Biodiversity and the many ecosystem functions and services it underpins are undergoing significant changes and needs worldwide scientifically rigorous information to monitor their status and trends. Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) capture key constituent components of biodiversity change. The EBV class ‘Species Populations addresses the most fundamental aspects of biodiversity change, the variation of species geographic distributions and abundances in space and time. The project delivered key advances for species population EBVs and indicators enabled by remote sensing coupled to novel in-situ data sources. The project has not ended but many related activities continue through the Map of Life.
Key Results include:
- Through engagement and collaboration with Movebank and Wildlife Insights mobilized a range of new data sources and data times in Map of Life including the integrated GPS-tracking movement data and camera trapping data with other spatial biodiversity data. (see https://mol.org/datasets/)
- Produced initial 1km global distribution predictions for thousands of terrestrial species based on the above approach.
- Produced validated, global-scale Species Distribution EBV products, covering 2001-2018, for 20,000 terrestrial vertebrate species.
- Production of global, national and species-level values of the Species Habitat Index (SHI) and Species Protection Index (SPI), both developed under the auspices of GEOBON and endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity and IPBES. SPI for example featured here.