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Sammanfattning

Biodiversity decline is monitored through a multitude of proxies. One of the most common proxies are aggregate indices constructed from time-series of species. Because of their standardised construction and simplicity of interpretation, these indices are often used as official indicators for biodiversity monitoring. However, aggregate indices hide variability among species dynamics from which they are built. Understanding this diversity is essential to interpret indices and avoid missing particular subsets of species with strong dynamics or groups of species with opposing dynamics that may result in little change in the overall index. In this study, we analyse heterogeneity within the most widely used Wild bird indices in Europe, Farmland Bird Index (FaBI) and Forest Bird Index (FoBI) in 20 European countries between 2000 and 2017. We analyse potential heterogeneity in dynamics within FaBI and FoBI of each country. We show that there is structural heterogeneity in dynamics among species as well as clusters of species with differing dynamics co-existing within aggregated indices in most countries studied. This was the case for farmland birds, even though this group shows strong general declines across Europe, and for forest birds that have less coherent long-term dynamics. We further explored whether clusters may be distinctly linked to major ecological traits, habitat specialisation, functional originality and species' thermal niche, thereby potentially indicating ecologically distinct subgroups. We however found few consistent patterns, although habitat specialisation may explains some of variability for forest birds. As new conservation objectives and policies are produced or implemented, it is important to consider the substantial heterogeneity within aggregated indices.

Nyckelord

Biodiversity monitoring; Bird conservation; Dynamic factor analysis; Multi -species indices

Publicerad i

Biological Conservation
2024, volym: 290, artikelnummer: 110452
Utgivare: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU författare

UKÄ forskningsämne

Ekologi

Publikationens identifierare

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110452

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/142348