Dataset Information

Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants.

ABSTRACT: Concern about biodiversity loss has led to increased public investment in conservation. Whereas there is a widespread perception that such initiatives have been unsuccessful, there are few quantitative tests of this perception. Here, we evaluate whether rates of biodiversity change have altered in recent decades in three European countries (Great Britain, Netherlands and Belgium) for plants and flower visiting insects. We compared four 20-year periods, comparing periods of rapid land-use intensification and natural habitat loss (1930-1990) with a period of increased conservation investment (post-1990). We found that extensive species richness loss and biotic homogenisation occurred before 1990, whereas these negative trends became substantially less accentuated during recent decades, being partially reversed for certain taxa (e.g. bees in Great Britain and Netherlands). These results highlight the potential to maintain or even restore current species assemblages (which despite past extinctions are still of great conservation value), at least in regions where large-scale land-use intensification and natural habitat loss has ceased.

SUBMITTER: Carvalheiro LG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3738924 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants.

Carvalheiro Luísa Gigante LG Kunin William E WE Keil Petr P Aguirre-Gutiérrez Jesus J Ellis Willem Nicolaas WN Fox Richard R Groom Quentin Q Hennekens Stephan S Van Landuyt Wouter W Maes Dirk D Van de Meutter Frank F Michez Denis D Rasmont Pierre P Ode Baudewijn B Potts Simon Geoffrey SG Reemer Menno M Roberts Stuart Paul Masson SP Schaminée Joop J WallisDeVries Michiel F MF Biesmeijer Jacobus Christiaan JC

Ecology letters 20130521 7

Concern about biodiversity loss has led to increased public investment in conservation. Whereas there is a widespread perception that such initiatives have been unsuccessful, there are few quantitative tests of this perception. Here, we evaluate whether rates of biodiversity change have altered in recent decades in three European countries (Great Britain, Netherlands and Belgium) for plants and flower visiting insects. We compared four 20-year periods, comparing periods of rapid land-use intensi ...[more]

PMID: 23692632

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Project description:Global scale analyses have recently revealed that the latitudinal gradient in marine species richness is bimodal, peaking at low-mid latitudes but with a dip at the equator; and that marine species richness decreases with depth in many taxa. However, these overall and independently studied patterns may conceal regional differences that help support or qualify the causes in these gradients. Here, we analysed both latitudinal and depth gradients of species richness in the NW Pacific and its adjacent Arctic Ocean. We analysed 324,916 distribution records of 17,414 species from 0 to 10,900 m depth, latitude 0 to 90°N, and longitude 100 to 180°N. Species richness per c. 50 000 km2 hexagonal cells was calculated as alpha (local average), gamma (regional total) and ES50 (estimated species for 50 records) per latitudinal band and depth interval. We found that average ES50 and gamma species richness decreased per 5° latitudinal bands and 100 m depth intervals. However, average ES50 per hexagon showed that the highest species richness peaked around depth 2,000 m where the highest total number of species recorded. Most (83%) species occurred in shallow depths (0 to 500 m). The area around Bohol Island in the Philippines had the highest alpha species richness (more than 8,000 species per 50,000 km2). Both alpha and gamma diversity trends increased from the equator to latitude 10°N, then further decreased, but reached another peak at higher latitudes. The latitudes 60-70°N had the lowest gamma and alpha diversity where there is almost no ocean in our study area. Model selection on Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) showed that the combined effects of all environmental predictors produced the best model driving species richness in both shallow and deep sea. The results thus support recent hypotheses that biodiversity, while highest in the tropics and coastal depths, is decreasing at the equator and decreases with depth below ~2000 m. While we do find the declines of species richness with latitude and depth that reflect temperature gradients, local scale richness proved poorly correlated with many environmental variables. This demonstrates that while regional scale patterns in species richness may be related to temperature, that local scale richness depends on a greater variety of variables.

Dataset Information

Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants.

Publications

Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants.

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