Developing and enhancing biodiversity monitoring programmes: a collaborative assessment of priorities

Estimating the population size of a mountain galliform in the context of multi-stakeholder adaptive management

We designed a participatory monitoring program for the capercaillie population in the French Pyrenees based on lek censuses conducted during the breeding season. This program was implemented by a consortium of stakeholders interested in the conservation of French galliforms. The program, carried out since 2010, relied on a dual frame sampling approach: The first sampled frame was the list of all known leks in the study area. We distinguished two types of known leks: leks known to be active before the onset of the program (with at least one cock detected since 2000) and leks with an indeterminate activity status at the time of the onset of the program. The monitoring program also accounted for the existence of leks that were unknown due mainly to incomplete expert knowledge. We therefore built a complementary area frame by discretizing the study area into a set of 4-km² grid cells. These cells were then sampled and searched to find unknown leks. When unknown leks were found, cock censuses were organized. An additional field experiment allowed us to estimate the detection probability of unknown leks during these cell searches. We then fitted two hierarchical models: (i) An N-mixture model fitted to the lek census data set allowed us to estimate the mean number of cocks on the three types of leks (known active, known indeterminate, and unknown leks); and (ii) another model fitted to the cell search data set allowed us to estimate the number of unknown leks in the studied mountain range. By multiplying the estimated mean numbers of cocks associated with the three types of leks by the number of leks of each type (an estimated value in the case of unknown leks), we obtained estimates of the total numbers of cocks on all leks at different spatial scales in the study area every 2 years. Our model suggests that the capercaillie cock population was stable from 2010 to 2017 over the whole range but decreased slightly in the foothill area and western part, a decrease that worsened in 2018-2019.

Using expert-elicitation to deliver biodiversity monitoring priorities on a Mediterranean island

Biodiversity monitoring plays an essential role in tracking changes in ecosystems, species distributions and abundances across the globe. Data collected through both structured and unstructured biodiversity recording can inform conservation measures designed to reduce, prevent, and reverse declines in valued biodiversity of many types. However, given that resources for biodiversity monitoring are limited, it is important that funding bodies prioritise investments relative to the requirements in any given region. We addressed this prioritisation requirement for a biodiverse Mediterranean island (Cyprus) using a three-stage process of expert-elicitation. This resulted in a structured list of twenty biodiversity monitoring needs; specifically, a hierarchy of three groups of these needs was created using a consensus approach. The most highly prioritised biodiversity monitoring needs were those related to the development of robust survey methodologies, and those ensuring that sufficiently skilled citizens are available to contribute. We discuss ways that the results of our expert-elicitation process could be used to support current and future biodiversity monitoring in Cyprus.

A review of invasive species reporting apps for citizen science and opportunities for innovation

Smartphone apps have enhanced the potential for monitoring of invasive alien species (IAS) through citizen science. They now have the capacity to massively increase the volume and spatiotemporal coverage of IAS occurrence data accrued in centralised databases. While more reporting apps are developed each year, innovation across diverse functionalities and data management in this field are occurring separately and simultaneously amongst numerous research groups with little attention to trends, priorities and opportunities for improvement. This creates the risk of duplication of effort and missed opportunities for implementing new and existing functionalities that would directly benefit IAS research and management. Using a literature search of Early Detection and Rapid Response implementation, smartphone app development and invasive species reporting apps, we developed a rubric for quantitatively assessing the functionality of IAS reporting apps and applied this rubric to 41 free, English-language IAS reporting apps, available via major mobile app stores in North America. The five highest performing apps achieved scores of 61.90% to 66.35% relative to a hypothetical maximum score, indicating that many app features and functionalities, acknowledged to be useful for IAS reporting in literature, are not present in sampled apps. This suggests that current IAS reporting apps do not make use of all available and known functionalities that could maximise their efficacy. Major implementation gaps, highlighted by this rubric analysis, included limited implementation in user engagement (particularly gamification elements and social media compatibility), ancillary information on search effort, detection method, the ability to report absences and local habitat characteristics. The greatest advancement in IAS early detection would likely result from app gamification. This would make IAS reporting more engaging for a growing community of non-professional contributors and encourage frequent and prolonged participation. We discuss these implementation gaps in relation to the increasingly urgent need for Early Detection and Rapid Response frameworks. We also recommend future innovations in IAS reporting app development to help slow the spread of IAS and curb the global economic and biodiversity extinction crises. We also suggest that further funding and investment in this and other implementation gaps could greatly increase the efficacy of current IAS reporting apps and increase their contributions to addressing the contemporary biological invasion threat.

Is color data from citizen science photographs reliable for biodiversity research?

Color research continuously demands better methods and larger sample sizes. Citizen science (CS) projects are producing an ever-growing geo- and time-referenced set of photographs of organisms. These datasets have the potential to make a huge contribution to color research, but the reliability of these data need to be tested before widespread implementation.We compared the difference between color extracted from CS photographs with that of color extracted from controlled lighting conditions (i.e., the current gold standard in spectrometry) for both birds and plants. First, we tested the ability of CS photographs to quantify interspecific variability by assessing > 9,000 CS photographs of 537 Australian bird species with controlled museum spectrometry data. Second, we tested the ability of CS photographs to quantify intraspecific variability by measuring petal color data for two plant species using seven methods/sources with varying levels of control.For interspecific questions, we found that by averaging out variability through a large sample size, CS photographs capture a large proportion of across species variation in plumage color within the visual part of the spectrum (R2  = 0.68-0.71 for RGB space and 0.72-0.77 for CIE-LAB space). Between 12 and 14 photographs per species are necessary to achieve this averaging effect for interspecific studies. Unsurprisingly, the CS photographs taken with commercial cameras failed to capture information in the UV part of the spectrum. For intraspecific questions, decreasing levels of control increase the color variation but averaging larger sample sizes can partially mitigate this, aside from particular issues related to saturation and irregularities in light capture.CS photographs offer a very large sample size across space and time which offers statistical power for many color research questions. This study shows that CS photographs contain data that lines up closely with controlled measurements within the visual spectrum if the sample size is large enough, highlighting the potential of CS photographs for both interspecific and intraspecific ecological or biological questions. With regard to analyzing color in CS photographs, we suggest, as a starting point, to measure multiple random points within the ROI of each photograph for both patterned and unpatterned patches and approach the recommended sample size of 12-14 photographs per species for interspecific studies. Overall, this study provides groundwork in analyzing the reliability of a novel method, which can propel the field of studying color forward.

NABat: A top-down, bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.

Why European biodiversity reporting is not reliable

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to end the loss of biodiversity, which is one of the greatest ecological challenges of our time. The lack of success in biodiversity policy implementation is partly related to gaps in biodiversity monitoring. Our overall objective is to contribute to the preparation of the upcoming post 2020 period by a review of biodiversity indicator choices in European CBD reports and hence in national monitoring systems. Negative binary generalized models and poisson generalized linear models prove that through free indicator choice in CBD reporting, countries do not choose biodiversity indicators according to their national geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Moreover, species and ecosystem diversity indicators were chosen with a disproportionate frequency compared to that of genetic diversity indicators. Consequently, trends derived from national CBD reports and monitoring systems in Europe are not reliable, which should be an alarming signal concerning biodiversity policy implementation. Finally, a flow chart to revise national biodiversity monitoring systems is proposed.

Community science participants gain environmental awareness and contribute high quality data but improvements are needed: insights from Bumble Bee Watch

Bumble Bee Watch is a community science program where participants submit photos of bumble bees from across Canada and the United States for expert verification. The data can be used to help better understand bumble bee biology and aid in their conservation. Yet for community science programs like this to be successful and sustainable, it is important to understand the participant demographics, what motivates them, and the outcomes of their participation, as well as areas that are working well or could be improved. It is also important to understand who verifies the submissions, who uses the data and their views on the program. Of the surveyed users, most participate to contribute to scientific data collection (88%), because of a worry about bees and a desire to help save them (80%), to learn more about species in their property (63%) or region (56%), and because of a personal interest (59%). About 77% report increased awareness of species diversity, while 84% report improvement in their identification skills. We found that 81% had at least one college or university degree. There were more respondents from suburban and rural areas than urban areas, but area did not affect numbers of submissions. While half were between 45 and 64 years of age, age did not influence motivation or number of submissions. Respondents were happy with the program, particularly the website resources, the contribution to knowledge and conservation efforts, the educational values, and the ability to get identifications. Areas for improvement included app and website functionality, faster and more detailed feedback, localized resources, and more communication. Most respondents participate rarely and have submitted fewer than ten records, although about five percent are super users who participate often and submit more than fifty records. Suggested improvements to the program may increase this participation rate. Indeed, increased recruitment and retention of users in general is important, and advertising should promote the outcomes of participation. Fifteen experts responded to a separate survey and were favorable of the program although there were suggestions on how to improve the verification process and the quality of the submitted data. Suggested research questions that could be asked or answered from the data included filling knowledge gaps (species diversity, ranges, habitat, phenology, floral associations, etc.), supporting species status assessments, effecting policy and legislation, encouraging habitat restoration and management efforts, and guiding further research. However, only about half have used data from the project to date. Further promotion of Bumble Bee Watch and community science programs in general should occur amongst academia, conservationists, policy makers, and the general public. This would help to increase the number and scope of submissions, knowledge of these species, interest in conserving them, and the overall program impact.

Modelling Distributions of Rove Beetles in Mountainous Areas Using Remote Sensing Data

Mountain ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots that are increasingly threatened by climate and land use/land cover changes. Long-term biodiversity monitoring programs provide unique insights into resulting adverse impacts on plant and animal species distribution. Species distribution models (SDMs) in combination with satellite remote sensing (SRS) data offer the opportunity to analyze shifts of species distributions in response to these changes in a spatially explicit way. Here, we predicted the presence probability of three different rove beetles in a mountainous protected area (Gran Paradiso National Park, GPNP) using environmental variables derived from Landsat and Aster Global Digital Elevation Model data and an ensemble modelling approach based on five different model algorithms (maximum entropy, random forest, generalized boosting models, generalized additive models, and generalized linear models). The objectives of the study were (1) to evaluate the potential of SRS data for predicting the presence of species dependent on local-scale environmental parameters at two different time periods, (2) to analyze shifts in species distributions between the years, and (3) to identify the most important species-specific SRS predictor variables. All ensemble models showed area under curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics values above 0.7 and true skills statistics (TSS) values above 0.4, highlighting the great potential of SRS data. While only a small proportion of the total area was predicted as highly suitable for each species, our results suggest an increase of suitable habitat over time for the species Platydracus stercorarius and Ocypus ophthalmicus, and an opposite trend for Dinothenarus fossor. Vegetation cover was the most important predictor variable in the majority of the SDMs across all three study species. To better account for intra- and inter-annual variability of population dynamics as well as environmental conditions, a continuation of the monitoring program in GPNP as well as the employment of SRS with higher spatial and temporal resolution is recommended.

Complementarity of indigenous and western scientific approaches for monitoring forest state

Cross-cultural environmental monitoring systems inform on a broad suite of indicators relevant to both scientific and local communities. In this study, we used forest-plot-based survey measures developed by western scientists and a set of community-based survey indicators developed by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand (NZ), to compare the current state of two ecologically congruent forests (Whirinaki and Ruatāhuna), as they related to a historic Ruatāhuna forest state (Baseline; 1955-1975) in NZ. Both the plot-based and community-based field surveys indicated that the Whirinaki forest was in a better state than the Ruatāhuna forest. This was supported by a stronger mauri (concept of life essence) rating assigned by Māori elders to the Whirinaki forest compared with the Ruatāhuna forests. However, both the Ruatāhuna and Whirinaki forests were deemed to be in a significantly poorer state than the Baseline forest. A cross-cultural monitoring system provides understanding of forest state that both managers and communities can use for decision-making. Historical baselines of forest state can provide ecological targets for restoration initiatives and also identify where on the restoration continuum current forest indicators lie. The alignment of plot-based measures with community-based indicators offers possibilities for future-proofing a cross-cultural monitoring system and buffering it from intergenerational shifts in ecological baselines. The opportunity for indigenous peoples and local communities to apply their traditional ways of knowing, and interpret and act on information they understand are crucial components of cross-cultural environmental management regimes.

Smell the change: On the potential of gas-chromatographic ion mobility spectrometry in ecosystem monitoring

Plant volatile organic compounds (pVOCs) are being recognized as an important factor in plant–environment interactions. Both the type and amount of the emissions appear to be heavily affected by climate change. A range of studies therefore has been directed toward understanding pVOC emissions, mostly under laboratory conditions (branch/leaf enclosure). However, there is a lack of rapid, sensitive, and selective analytical methods, and therefore, only little is known about VOC emissions under natural, outdoor conditions. An increased sensitivity and the identification of taxon‐specific patterns could turn VOC analysis into a powerful tool for the monitoring of atmospheric chemistry, ecosystems, and biodiversity, with far‐reaching relevance to the impact of climate change on pVOCs and vice versa. This study for the first time investigates the potential of ion mobility spectrometry coupled to gas‐chromatographic preseparation (GC‐IMS) to dramatically increase sensitivity and selectivity for continuous monitoring of pVOCs and to discriminate contributing plant taxa and their phenology. Leaf volatiles were analyzed for nine different common herbaceous plants from Germany. Each plant turned out to have a characteristic metabolite pattern. pVOC patterns in the field would thus reflect the composition of the vegetation, but also phenology (with herbaceous and deciduous plants contributing according to season). The technique investigated here simultaneously enables the identification and quantification of substances characteristic for environmental pollution such as industrial and traffic emissions or pesticides. GC‐IMS thus has an enormous potential to provide a broad range of data on ecosystem function. This approach with near‐continues measurements in the real plant communities could provide crucial insights on pVOC‐level emissions and their relation to climate and phenology and thus provide a sound basis for modeling climate change scenarios including pVOC emissions.

Monitoring butterflies using counts of puddling males: A case study of the Rajah Brooke's Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana albescens)

The Rajah Brooke's Birdwing, Trogonoptera brookiana, is a large, iconic butterfly that is facing heavy commercial exploitation and habitat loss. Males of some subspecies exhibit puddling behavior. A method of conservation monitoring was developed for subspecies albescens in Ulu Geroh, Peninsular Malaysia, where the males consistently puddle in single-species aggregations at stable geothermal springs, reaching well over 300 individuals when the population is at its highest. Digital photography was used to conduct counts of numbers of males puddling. The numbers of birdwings puddling were significantly correlated with counts of birdwings in flight, but were much higher. The numbers puddling during the peak hour were correlated with numbers puddling throughout the day and could be predicted using the numbers puddling at an alternative hour, enabling flexibility in the time of counts. Average counts for three images taken at each puddle at three peak hours between 1400-1600 hours over 2-3 days were used as a monthly population index. The numbers puddling were positively associated with higher relative humidity and brightness during monitoring hours. Monthly counts of birdwings from monitoring of puddles over a period of two years are presented. The minimum effort required for a monitoring program using counts of puddling males is discussed, as well as the potential of using the method to monitor other species of puddling butterflies.

Can digital reinvention of ecological monitoring remove barriers to its adoption by practitioners? A case study of deer management in Scotland

Monitoring is one of the key tools employed to help understand the condition of the natural environment and inform the development of appropriate management actions. While international conventions encourage the use of standardised methods, the link between the information monitoring provides and local management needs is frequently overlooked. This problem is further exacerbated when monitoring is employed in areas where there are divergent interests among stakeholders in land use and management. Such problems are found in the management of wild deer across Scotland, where monitoring, in the form of habitat impact assessments, have been introduced as an innovation in sustainable deer management. However, the uptake of habitat impact assessments has been limited. We used deer management in Scotland as a case study to explore whether reinventing habitat impact assessments, and hosting the system on a familiar digital platform (a mobile phone) could help to remove perceived barriers to the implementation of assessments. Using the diffusion of innovations as a theoretical framework three sets of workshops were conducted with participants representing different stakeholder interests. While the proposed digital system did address perceived barriers to the conduct of habitat monitoring, in addition it revealed underlying concerns on the use and purpose of habitat monitoring as a tool in land management. Such concerns indicate friction between scientific and management perspectives, which need to be considered and addressed if monitoring is to become more widely acceptable as a tool to inform the management of natural resources.

Species composition, community and population dynamics of two gallery forests from the Brazilian Cerrado domain

Background

To understand the impacts of global changes on future community compositions, knowledge of community dynamics is of crucial importance. To improve our knowledge of community composition, biomass stock and maintenance of gallery forests in the Brazilian Cerrado, we provide two datasets from the 0.5 ha Corrego Fazendinha Gallery Forest Dynamics Plot and the Corrego Fundo Gallery Forest Dynamics Plot situated in the Bom Despacho region, Minas Gerais, Southeastern Brazil.

New information

We report diameter at breast height, basal area and height measurements of 3417 trees and treelets identified during three censuses in both areas.

Macro-invertebrate Biodiversity of a Coastal Prairie with Vernal Pool Habitat

BACKGROUND

The California Coastal Prairie has the highest biodiversity of North America's grasslands, but also has the highest percentage of urbanization. The most urbanized part of the California Coastal Prairie is its southernmost area, in Los Angeles County. This southernmost region, known as the Los Angeles Coastal Prairie, was historically dotted with vernal pools, and has a unique biodiverse composition. More than 99.5% of its estimated original 95 km(2) (23,475 acres), as well as almost all its vernal pool complexes, have been lost to urbanization. The Madrona Marsh Preserve, in Torrance, California, safeguards approximately 18 hectares (44 acres) of Los Angeles Coastal Prairie and includes a complex of vernal pools. Its aquatic biodiversity had been studied, predominantly to genus level, but its terrestrial macro-invertebrates were virtually unknown, aside from butterfly, dragonfly, and damselfly observations.

NEW INFORMATION

In order to better understand the biodiversity at the Madrona Marsh Preserve, a minimally-invasive macro-invertebrate inventory was conducted. The results of this inventory, with 689 invertebrate organisms recorded, covering eight phyla, 13 classes, 39 orders, and 222 families, are presented in this document.