Biodiversity time series are biased towards increasing species richness in changing environments.

ABSTRACT: The discrepancy between global loss and local constant species richness has led to debates over data quality, systematic biases in monitoring programmes and the adequacy of species richness to capture changes in biodiversity. We show that, more fundamentally, null expectations of stable richness can be wrong, despite independent yet equal colonization and extinction. We analysed fish and bird time series and found an overall richness increase. This increase reflects a systematic bias towards an earlier detection of colonizations than extinctions. To understand how much this bias influences richness trends, we simulated time series using a neutral model controlling for equilibrium richness and temporal autocorrelation (that is, no trend expected). These simulated time series showed signific

SUBMITTER: Kuczynski L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10333117 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature