemographic groups in the UK as well as international visitors.
1. International science-policy organisations and processes. Outputs from our empirical models have the potential to inform international agreements and processes, such as the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON). IPBES's rapid assessment of scenarios and modelling of biodiversity and ecosystem services requires information on how to model impacts of drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem services. We will liaise directly with this IPBES deliverable through project partners Prof Simon Ferrier & Dr Jörn Scharlemann. GEO BON's modelling working group (WG7) has set as its top priority "Global estimation of change in retention of terrestrial biodiversity as a function of observed change in habitat condition and climate", while its third priority is "Global projection of change in retention and protection of terrestrial biodiversity under future scenarios of land use and climate." We will liaise directly with the GEO BON working group, through project partners Prof Simon Ferrier and Dr Jörn Scharlemann, and will also liaise with UNEP's next Global Environment Outlook (GEO6) through Dr Neil Burgess (Consultant, and Head of Programme, Science, at UNEP-WCMC); we will discuss with both processes to ensure that the models we run have maximum applicability. Our databases of before-and-after comparisons and functional trait data will also be of relevance to these organisations and processes. As with our ongoing PREDICTS project, we will seek endorsement for this project from GEO BON, making clear that we will pass all our data holdings to GEO BON at the end of the project. UNEP-WCMC will use our modelling framework for biodiversity projections in response to requests from decision-makers, including the international conventions, governments and businses. Because we will be developing our framework in partnership with UNEP-WCMC and other project partners, it will translate directly into evaluations of policy options for land and biodiversity management.
2. UK and other national governments: Model outputs and projections at sub-global spatial resolution will be of interest to national governments for national-scale biodiversity assessments and conservation planning. UNEP-WCMC will make national summaries available via the 'conservation dashboard' on its home page. As well as influencing international policy processes, UNEP-WCMC also performs many projects for national governments and institutions (including the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs in the UK); as part of our collaboration with UNEP-WCMC, we will provide predictions to inform these projects, where relevant. Additionally, the UK government is a member of GEO, though Defra, so may benefit directly if this project fulfils part of their obligations.
3. Members of the public: The NHM has a proactive Press Office that is experienced in engaging with national and international media and in coordinating publicity between multiple institutional press offices. Press Office staff will draft and release press releases in conjunction with the PI and Researcher Co-I, to coincide with publication of significant research results, thereby disseminating the work as widely as possible. The NHM also runs informal learning activities on site in South Kensington, including popular public presentations on research results as part of the regular "Nature Live" series of talks. These daily talks, of 30 minutes' duration, focus on aspects of NHM science output in an informal setting and allow direct public access to scientists. Nature Live talks are attended by diverse audiences that represent all sociodemographic groups in the UK as well as international visitors.
Organisations
- The Natural History Museum, United Kingdom (Lead Research Organisation)
- Zoological Soc London Inst of Zoology, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- World Wide Fund for Nature (Collaboration)
- Bioversity International, Italy (Collaboration)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (Collaboration)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Collaboration)
- Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Collaboration)
- Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) (Collaboration)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Collaboration)
- Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (Collaboration)
- University of Southampton, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- Max Planck, Germany (Project Partner)
- University of Sussex, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- Swansea University, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- CSIRO, Australia (Project Partner)
- Birdlife International, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- University of Minnesota, United States (Project Partner)
- Microsoft Research Ltd, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
Publications

Barrett M
(2018)
Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher

De Palma A
(2017)
Large reorganizations in butterfly communities during an extreme weather event
in Ecography

De Palma A
(2016)
Predicting bee community responses to land-use changes: Effects of geographic and taxonomic biases.
in Scientific reports

De Palma A
(2017)
Dimensions of biodiversity loss: Spatial mismatch in land-use impacts on species, functional and phylogenetic diversity of European bees.
in Diversity & distributions

De Palma A
(2018)
Next Generation Biomonitoring: Part 1

Hill S
(2016)
Reconciling Biodiversity Indicators to Guide Understanding and Action Reconciling biodiversity indicators
in Conservation Letters

Hudson LN
(2017)
The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project.
in Ecology and evolution

Kim H
(2018)
A protocol for an intercomparison of biodiversity and ecosystem services models using harmonized land-use and climate scenarios
in Geoscientific Model Development

Mace G
(2018)
Aiming higher to bend the curve of biodiversity loss
in Nature Sustainability

Newbold T
(2016)
Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Description | In 2016, we showed that models of how biodiversity responds to land-use change need to be aware of regional and taxonomic differences in the driver-response relationship. Focusing on bees, because of their importance in provision of ecosystem services (pollination), we compared the driver-response relationship across 11 geographic regions (e.g., Western Europe) and between bumblebees and other bees. We found highly significant differences in how drivers influence biodiversity. The implication of our results is that global extrapolation of models based on geographically and taxonomically restricted data may underestimate the true uncertainty, increasing the risk of ecological surprises. In 2018, we published three new articles. The first showed how different study designs can affect inferences of how land-use change affects biodiversity, and developed an analytical framework for synthesising data from studies having different designs; we are now using this framework in our own synthetic analysis. The second article provided the most detailed explanation and discussion to date of how the Biodiversity Intactness Index - a new indicator of the state of nature that we have developed - can be estimated from data like ours. As part of this ongoing project, we have collated over 1.5 million records of species abundances, which will underpin our synthetic analyses. The third, in PLoS Biology, showed that land-use change is a widespread driver of biotic homogenization worldwide. |
Exploitation Route | The 2016 results highlight the importance of taxonomic and geographic representativeness in global biodiversity databases, so can help to drive prioritisation of data collection by researchers and by biodiversity data aggregators. The 2018 papers and data set will help any group wishing to synthesise disparate ecological data to assess the effects of human impacts, making it easier for researchers to avoid pitfalls we have highlighted and to hopefully thereby approach congruence in results. |
Sectors | Environment |
URL | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/bookseries/00652504 |
Description | The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), which we have implemented, has been adopted by IPBES as a 'core indicator' (i.e., to be used in assessments whenever possible) and by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. It has been used in IPBES's ongoing Regional Assessments (Chapter 3) and Global Assessment (Chapter 2). Because BII is modelled, it is possible to project it under alternative socioeconomic pathways; results from applying it to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways have fed into Chapter 4 of the IPBES Global Assessment. Because BII values for different land uses have been embedded into a range of Integrated Assessment Models, it is now possible to develop goal-seeking scenarios, in which biodiversity targets shape the path of development. Such analyses were fed into Chapter 5 of the IPBES Global Assessment. BII is being considered as a candidate indicator for tracking progress towards post-2020 global targets for biodiversity, alongside other complementary indicators. |
First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment |
Impact Types | Policy & public services |
Description | Adoption of Biodiversity Intactness Index as a core indicator by IPBES |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | https://www.ipbes.net/indicators/core |
Description | Biodiversity Intactness Index cited heavily in Living Planet Report 2018 and proposed as one of a core set of indicators for post-2020 biodiversity targets |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
Description | Biodiversity Intactness Index has been accepted into the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
Description | Biodiversity Intactness Index referenced in House of Commons debate on environmental protection, 18 Oct 2016 |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-18/debates/6D8A2C6D-A670-434B-892F-EDC06D9DE4D3/Enviro... |
Description | Citation in Global Biodiversity Debate in Westminster |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CDP-2016-0198#fullreport |
Description | Helping to set the next generation of biodiversity targets for after the 2020 Aichi Targets expire |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
Description | Models and results widely cited in IPBES regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/eca |
Description | Reported on state of UK biodiversity in 2016 State of Nature report |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/documents/conservation-projects/state-of-nature/state... |
Description | DIF |
Amount | £20,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Natural History Museum |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2017 |
End | 06/2018 |
Description | Partnership |
Amount | € 20,000 (EUR) |
Organisation | Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency |
Sector | Public |
Country | Netherlands |
Start | 05/2017 |
End | 05/2018 |
Description | Plants Under Pressure II - Prince Albert II of Monaco foundation |
Amount | £252,067 (GBP) |
Organisation | Prince Albert II Monaco Foundation |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | Monaco |
Start | 09/2018 |
End | 12/2020 |
Title | PREDICTS2 biodiversity database |
Description | We have collated over 100 biodiversity datasets from around the world, each assessing temporal change at sites that have undergone change in land use or land management. We have recast each dataset into a controlled unifying structure permitting easier validation and analysis, and written R functions to extract parameters of interest for analysis. The database contains well over 1 million records, where each record is the abundance of a species at a site in a given sampling campaign. The vast majority of these data have not been publicly available, but have been shared with us by the original field researchers in response to requests after literature searches. Our first synthetic analysis papers are now underway. The database will be made freely available at the end of the project, in line with our agreement with data providers. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The database and associated R functions have already been used successfully by a series of Masters project students who have worked with the award team, analysing how land-use change reshapes ecological communities over time. A series of synthetic analyses is now underway. |
Title | The 2016 release of the PREDICTS database |
Description | A dataset of 3,250,404 measurements, collated from 26,114 sampling locations in 94 countries and representing 47,044 species. The data were collated from 480 existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database was assembled as part of the PREDICTS project - Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems; www.predicts.org.uk. The taxonomic identifications provided in the original data sets are those determined at the time of the original research, and so will not reflect subsequent taxonomic changes. This dataset is described in 10.1002/ece3.2579. A description of the way that this dataset was assembled is given in 10.1002/ece3.1303. columns.csv: Description of data extract columns database.zip: Database in zipped CSV format database.rds: Database in RDS format sites.zip: Site-level summaries in compressed CSV format sites.rds: Site-level summaries in RDS format references.csv: Data references in CSV format references.bib: Data references in BibTeX format |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The PREDICTS database underpins all the analytical publications from this grant. The most notable impact is that the Biodiversity Intactness Index (from Newbold et al. 2016 Science) is being widely adopted as an indicator of how broad-sense biodiversity is responding to human pressures around land-use change, already featuring in e.g. the 2016 UK State of Nature report. |
URL | http://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/the-2016-release-of-the-predicts-database |
Title | Updated PREDICTS database with refined land-use and stratum information |
Description | We have re-curated the PREDICTS database to a refined set of land-use classes developed for a new generation of socioeconomic scenarios, particularly improving the granularity of agricultural land use. We have also re-curated cropland sites with the identity of the crop grown, where available. We have also recorded which physical stratum in the habitat was sampled to produce each of the collated data sets - below ground, soil surface, understorey or canopy. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The recurated data have permitted (a) projection of how a range of biodiversity measures, including the Biodiversity Intactness Index, are likely to change over the rest of the 21st century under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios; (b) embedding of PREDICTS models into several Integrated Assessment Models enabling goal-seeking scenarios to be developed that meet societal goals without compromising biodiversity; and (c) demonstration that aboveground and soil assemblages are affected differently by land use pressures. Manuscripts presenting each of these analyses are in review or in revision. |
Description | Bending The Curve |
Organisation | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | We have worked with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams to embed the PREDICTS biodiversity models into their land allocation models, to enable goal-seeking scenarios to be developed that minimise biodiversity loss alongside meeting other societally relevant targets (e.g., providing enough food for the global population). We have also run the resulting scenarios through more fine-grained statistical models from PREDICTS, to more fully explore the biodiversity consequences. [NB - more partners than shown here] |
Collaborator Contribution | They have worked with us, using their Integrated Assessment Model expertise which complements our own. They have also run the models to try to identify scenarios that can 'bend the curve' of global biodiversity declines. |
Impact | A manuscript is in review in Nature. A grant proposal written jointly with some of the partners was submitted to NERC but was unsuccessful. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Bending The Curve |
Organisation | International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis |
Country | Austria |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have worked with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams to embed the PREDICTS biodiversity models into their land allocation models, to enable goal-seeking scenarios to be developed that minimise biodiversity loss alongside meeting other societally relevant targets (e.g., providing enough food for the global population). We have also run the resulting scenarios through more fine-grained statistical models from PREDICTS, to more fully explore the biodiversity consequences. [NB - more partners than shown here] |
Collaborator Contribution | They have worked with us, using their Integrated Assessment Model expertise which complements our own. They have also run the models to try to identify scenarios that can 'bend the curve' of global biodiversity declines. |
Impact | A manuscript is in review in Nature. A grant proposal written jointly with some of the partners was submitted to NERC but was unsuccessful. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Bending The Curve |
Organisation | World Wide Fund for Nature |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have worked with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams to embed the PREDICTS biodiversity models into their land allocation models, to enable goal-seeking scenarios to be developed that minimise biodiversity loss alongside meeting other societally relevant targets (e.g., providing enough food for the global population). We have also run the resulting scenarios through more fine-grained statistical models from PREDICTS, to more fully explore the biodiversity consequences. [NB - more partners than shown here] |
Collaborator Contribution | They have worked with us, using their Integrated Assessment Model expertise which complements our own. They have also run the models to try to identify scenarios that can 'bend the curve' of global biodiversity declines. |
Impact | A manuscript is in review in Nature. A grant proposal written jointly with some of the partners was submitted to NERC but was unsuccessful. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Bending The Curve |
Organisation | Zoological Society of London |
Department | Institute of Zoology |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have worked with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams to embed the PREDICTS biodiversity models into their land allocation models, to enable goal-seeking scenarios to be developed that minimise biodiversity loss alongside meeting other societally relevant targets (e.g., providing enough food for the global population). We have also run the resulting scenarios through more fine-grained statistical models from PREDICTS, to more fully explore the biodiversity consequences. [NB - more partners than shown here] |
Collaborator Contribution | They have worked with us, using their Integrated Assessment Model expertise which complements our own. They have also run the models to try to identify scenarios that can 'bend the curve' of global biodiversity declines. |
Impact | A manuscript is in review in Nature. A grant proposal written jointly with some of the partners was submitted to NERC but was unsuccessful. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) has been approved by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership |
Organisation | Biodiversity Indicators Partnership |
PI Contribution | Building on a paper we published in 2016, we applied to add our implementation of a key biodiversity indicator, the Biodiversity Intactness Index, to the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, a global initiative to promote the development and delivery of biodiversity indicators by responding to the indicator requests of the CBD and other biodiversity-related Conventions, for IPBES, for reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals, and for use by national and regional governments. This application,made in May 2017, was approved in February 2018, meaning that BII will now be made available to a wide array of national and international stakeholders worldwide. |
Collaborator Contribution | The Biodiversity Indicators Partnership is a global collaboration organised through UNEP-WCMC. They consider proposed new indicators critically, in order to ensure that indicators used to track biodiversity trends are fit for purpose. The review process highlighted some issues that we will address in future iterations. Our collaborators at CSIRO Canberra provided us with fine-scale land use data that can feed into our statistical models. |
Impact | Collaboration only just established so outputs have not yet been made available |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) has been approved by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership |
Organisation | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Building on a paper we published in 2016, we applied to add our implementation of a key biodiversity indicator, the Biodiversity Intactness Index, to the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, a global initiative to promote the development and delivery of biodiversity indicators by responding to the indicator requests of the CBD and other biodiversity-related Conventions, for IPBES, for reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals, and for use by national and regional governments. This application,made in May 2017, was approved in February 2018, meaning that BII will now be made available to a wide array of national and international stakeholders worldwide. |
Collaborator Contribution | The Biodiversity Indicators Partnership is a global collaboration organised through UNEP-WCMC. They consider proposed new indicators critically, in order to ensure that indicators used to track biodiversity trends are fit for purpose. The review process highlighted some issues that we will address in future iterations. Our collaborators at CSIRO Canberra provided us with fine-scale land use data that can feed into our statistical models. |
Impact | Collaboration only just established so outputs have not yet been made available |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Collaboration on biodiversity indicators with CSIRO Australia |
Organisation | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | We are providing models of how local biodiversity responds to land use and related pressures globally. This has formed one of the inputs into the BILBI model of terrestrial biodiversity under habitat loss, degradation and climate change. A manuscript is in preparation. |
Collaborator Contribution | CSIRO are providing global downscaled land-use data at 1km resolution |
Impact | Two indicators - the Local Biotic Intactness Index and the Biodiversity Habitat Index - come from this collaboration, and both are currently under consideration by the Convention on Biological Diversity having been supported by the GEO BON. |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Collaboration with Bioversity International to contribute to the Agrobiodiversity Indicator. |
Organisation | Bioversity International |
Country | Italy |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We hosted Costanza Geppert in our lab for five days and supervised her work producing biodiversity models. I trained Costanza in statistical modelling and the use of R statistical software for data manipulation and analysis. Using these models, I have produced spatial projections which will be used to assess pollinator diversity in agro-biodiversity areas in the Neotropics as well as a pilot study area for the Agrobiodiversity Index. |
Collaborator Contribution | Bioversity International recruited Costanza Gepptert to help on the pilot stage of the Agrobiodiversity Index. Costanza received the necessary training to then produce models of pollinator diversity in the Neotropics. |
Impact | Adriana De Palma was funded to attend the CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture convention in Colombia. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Collaboration with Rémi Prudhomme at the University of Paris on balancing priorities in the agricultural sector |
Organisation | Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) |
Country | France |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | We have hosted Rémi for 4 weeks in our lab to work together on linking PREDICTS with the Nexus-Land Use model. Andy Purvis and I have supervised Rémi, discussed the work, contributed to the paper, and I have run biodiversity models specifically for this project. |
Collaborator Contribution | Rémi has carried out the work of integrating PREDICTS and the Nexus-Land Use model, has implemented multiple policies into the model, and has assessed how these policies influence trade-offs between food production, climate mitigation and biodiversity (using the biodiversity models we provided). |
Impact | A scientific article is in preparation. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Multi-model projections of the global biodiversity consequences of alternative socioeconomic development pathways |
Organisation | German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research |
Country | Germany |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have developed a pipeline for combining our statistical models of how human pressures affect local biodiversity, with global estimates of how pressures (land use, human population) will unfold through the 21st century under alternative futures, known as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We have been provided with advance access to these global estimates, as one of a number of teams who are each using the data to drive their biodiversity models. The synthesis fed into the IPBES Global Assessment, Chapter 4, which will be published later this year. A manuscript is in revision prior to resubmission for review. |
Collaborator Contribution | iDiv organised all the teams to come and provided some assistance with travel and subsistence, as well as leading the synthesis. IPBES helped to develop the framework towards which we are targeting outr model outputs. The other researchers in other modelling teams are making contributions that are parallel to our own, |
Impact | None yet |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Multi-model projections of the global biodiversity consequences of alternative socioeconomic development pathways |
Organisation | Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services |
Country | Germany |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have developed a pipeline for combining our statistical models of how human pressures affect local biodiversity, with global estimates of how pressures (land use, human population) will unfold through the 21st century under alternative futures, known as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We have been provided with advance access to these global estimates, as one of a number of teams who are each using the data to drive their biodiversity models. The synthesis fed into the IPBES Global Assessment, Chapter 4, which will be published later this year. A manuscript is in revision prior to resubmission for review. |
Collaborator Contribution | iDiv organised all the teams to come and provided some assistance with travel and subsistence, as well as leading the synthesis. IPBES helped to develop the framework towards which we are targeting outr model outputs. The other researchers in other modelling teams are making contributions that are parallel to our own, |
Impact | None yet |
Start Year | 2017 |
Title | Software pipeline for streamlining spatiotemporal projections of biodiversity |
Description | Statistical models relating local biodiversity to human pressures can be crossed with spatiotemporal pressure data to make projections of inferred biodiversity across large spatial domains (e.g., global) and for any time for which pressure data are available. The computation time required to make these projections at high spatial and temporal resolutions greatly limited our ability to explore the projections. We have greatly accelerated the codebase for making projections, such that what took a powerful workstation weeks now takes a laptop mere minutes. At the same time, the codebase was rationalise to make it more transparent and robust. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Impact | This advance has allowed us to make annual high-resolution global estimates of the Biodiversity Intactness Index in tropical and subtropical forest biomes, 2001-2012; to estimate global BII for the year 2005 from models that allow island and mainland assemblages to respond differently to human pressures; and to compare projections across multiple future scenarios. Manuscripts presenting each of these are in review or soon to be submitted. Preprints of two of these are publicly available, and fed into the IPBES Global Assessment - one of the doi's is given below. |
Description | Attendance at CBD Conference of the Parties, Egypt, November 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Dr Adriana De Palma attended the COP in Egypt in November 2018; her main engagements there were as follows: - Presented the PREDICTS project and promoted our products to multiple stakeholders - Promoted the use of our outputs through the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership Dashboard - Discussed the potential to use our outputs in national assessments, e.g. - Erie Tamale from the Secretariat of the CBD, interested in PREDICTS to target areas for restoration in Africa - Xu Haigen, Deputy Director General of the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, Interested in PREDICTS as a way to produce national assessments |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Biodiversity Hack |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Organiser of a Hackathon on 20 June 2015 at Natural History Museum - developing new approaches to finding data suitable for the PREDICTS project and the Living Planet Index. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Briefing Sonia Phippard (Director General of DEFRA) on PREDICTS |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Briefed Director General of Defra on the results from the PREDICTS project to raise awareness about how our research could inform national and international environmental policy. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Briefing of Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser to UK Government |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Prof Purvis presented the PREDICTS project and the Biodiversity Intactness Index to Patrick Vallance during his visit to NHM. He also raised and discussed the IPBES, suggestions of catastrophic insect declines then current in the news, and the value of digitising natural history collections to establish a natural baseline. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Culture Is Digital event, slideshow and engagement |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Event on Culture is Digital, hosted by the NHM for the Minister for Digital. Engaged with attendees on PREDICTS and how we save dark data to save biodiversity. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Global biodiversity models worskhop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Participated at a worskhop discussion of Madingley, GLOBIO and PREDICTS models of biodiversity on 28 September 2015 at UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Invited presentation at CBD COP side-event, Egypt, November 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Dr Adriana De Palma gave a presentation on the PREDICTS project and our products that can be used to aid decision makers track change in biodiversity and predict future changes. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Invited presentation at international iceDig conference, March 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Conference presentation by Dr Adriana De Palma on the PREDICTS project to demonstrate how combining linkable, open data can contribute to robust, policy-relevant science |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Invited speaker, iDiv workshop on Essential Biodiversity Variables |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Workshop to discuss ways to ensure that essential biodiversity variables are regularly reported upon/data are made openly available, as a vital step towards providing meaningful, regularly updated syntheses of biodiversity outcomes to policy makers and managers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Keynote speaker, iDigBio conference on digitizing biodiversity data |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Raised awareness of the PREDICTS project among museum/collections staff, who are generally digitising biodiversity data to ensure open access to data, but without much thought to the potential impact that these data can have. PREDICTS was an example of how digitisation can lead to outputs that are relevant to the public, land managers and policy makers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5977042.v1 |
Description | Linking climate and biodiversity scenarios and modelling, Workshop, UNESCO Headquarters, April 2016, Paris, France |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Workshop with land-use modelers and biodiversity modelers to improve scenario modeling, in order to better inform policy. Short-term intention is to produce meaningful scenario modeling for IPBES. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | PREDICTS and the Agrobiodiversity Index, talk at the CGIAR Big data in agriculture inaugural convention |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | CGIAR Inaugural Convention of the Big Data in Agriculture Platform. I gave a talk on the ongoing collaboration between PREDICTS and Bioversity International to create an Agrobiodiversity Index, with the aim of informing decisions land managers and policy makers. The audience was international and was broadcast online, reaching further viewers. Many opportunities for collaboration with other participants were raised, and ours was one of the only groups working on biodiversity as a core component of agricultural sustainability. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Presentation of PREDICTS project to Duncan Wingham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Supporters |
Results and Impact | Prof Purvis and Dr De Palma presented the PREDICTS project to Duncan Wingham, showcasing the potential for mobilising natural history data for societal benefit, leading to a detailed discussion of priorities for data mobilisation and detailed follow-up correspondence. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Presentation of PREDICTS to Jeremy Grantham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Supporters |
Results and Impact | Prof Purvis and Dr De Palma presented PREDICTS to Jeremy Grantham, leading to a discussion of drivers of perceived insect declines and our sending him papers presenting more recent developments than he was aware of. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Presentation to Lawrence Ellison Foundation, November 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Supporters |
Results and Impact | Presentation and discussion of the PREDICTS project |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Presentation to the Parliamentary Science Committee (UK), July 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Presentation to the Parliamentary Science Committee (UK), July 2018; discussion of digitisation of natural history specimens and the unique insights they can provide |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems: an overview of PREDICTS |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Research presentation at Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems: an overview of PREDICTS - a Global biodiversity models workshop. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | The next stage of PREDICTS |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Research presentation at PREDICTS Project Symposium on 14 September 2015 at Natural History Museum. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |