Global modelling of local biodiversity responses to human impacts

Biodiversity is declining. Despite the commitment made by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, all the evidence shows that biodiversity is declining at steady or even accelerating rates, and that the pressures behind the decline are if anything getting worse. This is bad news, because every person in every country depends on ecosystem services - benefits that ecological systems provide to people - and the biodiversity that underpins it. These links are most direct for the hundreds of millions of people in the world's poorest countries who depend on local biodiversity for food, fibres, medicines and fuel.

As the deadline for the 2010 target came and went, problems became apparent with the biodiversity indicators scientists have used to assess trends. Because the 2010 target needed to be assessed quickly, existing indicators were designed around sets of data that researchers had already collated together. This led to biases because we know more about charismatic vertebrates than about insects, more about temperate than tropical biodiversity, and more about populations of single species than about the ecological communities of which they are parts. The rush also meant that some indicators might not be rigorous enough to support policy decisions - a real concern, given how any apparent weakness in the evidence for human-caused climate change is leapt on by vociferous critics. There is a need for scientifically rigorous indicators that reflect threats to biodiversity, the state of biodiversity, ecosystem services and policy responses.

The main threats facing biodiversity (often termed drivers or pressures) are the destruction, degradation and fragmentation of habitats, and the damage to individuals' fitness caused by exploitation, pollution and introduction of species from other parts of the world. We know that the highest proportions of threatened mammals, birds and amphibians are found in those regions where human pressures have recently become intense. We also know that some species and ecosystems have characteristics that make them better able than others to persist in spite of human actions. An urgent priority for research, therefore, is to model how the state of biodiversity is affected not only by threat intensities but also by ecological characteristics. Such a model will let us understand the complex spatial, temporal, taxonomic and ecological patterns of decline. We will also be able to use those models to make projections that can inform and support policy.

This proposal is a true partnership between a world-class university (Imperial College London), an intergovernmental conservation organisation (UNEP-WCMC), a leading biodiversity research institute (Institute of Zoology) and a world-leading technology company (Microsoft Research), sharing the aim of integrating existing data on biodiversity and human threats to produce the best possible basis for policy. We will also use the framework we develop to tackle a wide range of both fundamental and policy-relevant questions in biodiversity science.

UNEP-WCMC will use the framework for biodiversity projections in response to requests from decision-makers, including the international conventions, governments and businesses. We will meet guidelines laid down by the nascent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to ensure the framework is fit for purpose. Because the framework is being developed as a true partnership between project partners, it will translate directly into evaluations of policy options for biodiversity management.

We have identified three major beneficiaries from our proposal, as follows:

1. International policy organisations: Outputs from out empirical models have the potential inform international agreements and processes, such as model intercomparisons for the nascent Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), or new assessments being established, e.g. UNEP's ongoing Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series or for future Global Biodiversity Outlooks (GBO) of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Further, biodiversity scenarios could inform decision making on the implementation of mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) being negotiated under UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). For all these potential impacts, transparency, relevance and scientific rigour are extremely important. We will report completed findings from our models and projections in the next Global Environment Outlook report and in the follow-up to TEEB.

The biodiversity database created in this project could form part of the UK's contribution towards the Biodiversity Societal Benefit Area of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), in particular the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO-BON).

UNEP-WCMC will use the framework for biodiversity projections in response to requests from decision-makers, including the international conventions, governments and businesses. We will meet guidelines laid down by the newly-formed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to ensure the framework is fit for purpose. Because the framework is being developed as a true partnership between project partners, it will translate directly into evaluations of policy options for biodiversity management.

2. UK and other national governments: Model scenario outputs at sub-global spatial resolution might be of interest to national governments for national-scale biodiversity assessments and biodiversity conservation planning. Additionally, the UK government is a member of GEO, through Defra, so may benefit directly if the project fulfils part of their obligations.

3. Biodiversity conservation researchers: The empirical data bases that underpin our biodiversity models will add value to existing empirical data on biodiversity patterns, hopefully motivating further collection and collation of relevant data. Additionally, many researchers will be interested in results from the answers our analyses provide to a range of questions having both pure and applied interest; e.g., whether reductions in different facets of biodiversity - such as local abundance, functional diversity, or spatial turnover - decline smoothly and in step as threats increase or instead show possibly different thresholds; and whether biodiversity patterns in well-studied groups like mammals and birds can be used to predict broader patterns.