The full text is only available in German.

By Dr Gavin S. Stark, a postdoctoral researcher in the Biodiversity Conservation group at iDiv and lead author of the study.

In a recent paper published in Conservation Biology, iDiv researchers suggest that given amphibians' ability to act as 'canaries in the coal mine' for aquatic environments, they should be reintroduced or rewilded. Rewilding would not only help protect these endangered species but simultaneously promote ecological stability.
 
Amphibians, such as salamanders, frogs, and newts, are the most threatened of all vertebrates, with over 40% of all species worldwide at risk of extinction. They are also unique in providing early information about aquatic ecosystems' ecological state due to their extremely sensitive and permeable skins.

According to the researchers, the presence and overall health of amphibians as so-called bioindicators is important for setting more ambitious conservation objectives in the future, such as reintroducing mammals.
 
The researchers also present a reintroduction scheme outlining steps to establish a stable ecosystem using more robust species, like amphibians, with the goal of restoring ecological interactions. Restoring ecological interactions can help conservationists reintroduce other, more specialised species as aquatic ecosystems recover. 
 
The state of the world's amphibians
Amphibian declines and extinctions are attributed to multiple, complex factors, including habitat degradation, climate change, and, most critically, infectious diseases such as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. 
 
Addressing these extinction drivers makes it possible to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts to protect amphibians. However, to date, most conservation programs have yet to effectively take action to support this vanishing group of species. Alternative conservation strategies are needed to protect and promote amphibians in different regions. 
 
Rewilding is an increasingly popular conservation strategy that reintroduces a native species into an environment where it was once found but is no longer present. Beavers, moose, and wolves are some species that have been effectively reintroduced in Europe in recent years. 
 
The researchers argue that incorporating amphibians in rewilding projects can help conserve endangered species, such as tropical frogs, and restore ecosystem functionality for other organisms.
 
Amphibians for Rewilding
With their paper, the researchers seek to raise awareness of the benefits of amphibians in rewilding projects. They highlight that amphibians can serve a dual purpose as bioindicators for ecosystem health and as key species in an ecosystem's food webs.
 
The researcher's well-planned reintroduction scheme for amphibians outlines steps to establish a stable ecosystem using more robust species to restore ecological interactions, which can also be applied to other groups in various regions and help promote rewilding as a leading conservation strategy worldwide. 
 
In general, the steps are divided into three stages: (1) assessing the state of the ecosystem, (2) choosing the most ideal candidate for reintroduction, and (3) reintroducing more sensitive amphibians if the ecosystem is recovering.

The European green toad (Bufotes viridis) would be a strong candidate for reintroduction in degraded aquatic areas in Eastern Germany (Step 2), and the European tree frog (Hyla arborea) is an example of a more sensitive amphibian that could be considered if an ecosystem is recovering (Step 3).
 
These three steps are imperative for an effective restoration action that will improve the status of aquatic ecosystems while boosting their amphibian residents.

Stark, G., & Schwarz, R. (2024). Rewilding a vanishing taxon–Restoring aquatic ecosystems using amphibians. Biological Conservation, 292, 110559. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110559.

The full text is only available in German.

The full text is only available in German.

A recent study led by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the non-profit conservation organization Re:wild shows that the threat of mining to the great ape population in Africa has been greatly underestimated. Their results have been published in Science Advances.

The rising demand for critical minerals, such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and other rare earth elements required for the large-scale transition to cleaner energy is causing a surge of mining in Africa, where a large share of those mineral resources is still unexploited. This is driving deforestation of tropical rainforests, which are home to many species, including humans’ closest living relatives, the great apes. According to the study, the threat of mining to great apes in Africa has been greatly underestimated:  up to one-third of the entire population - nearly 180,000 gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees - could be at risk. The researchers also highlight that because mining companies are not required to make biodiversity data publicly available, the true impact of mining on biodiversity and great apes, in particular, may be even higher. 

In their study, the team used data on operational and preoperational mining sites in 17 African nations and defined 10 km buffer zones to account for direct impacts, such as habitat destruction and light and noise pollution. They also defined 50 km buffer zones for indirect impacts linked to increased human activity near mining sites: New roads and infrastructure are built to access these once-remote areas, and many people migrate to these areas looking for employment. This in turn, increases pressures on great apes and their habitat through increased hunting, habitat loss, and higher risk of disease transmission. By integrating data on the density distribution of great apes, the researchers investigated how many African apes could potentially be negatively impacted by mining and mapped areas where frequent mining and high ape densities overlapped.

Great apes in West Africa are most severely affected

In the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Guinea, overlaps of high ape density and mining areas – including the 10 km and 50 km buffer zones – were the largest. The most significant overlap of mining and chimpanzee density - both in terms of proportion of population and overall numbers - was found in Guinea. Here, more than 23,000 chimpanzees, or up to 83% of Guinea’s ape population, could be directly or indirectly impacted by mining activities. In general, the most sensitive areas - those with relatively high ape and mining densities - are not protected.

“Currently, studies on other species suggest that mining harms apes through pollution, habitat loss, increased hunting pressure, and disease, but this is an incomplete picture,” says first author Dr Jessica Junker. Junker works for Re:wild and led the study as a postdoctoral researcher at iDiv and MLU. “The lack of data sharing by mining projects hampers our scientific understanding of its true impact on great apes and their habitat.” 

The researchers also explored how mining areas intersect with what is considered 'Critical Habitat'—regions crucial for their unique biodiversity, unrelated to apes. They found a noteworthy 20% overlap between the two. Critical Habitat designation entails strict environmental regulations, especially for mining projects seeking funding from entities like the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – a branch of the World Bank which lends funds to the private sector – or other lenders adhering to similar standards, and aiming to operate within these zones. Previous efforts to map ‘Critical Habitat’ in Africa have overlooked significant portions of ape habitats that would qualify under international benchmarks such as the IFC Performance Standard 6. “Companies operating in these areas should have adequate mitigation and compensation schemes in place to minimize their impact, which seems unlikely, given that most companies lack robust species baseline data that are required to inform these actions,” says Dr Tenekwetche Sop, manager of the IUCN SSC A.P.E.S. Database at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History, a repository of all great ape population data. “Encouraging these companies to share their invaluable ape survey data with our database serves as a pivotal step towards transparency in their operations. Only through such collaborative efforts can we comprehensively gauge the true extent of mining activities' effects on great apes and their habitats.”

Short-term offset plans fail to compensate for the long-term impacts of mining

Even though the indirect and long-term impacts of mining are difficult to quantify, they often extend well beyond the boundaries of the actual mining project. Currently, these risks are rarely considered and mitigated by mining companies. Compensation or offset is then based on an approximation of impacts, which the researchers suggest is often inaccurate, and underestimated. Furthermore, current offset schemes are developed to last as long as mining projects are active (usually c.20 years), whereas most mining impacts on great apes are permanent.

”Mining companies need to focus on avoiding their impacts on great apes as much as possible and use offsetting as a last resort as there is currently no example of a great ape offset that has been successful”, explains Dr Genevieve Campbell, lead of the IUCN SSC PSG SGA/SSA ARRC Task Force and senior researcher at Re:wild. ‘’Avoidance needs to take place already during the exploration phase, but unfortunately, this phase is poorly regulated and ‘baseline data’ are collected by companies after many years of exploration and habitat destruction have taken place. These data then do not accurately reflect the original state of the great ape populations in the area before mining impacts.’’

“A shift away from fossil fuels is good for the climate but must be done in a way that does not jeopardize biodiversity. In its current iteration it may even be going against the very environmental goals we’re aiming for”, says Jessica Junker. “Companies, lenders and nations need to recognize that it may sometimes be of greater value to leave some regions untouched to mitigate climate change and help prevent future epidemics.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Jessica Junker, Luise Quoss, Jose Valdez, Mimi Arandjelovic, Abdulai Barrie, Genevieve Campbell, Stefanie Heinicke, Tatyana Humle, Célestin Yao Kouakou, Hjalmar S. Kühl, Isabel Ordaz-Nemeth, Henrique M. Pereira, Helga Rainer, Johannes Refisch, Laura Sonter, Tenekwetche Sop (2024). Threat of mining to African great apes. Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl0335

Contact:

Dr Jessica Junker
Re:wild
Alumna of German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Email: jjunker@rewild.org

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

It is with great sadness that we received the news that Diana Harrison Wall passed away. Diana Wall, a professor of biology and a Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, was a soil ecologist whose interdisciplinary research uncovered dramatic impacts to invertebrate communities in response to climate change, the key role nematode species play in soil carbon turnover, and how they survive such extreme environments like the dry valleys of the Antarctic.

Diana Wall has been a long-standing member of iDiv's Scientific Advisory Board and part of the sDiv groups sOILDIV and sWORM as well as several research endeavours at iDiv.

„Diana was a truly inspiring scientist, a global leader in soil ecology, and the most friendly and supportive colleague you can imagine. Her loss is a huge shock to the community, but we will keep her important work alive with continuing projects like Soil BON and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative.”

Professor Dr Nico Eisenhauer, head of Experimental Interaction Ecology (EIE) at iDiv and Leipzig University

"As a leading scientist in ecology, Diana Wall has been a great inspiration to me and many other female scientists alike. When she was visiting iDiv for a workshop, she made time to join one of our female scientist career lunches to informally share her experiences with all female scientists over a pizza and some sodas. Thanks, Diana, for inspiring us to never give up!"

Professor Dr Nicole van Dam, iDiv Member and Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ)

Contact:

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Based on a media release from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW)

In mammals, social behaviour and social status can substantially influence the survival, reproductive performance and health of individuals. However, it is not yet fully understood how the translation of social and environmental factors into the physiology of an organism is reflected in molecular processes. Now, scientists have found that social status influences epigenetic patterns, more specifically, the methylation of DNA in both young and adult female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), which determines the activation of genes. They analysed DNA from gut epithelium cells from 18 adult female hyenas and 24 cubs with known social status from three clans in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. The scientists identified and validated 149 genome regions where high-ranking and low-ranking individuals differed in the methylation of DNA (differentially methylated regions, DMRs). “We could, for the first time, provide evidence for epigenetic signatures of social inequalities in both young and adult spotted hyenas”, says senior author Dr Alexandra Weyrich, sDiv scientist at iDiv and head of the working group “Wildlife Epigenetics” at the Leibniz-IZW. “We hope that in the future epigenetic biomarkers can be incorporated in biodiversity research to understand species‘ responses to environmental differences better”.

The findings show that these epigenetic signatures are stable across life stages – and that they are linked to important physiological processes: Many of the identified DMRs were involved in the regulation of energy conversion, immune response, glutamate receptor signalling and ion transportation. “Especially the large number of DMRs in genes involved in energy conversion caught our eye”, says first author Colin Vullioud, data scientist in Weyrich’s working group. Co-author Dr Sarah Benhaiem, co-head of the Serengeti Hyena Project, explains: “We suspect that this may be driven by differences in behaviour and specifically the greater use of long-distance foraging trips by low-ranking than high-ranking females – the latter monopolising resources in their clan territory.” Interestingly, these genes were more methylated (or hypermethylated) in low-ranking adult females but not in cubs. This could indicate an adjustment of low-ranking adult females to higher energetic costs of frequent long-distance commuting, a behaviour not displayed by cubs. “Although the exact physiological consequences of the observed hypermethylation remain to be investigated, these findings are consistent with our observations and hint at the sought-after missing link between social and physiological factors”, according to Weyrich and Benhaiem.

The analyses build on long-term research on spotted hyenas in the Serengeti, which started in 1987. The females in this investigation are individually known, and their social status has been tracked for generations. This provided ideal conditions to study the links between behaviour, physiological factors, epigenetic modifications and fitness in terms of survival and reproduction in a wild population. The use of faecal samples collected in a non-invasive manner is one of the strengths of the investigation, the authors surmise. “The capture methylation method we used enriches methylated DNA as well as mammalian DNA, which improved the amount of hyena DNA over bacterial DNA and the quality of the sequencing data”, Weyrich explains.

DNA methylation is a chemical modification of the basic building blocks of a cell's genetic material. This modification is enabled by the transfer of methyl groups to nucleobases at certain positions in the DNA. As the basic structure of the respective nucleobase is unaltered, DNA methylation is not a genetic mutation but a modification which determines whether this part of the DNA is ‘being used’ (activated) or switched off. DNA methylation is the most important epigenetic modification and, thus, a pivotal part of making genetic information available to the physiological processes within a cell.

Spotted hyenas are highly social animals and an excellent example of how differences in physiological processes and health can accompany status-related differences. In hyena clans, females and their offspring socially dominate all immigrant males, and social status is behaviourally “inherited” by cubs from mothers who gain privileges associated with maternal social status. Therefore, social status is stable and predictable because it is determined by family relationships and behavioural conventions. 

“Additionally, the effects of social status on life history trajectories and health are typically passed across generations”, adds Heribert Hofer, Director of Leibniz-IZW. For example, high-ranking females have priority access to resources in the clan territory and do not need to commute as much as low-ranking females to find food. They are, therefore, much more often present at the communal den and nurse their young more frequently. The milk-dependent cubs disproportionally benefit at this early stage in their life – by growing faster, having a higher chance of surviving to adulthood and starting reproduction at an earlier age than the offspring of low-ranking females.
 
Original Publication
Vullioud C, Benhaiem S, Meneghini D, Szyf M, Shao Y, Hofer H, East ML, Fickel J, Weyrich A (2024): Epigenetic signatures of social status in female free-ranging spotted hyenas (Crocuta Crocuta). Communications Biology.DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-05926-y

Contact:

Dr Alexandra Weyrich (English, German)
Postdoctoral Researcher
sDiv - Synthesis Centre
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733224
Email: alexandra.weyrich@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The full text is only available in German.

Fish are changing how they search for and consume prey in warmer waters, with models suggesting extinctions become more likely due to this behaviour change, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
 
Led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the researchers found that fish in the Baltic Sea respond to temperature increases by consuming the first prey they encounter. This change in foraging behaviour led to the fish selecting prey that tends to be more abundant and smaller. Small prey present in their environment at all temperatures included brittle stars, small crustaceans, worms, and molluscs.
 
Fish, like many other consumer species, need more food when temperatures increase because their metabolism also increases. Although more abundant prey provides an immediate energy source, this so-called flexible foraging behaviour means fish are missing out on opportunities to satisfy their long-term energy needs by consuming larger prey that provide more calories. 
 
Model food web calculations show that this mismatch between a fish’s energetic requirements and their actual food intake could lead to more extinctions under warmer conditions, with fish ultimately starving because they are not eating enough to meet their energetic needs. The model, which can also be applied to other consumer species, suggests this is especially true for species higher up in food chains. The authors suggest that overall, this flexible foraging behaviour may make communities more vulnerable to climate change.
 
“It is usually assumed that species will adapt their foraging to maximise the amount of energy they consume”, explains first author Benoit Gauzens of iDiv and the University of Jena. “But these findings suggest fish – and other animals, too – may respond to the stress of climate change in unexpected and inefficient ways.”

Data from fish stomachs

The researchers analysed ten years of data about the stomach contents of six commercially important fish species with different feeding strategies in the Bay of Kiel. For example, flatfish, like the European flounder (Platichthys flesus), tend to be sit-and-wait predators, whereas Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) are more actively foraging feeders. 
 
Collected year-round from 1968 to 1978, this data provided insight into the fish’s diets – what was in their stomachs – and which prey was present in their environment at different temperatures. The stomach contents indicated that fish gradually shifted their focus from less abundant prey to more abundant prey as waters became warmer.
 
"Fish species in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere are facing a multitude of man-made pressures, like overfishing or pollution”, adds co-author Gregor Kalinkat of the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). “The effect of more inefficient prey searching behaviour under warming might be another, so far overlooked factor leading to fish stocks that cannot recover even when fisheries pressure is significantly reduced."
 
Using these insights, the researchers then calculated how this change in foraging behaviour at different temperatures impacts other species and the ecosystem overall using mathematical food web models based on theoretical communities. The results suggest that this change in foraging behaviour when temperature increases leads to more extinctions for consumer species, like fish. These extinctions, in turn, come with knock-on effects for other species in the community.
 
“Adaptation of foraging behaviour to local environmental conditions is usually a key to maintaining high levels of biodiversity in ecosystems”, Gauzens adds. “It is therefore puzzling to see that this might not be entirely true in the context of temperature increase.”
 
Though striking, the implications of the findings are estimated as they are currently based on theoretical models. In future, the researchers hope to test the mechanism in a natural environment and study different organisms to see whether they exhibit similar or different changes in their foraging behaviour.
 
Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni bolded)
Benoit Gauzens, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Gregor Kalinkat, Thomas Boy, Malte Jochum, Susanne Kortsch, Eoin J. O’Gorman, Ulrich Brose (2024). Flexible foraging behaviour increases predator vulnerability to climate change, DOI:10.1038/s41558-024-01946-y

Contact:

Researchers have developed a multi-step process to quantify the dependency of international trade and so-called Nature’s contributions to people. With their new approach, which has been published in People and Nature, the researchers hope to improve knowledge about the complex relationship between nature and international trade.

Humans are dependent on nature: It provides essential ecosystem services, such as clean water, food, and a variety of raw materials; it regulates the climate, and it offers space for a wide range of recreational activities. All of these benefits are Nature's contributions to people (NCPs). In a globalised world, consumers are increasingly disconnected from NCPs, as many everyday products are produced in distant parts of the world. Agricultural products, in particular, are heavily dependent on NCPs, and NCPs are, in turn, affected by human activities and decisions, such as how land is used and managed.

But how exactly is international trade linked to NCPs, and how can this link be made more tangible and comparable? With the help of an international team led by the synthesis centre sDiv at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the researchers developed a multi-step process to help quantify the dependency of international trade on NCPs. To this end, the scientists analysed different studies about internationally traded products and nature’s contribution to these products. “This paper is one of the first to explicitly examine the relationship between NCPs and international agricultural trade", says first author Alexandra Marques, senior researcher at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. "This aspect isn't frequently studied nor quantified".

Everyday products depend on services provided by nature

Foods such as coffee and cocoa would not exist without the help of pollinators, and many other staple products also depend on the various services nature provides. However, there is currently limited data available to trace a bar of chocolate, for example, back to the fields where the cocoa beans were grown. “And it is even more complicated to disentangle which proportion of that bar of chocolate is in the end created by pollinators, let alone how big the contribution of the pollinator habitat is”, says senior author Nynke Schulp, Associate Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

NCPs can also include cultural or value-based contributions. “While there is knowledge on how agricultural products depend on some types of NCPs, this is much less so for other types of NCPs, such as non-material NCPs”, says Alexandra Marques. Cultural or non-material NCPs include local knowledge and values linked to an ecosystem that has an impact on the products produced locally. Approaches that account for non-material NCPs include the concept of terroir in viticulture, i.e. the interplay of soil, climate, topography and many other factors. A seal of origin that is based on terroir - for example, in France through the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) - creates awareness among consumers of the respective region and the distance that the product has travelled. The concept is also increasingly recognised for cheeses such as Comté, whisky or, more recently, bat-friendly tequila.

Many pieces of the puzzle still don't provide a complete picture

By analysing the individual studies as pieces of a larger puzzle, the researchers arrived at a three-stage process that can, in principle, be applied to all agricultural and internationally traded products: 1) spatial mapping of NCP's supply and demand; 2) linking spatial mapping with agricultural products; and 3) tracing international trade flows. This approach can already be applied to certain products. For example, the team is currently working on quantifying some of the dependencies related to the trade of coffee and soy from Brazil.

However, in order to link NCPs with even more agricultural products, researchers need transparent data on the respective trade flows and the regions where these goods are produced and consumed. "In principle, the current state of technology can solve this bottleneck, for example, through satellite images, artificial intelligence, and high computing power", Nynke Schulp says. "The challenge now lies in data proprietary rights and privacy. Appropriate legal frameworks are needed here".

With their new approach, the researchers hope to improve knowledge about the complex relationship between nature and international trade, adding to biodiversity assessments and to the work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and other bodies. A better understanding of NCP dependencies in different production processes will also support implementing Target 15 of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which requires businesses to disclose and assess their dependencies on nature. “We are very happy that we can foster global collaboration among leading scientists at our international iDiv synthesis centre, and assess how agricultural trade affects biodiversity in distant countries”, says Professor Dr Aletta Bonn, head of Biodiversity and People at iDiv, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; FZT-118), among others. It is a product of the sDiv synthesis working group sTradES. iDiv's synthesis centre sDiv supports working group meetings where international researchers work together on scientific questions.

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Marques, A., Bonn, A., Castro, A. J., Chaudhary, A., Felipe-Lucia, M. R., Kastner, T., Koellner, T., Lancker, K., Lopez Hoffman, L., Meyer, C., Pfister, S., Rabeschini, G., Willemen, L., & Schulp, C. J. E. (2024). The role of nature's contributions to people in sustaining international trade of agricultural products. People and Nature. DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10607 

Contact:

Dr Alexandra Marques
PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
The Hague, The Netherlands
Email: alexandra.marques@pbl.nl

Prof Dr Aletta Bonn
Head of Department Biodiversity and People
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733153
Email: aletta.bonn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/137.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The tendency of communities and the species within them to become more similar or more distinct across landscapes – biotic homogenisation and differentiation – are approximately balanced, according to a new study published in Science Advances. 

Led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the researchers analysed 527 datasets collected from ecosystems like grasslands, shrublands, and coral reefs as far back as 500 years ago. The analysis is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive assessment of how local and regional biodiversity changes combine across landscapes over centuries.

“We wanted to examine the idea that homogenisation is a defining characteristic of the biodiversity crisis”, first author Dr Shane Blowes of iDiv and MLU says. “By combining a classic measure of scale-dependent biodiversity change with an unprecedented collation of data, we found that it is equally likely for communities to become more different through time in response to ongoing human impacts on the environment”. 

No change means more than you think

The analysis integrated measures of change in the number of different species (species richness) present in a single site with changes occurring across multiple sites combined within a landscape or geographical region. This allowed the researchers to determine whether species composition was becoming more similar or different across sites. 

They found no change in the spatial variation of species composition was the most common outcome. This was despite many instances of homogenisation and differentiation among communities over time. In fact, net trends in biodiversity change across scales were so weak that they were often indistinguishable from zero. 

The data also showed a weak homogenising trend across larger regions over many hundreds of years due to increased numbers of widespread species in communities; however, this trend was balanced by the differentiation of communities at smaller scales. These findings were consistent across many life forms, from fish to birds to plants and mammals.

Studies on biodiversity change paint a complex picture, and researchers are often of two minds about how species’ responses to human-driven changes should be characterised. However, the concept of homogenisation remains a pervasive expectation in the scientific community and the wider public.

“Our analysis exposes the complexity of the issue”, Professor Jonathan Chase, senior author of the study and professor at iDiv and MLU, explains. “It doesn’t mean severe changes aren’t happening in the world; it means we need to move beyond a belief that homogenisation is the main way biodiversity is changing”. 

Patterns for multiscale conservation

The researchers also present scenarios in their study that characterise changes in species occupancy: homogenisation is largely driven by increases in the average occupancy, whereas differentiation is driven by decreases in the average occupancy.

The scenarios make clear that even small changes in occupancy – due to landscape fragmentation via manmade roads or fences, the introduction of plants and animals to areas beyond their historic boundaries, and climate change, which can drive species to shift their range –  can tip a community toward either homogenisation or differentiation. 

The bright red Louisiana crawfish (Procambarus clarkii), which is native to northern Mexico and the southeastern United States, is an example of an introduced species that is flourishing in Germany’s freshwaters, driving homogenisation.

“We are seeing more and more that many threatened species require protection across multiple sites or at landscape scales to be effective”, Blowes adds. “A simple framework can help biodiversity management and conservation move to the multiscale approach needed to understand biodiversity change fully”. 

Original publication

(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Shane A. Blowes, Brian McGill, Viviana Brambilla, Cher F. Y. Chow, Thore Engel, Ada Fontrodona-Eslava, Inês S. Martins, Daniel McGlinn, Faye Moyes, Alban Sagouis, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Roel van Klink, Wu-Bing Xu, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Anne Magurran, Maria Dornelas, Jonathan M. Chase (2024). Synthesis reveals approximately balanced biotic differentiation and homogenization, Science Advances, DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adj9395

Contact:

Dr Shane Blowes
Biodiversity Synthesis
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733254
Email: shane.blowes@idiv.de

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Christine Coester
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: christine.coester@idiv.de

Based on a media release of the University of Goettingen

Every day, new areas of rainforests are converted into plantations, drastically changing tropical biodiversity and the way the ecosystem functions. Yet, the current understanding of the consequences is fragmentary: previous studies tended to examine either biodiversity or the ecosystem. An international research team led by the universities of Göttingen in Germany and Bogor in Indonesia in collaboration with the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University (UL) brings these threads together in this study. They analysed organisms ranging from microscopic mites and earthworms in the soil, to beetles and birds in tree canopies, comparing tropical rainforest with rubber and oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia.

The researchers set out to study both biodiversity – plants, insects, vertebrates – and changes in how food webs function – biomass, trophic structure, energy fluxes. To do this, they estimated the abundance and biomass of the following: arthropods (such as spiders, insects, mites and centipedes) in the tree canopies using a technique known as “fogging”; birds using audio recorders and observation at specific points; and soil arthropods and earthworms from soil cores. This information was collected across 32 sites representing rainforest or plantations. They analysed their findings using existing models on traits and feeding preferences to reconstruct food webs at each site and across all animal groups. The results were used as measures of the distribution of energy and consumption of different resources (living plants, litter, bacteria, fungi, soil organic matter, other animals) in food webs above and below the ground. This method takes into account decomposition and quantifies the actions of predators (such as certain spiders or birds) in food webs.

The scientists identified that most energy in rainforest animal communities flows to arthropods in soil food webs. Plantations, by contrast, had a very different energy distribution: food webs in canopies were less rich and less complex, and food webs in the soil were also changed. Instead of diverse arthropod communities, virtually all energy was allocated to invasive species of earthworms. Because of these changes, there was generally little predation and relatively high numbers of plant feeding insects (such as caterpillars and beetles) in plantations.

“It is fascinating to see how all these different organisms are connected, from minute arthropods to birds, from soils to canopies. Scientists clearly need to investigate such connections in different parts of the ecosystem, particularly endangered areas of biodiversity – such as the one beneath our feet!” said Anton Potapov, first author of the study, who was at the University of Göttingen during the data collection and later headed the junior research group Biodiversity and Soil Functions at iDiv and UL.

“The ongoing conversion of rainforest into plantations is not just causing a massive decline in biodiversity, but it is also changing the way these ecosystems function,” explains Professor Stefan Scheu, senior author and head of Animal Ecology, University of Göttingen. “For sustainable management of converted ecosystems, we need to understand how all these linked elements and connections are impacted. A more holistic approach can then be developed to promote the functioning of ecosystems both above and below ground.”

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Anton M. Potapov, Jochen Drescher, Kevin Darras, Arne Wenzel, Noah Janotta, Rizky Nazarreta, Kasmiatun, Valentine Laurent, Amanda Mawan, Endah H. Utari, Melanie M. Pollierer, Katja Rembold, Rahayu Widyastuti, Damayanti Buchori, Purnama Hidayat, Edgar Turner, Ingo Grass, Catrin Westphal, Teja Tscharntke, Stefan Scheu (2024). Rainforest transformation reallocates energy from green to brown food webs. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07083-y

Contact:

Dr Anton Potapov
Head of Soil Zoology Department
Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz
Phone: +49 3581 4760-5545
Email: anton.potapov@senckenberg.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The study published in Global Ecology and Conservation found that three-quarters of these distinct habitats in North, Central, and South America fall below the Global Biodiversity Convention’s target of 30% protection. The research led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) also highlights that over 40% of threatened bird and mammal species are mostly found in a single vegetation type, putting them at risk for extinction if these critical habitats remain unprotected.

The Americas are home to some of the world's most biologically diverse regions, yet they are confronted with significant challenges due to habitat loss and degradation. While substantial protected areas exist, many smaller, yet crucial habitats within these landscapes remain unprotected. Despite the protection of large habitats, the specific needs of many species, especially those that are rare, specialised, and threatened, are often overlooked by broader habitat categorisations, leaving them vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation. Detailed fine-scaled habitat assessments at localised scales are essential to identify and protect critical habitats for species in the region.

To address this gap, a team of researchers led by iDiv and MLU conducted a comprehensive continent-wide analysis. Their study integrated fine-scale habitat maps, utilising the International Vegetation Classification (IVC) system, which encompasses over 300 vegetation types classified by unique plant communities and local environmental conditions. The research team also utilised the highest-resolution species distribution maps available for over 6,000 bird and mammal species. They then identified critical vegetation types by developing a conservation value index that incorporated the distribution of threatened species, habitat-associated species, current protection levels, and projected future threats across the Americas.

"Fine-scale vegetation mapping allowed us to pinpoint the localised vegetation types that harbour disproportionately high numbers of specialised species," said first author Lea Schulte (Leibniz University Hannover). "This level of precision is critical for effective conservation planning."

The study found significant differences in the level of protection between vegetation types, with nearly three-quarters of assessed vegetation types currently below the Global Biodiversity Convention’s 30% protection target. Additionally, 20% of assessed bird and mammal species had at least half of their habitat range within a single vegetation type. Alarmingly, this included over 40% of all threatened species, emphasising the importance of targeted efforts to conserve these vegetation types.

"Our study demonstrates the value of finer-scale, localised habitat assessments, which reveal vulnerabilities often overlooked in broader classifications," stated senior author Dr Jose Valdez (iDiv, MLU). "By identifying key vegetation types vital for threatened and specialised species, we can implement tailored conservation strategies to protect biodiversity."

Priority areas identified included the species-rich Northern Andean montane forests and Central American highlands, Brazil's Cerrado savanna and Atlantic Forest, and the Caribbean islands. However, the study found these critical areas remain dangerously under-protected and highly threatened by human activities.

The researchers emphasize that reaching global 30% protection targets requires comprehensive approaches encompassing habitat diversity, not just area-based goals. They advocate for expanded efforts to map critical vegetation types and species distributions, which can inform precise conservation planning when combined with emerging land use threats.

"This study not only emphasises the urgent need for conservation action in the Americas but also provides a comprehensive blueprint for identifying at-risk habitats globally," said Lea Schulte. "By utilising a flexible framework, we can effectively identify critical vegetation types that support threatened biodiversity and vegetation-associated species. This enables us to efficiently mobilise resources and prioritise the protection of areas where they are most critically needed."

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Schulte, L., Quoss, L., Comer, P., Lumbierres, M., Oceguera , E., Pereira, H. M., & Valdez, J. (2024). Identifying Critical Vegetation Types for Biodiversity Conservation in the Americas. Global Ecology and Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e02831

Contact:

Dr Jose W. Valdez (speaks English and Spanish)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9739168
Email: jose.valdez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1290.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

With almost a third of all freshwater species threatened with extinction – and a quarter of all known freshwater fish species – freshwaters belong to the most vulnerable ecosystems on earth. Fish species in river ecosystems are sensitive to alterations in discharge and temperature. Human interventions such as straightening and damming have historically altered river flows around the world, negatively affecting fish abundance, demography and diversity. When assessing the conservation needs of freshwater biodiversity under future climate change scenarios, it is important to understand the often dramatic historical environmental changes and their effects on species or populations.

“Fish communities in the upper Danube River Basin have already come under severe pressure over the last 200 years due to massive changes in the water regime. Our results show that the vulnerability of species in the past was mainly due to anthropogenic interventions such as river straightening. This has severely impacted the river. Future potential vulnerability is mainly due to temperature,” said Dr Martin Friedrichs-Manthey, lead author of the study. He is a scientist at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, a guest scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and works at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv).

Future changes for Danube fish: at least the same overall vulnerability as in the past 

The research team investigated the vulnerability of the fish species to future climate scenarios. In the most likely scenario, they found an increase in fish vulnerability. This is mainly due to a 2°C increase in the average annual temperature. Moreover, the study shows that future environmental conditions for riverine fish species driven by temperature would change at least at a similar magnitude as past hydrological changes driven by anthropogenic river regulations. “This result surprised us, as we had assumed that future climate change would not lead to such a high threat assessment as the massive regulation of the Danube in the past,” said IGB scientist Dr Sami Domisch, who led the study.

Sins of the past concerning the upper Danube River: 15 per cent of its length lost, 90 per cent of its banks embanked

The regulation of the Danube for flood protection and shipping began at the end of the 16th century. By the end of the 19th century, the German and Austrian main stem had lost 15 per cent of its length due to channelisation, and today, more than 90 per cent of the shoreline of the upper Danube mainstream is embanked. And more than 70 hydroelectric power stations in the main river alone fragment the upper Danube. This has led to the loss of almost all free-flowing river stretches. These structural changes have decimated the number and diversity of native fish species. Take the sturgeon, for example: six different species used to live in the Danube. Today, five are classified as critically endangered, and one is already extinct.

Vulnerability of fish communities could be buffered by floodplain connectivity and improved river continuity

However, in their study, the researchers also point to possible solutions: “Other studies on invertebrates or marine fish have already shown that a reduction in environmental pollution - for example by improving water quality - can promote resilience to the expected climatic stresses. According to our assessment, this would also be possible in the Danube,” said Dr Sami Domisch.

The authors identified the restoration of floodplains as an effective measure for the conservation of fish communities. Other studies have shown that in the upper Danube catchment area, around a quarter of the historically available and currently cut-off floodplain area has good potential for restoration measures. In view of rising temperatures, the upper Danube catchment, with its many headwaters, could also offer temperature refuges for sensitive cold-water fish. To achieve this, however, river continuity must be improved so that species can also reach these areas.

Scientific approach

The researchers used a 300-year time series of hydrological and climatic data to investigate the vulnerability of 48 native fish species in the upper Danube catchment to past and potential future environmental changes. The research area stretched from the source of the Danube to Vienna and covered an area of over 100,000 square kilometres and around 1000 kilometres of the main Danube river. Based on modelled and observed hydrological and climatic data, they calculated estimates of species-specific vulnerability for the period from 1800 to 2100. They compared the estimated vulnerability of species between two historical time intervals (1800-1830 and 1900-1930) and a future time interval (2070-2100) for two different climate scenarios. In addition, they determined the most important environmental factors for the vulnerability of species and their changes over the last 200 years and the projected 100 years in the future. The current environmental conditions and, thus, the modelled habitat suitability of the fish species were used as a baseline.

Original publication:
(iDiv authors bolded)
Friedrichs-Manthey, M., Langhans, S. D., Borgwardt, F., Hein, T., Kling, H., Stanzel, P., Jähnig, S. C., & Domisch, S. (2024). Three hundred years of past and future changes for native fish species in the upper Danube River Basin—Historical flow alterations versus future climate change. Diversity and Distributions, 00, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13808

Contact:

Dr Martin Friedrichs-Manthey
Postdoctoral researcher
of the Biodiversity and People research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Email: martin.friedrichs-manthey@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/de/profile/1376.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Brian McGill is an internationally renowned macroecologist. His research focuses on the consequences of anthropogenic changes on species communities and biological diversity. In particular, he is investigating the impacts of global warming or land-use change, for example through urbanization. McGill studied at Harvard University and received this doctorate from the University of Arizona. He has been a professor at the University of Maine since 2015. He has authored and co-authored more than 200 publications, including high-impact studies in Nature, Science and Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

In 2017, McGill had visited iDiv for several weeks. Together with Jon Chase, he developed a critical set of methodologies that helps dissect the influence of different factors (abundances, spatial distributions) on biodiversity change. McGill plans to contribute to further developing this approach during his stays in Germany. “I am looking forward to continuing this project and using the extended stay to brainstorm some fundamental new directions to explore. iDiv is a wonderfully intellectually stimulating environment for an ecologist,” McGill says. He also plans to use his time in Germany to finalise a book on ecology and global change.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awards the Humboldt Research Award to scientists who have had a fundamental impact on their field of expertise, and from whom further outstanding achievements are expected. The awardees may conduct research projects of their own choice in Germany in collaboration with colleagues from the field.

Contact:

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

An online survey conducted in Germany and Poland shows that large parts of the participants support the return of large carnivores and herbivores, such as wolves and elk, to the Oder Delta region, according to a study published in People and Nature. Presented with different rewilding scenarios, the majority of survey participants showed a preference for land management that leads to the comeback of nature to the most natural state possible. Locals, on the other hand, showed some reservations.

In recent years, the concept of rewilding has captured the attention of conservationists, who see it as a promising and cost-effective tool to combat biodiversity loss and restore ecosystems. The Oder Delta area, which spans the northern border between Germany and Poland, is particularly suitable for the natural comeback of wildlife. It comprises diverse natural habitats, like riparian forests, standing- and flowing waters, open and semi-open inland dunes, and heathlands, and is surrounded by diverse landscapes of forests, rivers, and wetlands. 

To measure public sentiment towards rewilding in the Oder Delta, a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) carried out an online, choice experiment survey. Given the geographic position of the area across both Germany and Poland, the survey offered a unique opportunity to investigate differences in attitudes between the two countries. Approximately 1,000 respondents from each country were presented with different scenarios describing the ecological status of the Oder Delta in 2050 as a result of various management interventions. The scenarios included, for example, the conditions of rivers and forests and the presence of large animals such as elk, lynx, or wolves. Beyond the “status quo” option, an intensification of land use in the region, respondents were presented with two alternative scenarios with varying biodiversity benefits.

Importantly, only the status quo option came at no additional cost. The two alternative options were associated with tax payments to fund the necessary interventions, meaning that respondents were faced with a trade-off: an increase in nature benefits went hand in hand with an increase in taxes. “This allowed us to calculate the respondents’ willingness to pay for different management interventions in the Oder Delta region”, says lead author Rowan Dunn-Capper from iDiv and MLU. “This helps us understand broader preferences for rewilding”. 

Strong preferences for rewilding

The study revealed a significant appetite for rewilding initiatives at the national scale, particularly for the presence of large animals, such as wolves, lynx, elk, and bison in the Oder Delta. Willingness to pay for scenarios in which large animal species were present was almost three times larger than for restoring the most natural landscape elements. “To find such preference was surprising given the often-negative portrayal of large animal species, notably the wolf, in the popular media”, says Dunn-Capper. “It suggests the public may be more welcoming of wildlife return than first thought”. This preference was also true for forests and agriculture: respondents in Germany as well as in Poland had a strong preference for the most natural rewilding levels with minimum human intervention on the ecosystem. Additionally, the fact that results for Germany and Poland were broadly comparable indicates that preferences for rewilding hold across political and cultural contexts.

Locals are less enthusiastic about rewilding

Survey participants living near the Oder Delta (within 100km) did not show the same appetite for rewilding initiatives. Local respondents showed a preference for large herbivores, such as elk and bison, but were less enthusiastic about the presence of large carnivores, like wolves. Similarly, local respondents showed contrasting preferences for certain rewilding interventions in rivers and agricultural landscapes compared to the national sample. For example, a significant share of local respondents were not willing to pay for scenarios in which flooding regimes were fully restored in the Oder Delta. “This underscores the intricacies of conservation planning and highlights the importance of local input to foster biodiversity democracy, this is the management of natural resources as a democratic process”, says senior author Professor Henrique Pereira, head of Biodiversity Conservation at MLU and iDiv. “Generally, our findings support rewilding as a novel ecosystem restoration approach that has public acceptance to become mainstream across Europe.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Rowan Dunn-Capper, Marek Giergiczny, Néstor Fernández, Fabian Marder, Henrique M. Pereira (2024). Public preference for the rewilding framework: a choice experiment in the Oder Delta. People and Nature, DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10582

Contact:

Rowan Dunn-Capper
Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Email: rowan.dunn-capper@idiv.de

Prof Dr Henrique Miguel Pereira (speaks English and Portuguese)
Head of Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Email: henrique.pereira@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/132.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

A new white paper ‘Bloom or bust’, that has been produced by USB together with experts including Dr Miguel Fernandez from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, takes stock of where the world stands on biodiversity loss, existing solutions, and the role that finance, government action, and collaboration can play.

“Given the strong dependencies between the global economy and nature, the urgency of tackling biodiversity loss is not only an environmental imperative, but also a crucial economic imperative”, says Dr Miguel Fernandez. “Governments, the private sector, and academia should feel that participating in success stories where we collaboratively mobilize technological and financial solutions is not a sacrifice, but an opportunity to catalyze innovation and to strength our adaptive capacity to deal with an uncertain future while we work together to foster a sustainable, nature-positive economy.”

White paper “Bloom or bust. Aligning technology and finance to address biodiversity challenges” [Download PDF]

Contact:

Dr Miguel Alejandro Fernandez Trigoso (speaks Englisch and Spanish)
Lead Scientific Officer
Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 9733192
Email: miguel.fernandez@idiv.de

Biologist Prof Dr Christian Wirth from Leipzig University, Speaker of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, has been appointed  External Member of the Max Planck Society by its Senate, at the request of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI BGC) in Jena. The awarding of this honorary title is intended to further strengthen research cooperation in the field of biodiversity, biogeochemistry and global change between the MPI BGC, Leipzig University and, in particular, the iDiv Center. In addition to Prof Christian Wirth, Prof Anna Michalak, Director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science and Professor of Earth System Science and Biology at Stanford University, was also appointed as an external member with MPI BGC in 2023.

“I am delighted to be breaking new ground with my excellent colleagues at the MPI for Biogeochemistry. Species extinction and climate change are phenomena of one and the same problem. The consequences of biodiversity loss cannot be understood without biogeochemistry and the relationship to the Earth system,” says Wirth.

Wirth has a long and fruitful relationship with the MPI BGC in Jena. From 2005 to 2009, he was head of the independent Max Planck Research Group “Organismic Biogeochemistry”, where he conducted research at national and international locations, but also in Central Germany, for example in the DFG-funded “Jena Experiment” and the “Biodiversity Exploratories”. He then accepted a position at Leipzig University. There, together with many colleagues from Central Germany, he was instrumental in founding the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and acted as its director and speaker. 

From 2013 to 2022, Prof. Wirth, together with Dr Jens Kattge and Dr Gerhard Bönisch from the MPI BGC, was able to continue the successful work on the TRY database, which he had already started as group leader, as a part-time Max Planck Fellow. The TRY database, now the world's largest database on plant traits, is requested by scientists worldwide approximately every two hours. From the publicly accessible TRY database, records on the locations, properties and functions of plants and their changes are then provided.

Prof. Wirth is highly successful in communicating the increasing importance of biodiversity, particularly in the context of climate change, to a wide audience. As director of the botanical garden, head of the forest crane in the Auwald and of the research arboretum in Leipzig, and in many eloquent lectures, he has already been able to inspire the interested public about biodiversity. Due to his outstanding achievements in biodiversity research, he was honoured with the Leipzig Science Award in 2022.

In special recognition of his scientific achievements, Wirth was recently appointed to the newly founded “Forum Zukunftsstrategie” by Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger. Wirth is currently also leading the national biodiversity assessment “Fact Check for the Conservation of Biodiversity” of the Federal Ministry of Science and Research (BMBF). 

“We are very happy to have gained Christian Wirth as an external member, who with his understanding of global biodiversity optimally complements our research on global element cycles,” says Prof Sönke Zaehle, Managing Director at the MPI BGC, and continues: “We look forward to further constructive cooperation and new impulses to better understand the importance of biodiversity for global element cycles and, above all, their stability against the background of current climate and land use changes.”

Contact:

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release of Colorado State University

The findings – published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – quantify the impact of extreme short-term drought on grassland and shrubland ecosystems across six continents with a level of detail that was not previously possible. It is the first time an experiment this extensive has been undertaken to generate a baseline understanding of the potential losses of plant productivity in these vital ecosystems. 

Melinda Smith, a professor in the Department of Biology at CSU, led the study and was the first co-author along with Kate Wilkins, the Regional Conservation Director for Colorado at the Denver Zoo. Dr. Smith said the observed reduction in a key carbon cycle process after a single 1-in-100-year drought event greatly exceeds previously reported losses for grasslands and shrublands.

“We were able to determine that the loss of aboveground plant growth – a key measure of ecosystem function – was 60% greater when short-term drought was extreme compared to the less severe droughts that have been more commonly experienced historically,” she said. “Past studies suffered from methodological differences when estimating the impacts of extreme drought in natural ecosystems, but our standardized, distributed approach here addressed that problem.” 

The project also showcases the variability in drought response across grassland and shrubland ecosystems – offering both a review of the global impacts of climate change as well as a glimpse into which areas will be most stressed or most resilient in the coming years.

Gathering global drought data on grassland and shrubland ecosystems  

Known as the International Drought Experiment, the newly published research originally dates back to 2013 as part of the National Science Foundation’s Drought-Net Research Coordination Network. Altogether, there are more than 170 authors representing institutions from around the world cited in the new PNAS study, which was completed over the last four years. 

To gather their data, researchers built rainfall manipulation structures to experimentally reduce the amount of naturally occurring precipitation available to ecosystems for at least a full growing season. About half of the participating sites imposed extreme drought conditions with these structures, while the rest imposed less severe drought for comparison.

As Earth’s climate continues to change, short-term droughts that are statistically extreme in intensity will become more common, with what were once considered 1-in-100-year droughts now potentially happening every two to five years. But because of the historic rarity of extreme droughts researchers had been unable to estimate the actual magnitude of their ecological consequences. 

Smith said grasslands and shrublands were perfect test areas to fill that research gap because they are easier to manipulate for study than other systems, such as forests. They also store more than 30% of the global stock of carbon and support key industries such as livestock production.

“They are key ecosystems that are scalable to the globe, which makes them highly relevant for this kind of work,” said Smith. “Grasslands and shrublands cover between 30% and 40% of the globe and frequently see deficits in precipitation. That means they are more vulnerable to climate change.” 

Findings from the sites, including the Bad Lauchstädt Experimental Research Station of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), also provide insight into how specific climates, soil and vegetation types broadly influence drought response. While the work shows that drier and less diverse sites are likely to be the most vulnerable to extremes, the severity of the drought was the most consistent and important factor in determining an ecosystem’s response.

“Our data suggests greater losses in drier sites, but if you are getting to the extremes – which is what is being forecasted – we can generally expect substantial losses no matter where you are in the world,” she said. “We also found that even moderate losses from less severe droughts would still likely result in large impacts to the populations that rely on these systems. And then there is a combined loss of function across the globe to consider as well.”

The team is currently examining data collected from the full four years of the project to now assess multiyear drought impacts globally.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Melinda D. Smith, Kate D. Wilkins, […] Harald Auge, […], Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer, […], Daniela Hoss, […], Christiane Roscher, […], Marie Sünnemann et al. (2024). Extreme drought impacts have been underestimated in grasslands and shrublands globally. PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2309881120

Contact:

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Frequent visits to oil palm plantations are leading to a sharp increase in mortality rates among infant southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in the wild, according to a new study published in Current Biology. In addition to increased risk from predators and human encounters, exposure to harmful agricultural chemicals in this environment may negatively affect infant development.

In wild populations, infant survival is crucial for determining individual fitness and for maintaining viable populations in changing environments. For primates, agricultural areas adjacent to tropical forest habitat can be a mixed blessing: While crop plantations can provide easy access to food, they also come with increased exposure to various hazards, which is likely contributing to reduced infant survival in several wild primate species. 

Exposure to palm plantations increases infant mortality

In a long-term collaboration between Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University (UL), and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), researchers set out to investigate potential links between frequent visits to oil palm plantations and the particularly high infant mortality they observed among wild southern pig-tailed macaques in Peninsular Malaysia. In a habituated study population in this region, 57% of all infants born between 2014 and 2023 died before the age of one – a rate that far exceeds mortality rates reported in other wild primate populations.

For almost ten years, the researchers followed two groups of macaques living in a mosaic of rainforest and oil palm plantations. They found that prolonged exposure to oil palm plantations during infancy tripled the likelihood of infant mortality. This key finding could be explained by increased encounters with predators and humans, and potential exposure to harmful chemicals such as pesticides in this environment.

“Some of these risks are relatively clear: infant macaques are more likely to fall prey to feral dogs that roam in the plantations in packs or to be captured by humans and sold illegally as pets,” explains Dr Nadine Ruppert from USM, who established and leads the field site. “But the potential long-term effects of the pesticides used to manage the monocultures on mammalian wildlife are much less obvious and very poorly understood.” 

Pesticides may affect foetal development

The study also found increased infant mortality rates when mothers gave birth for the first time or when there was a long interval between two consecutives births, which contradicts studies that report increased mortality when the interbirth interval is shorter. The accumulation or uptake of pesticides in the mother’s body may play a key role: “The literature suggests that certain harmful substances used in agriculture can cross the placental barrier and be passed on to the unborn offspring. We also know that certain fat-soluble molecules can be passed on through breastmilk,” says lead author Dr Anna Holzner (iDiv, MPI EVA, UL and USM). “Accordingly, the longer the chemicals accumulate in the mother’s body, the more they could influence foetal development during pregnancy and also during lactation.”

The study highlights the urgent need to address anthropogenic threats to animals in agricultural landscapes. “We know that the use of pesticides in agriculture has led to drastic declines in insect populations, so chemical analysis is essential to understand the effects of pesticides on mammalian wildlife,” says Professor Dr Anja Widdig (UL, MPI EVA and iDiv), senior author and leading PI in this iDiv Flexpool project. “Our findings underscore the critical need to implement environmentally friendly cultivation practices that minimise the risks to wildlife populations and also to people living near plantations.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Anna Holzner, Nurul Iza Adrina Mohd Rameli, Nadine Ruppert, Anja Widdig (2024): Agricultural habitat use affects infant survivorship in an endangered macaque species. Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.002

Related links

Nature Research Highlight "Life is short for baby monkeys amit the oil palms"

Contact:

Dr Anna Holzner
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences,
Leipzig University
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Email: anna.holzner@uni-leipzig.de

Prof Anja Widdig
Leipzig University
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9736-707
Email: anja.widdig@eva.mpg.de

Dr Nadine Ruppert
School of Biological Sciences
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Email: n.ruppert@usm.my

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The full text is only available in German.

Based on a media release of the University of Duisburg-Essen

The ‘Nature Restoration Law’ (NRL) requires member states of the EU to implement restoration measures on at least 20 per cent of land and marine areas by 2030, and in all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. This includes specific targets to rewet peatlands and to increase pollinator populations. The NRL has already overcome various hurdles: most recently, it was approved by the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee, after delegations of the Parliament and the Council negotiated the final text.

But will the regulation really achieve its aims? The authors, including scientists leading large European projects on nature restoration and biodiversity, analysed experiences with other European environmental directives and policies, and evaluated the prospects of the NRL to be successful. 

“The NRL avoids several pitfalls that often obstruct the implementation of European policies and regulations, showing that the Commission learned from past experiences” says Prof. Dr Daniel Hering from the University of Duisburg-Essen, first author of the study. “The regulation sets ambitious targets and timelines, and implementation steps are clearly laid out. It also saves time as it does not need to be transposed into national law.” At the same time, national implementation will be crucial for the NRL’s success. “While targets are precisely defined and binding, the steps to achieve them need to be decided by individual European countries and most of them are voluntary” says Prof. Dr Josef Settele from Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle, one of the study’s authors.

Key to the implementation will be the cooperation of nature restoration with land users, in particular with agriculture. “Intensive agriculture is still a key driver for biodiversity loss in Europe”, says senior author Dr Guy Pe’er from iDiv and UFZ. “But targets for agriculture and nature restoration could be coordinated, with opportunities for both”. Agriculture directly benefits from healthy soils and pollinator populations and from increased water storage capacity in the landscape that are all targets of the NRL. 

The authors conclude that funds provided by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy need to be used for achieving the NRL’s aims: a statement to be intensively debated in science and application.

Overall, the authors provide a positive outlook for the NRL, but warn that ambitious national implementation and cooperation with economic sectors, such as agriculture, will eventually determine the success of nature restoration in Europe.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Daniel Hering, Christian Schürings, Franziska Wenskus, Kirsty Blackstock, Angel Borja, Sebastian Birk, Craig Bullock, Laurence Carvalho, Magda Bou Dagher-Kharrat, Sebastian Lakner, Nataša Lovrić, Shane McGuinness, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Agustín Sánchez-Arcilla, Josef Settele, Guy Pe’er: Securing success for the EU Nature Restoration Law. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adk1658

Contact:

Prof Dr Daniel Hering
Department of Aquatic Ecology
University of Duisburg-Essen
Email: daniel.hering@uni-due.de

Dr Guy Pe’er
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
“Agriculture and Ecosystem Services'' group,
Dept. Ecosystem Services,
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Phone: +49 341 97 33182
Email: guy.peer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/643.html

Prof. Dr. Josef Settele
Head of the Department of Conservation Biology & Social-Ecological Systems
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: josef.settele@ufz.de
Web: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=38572

Leipzig. Insect decline is being driven by losses among the locally more common species, according to a new study published in Nature. Led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the meta-analysis of 923 locations around the world notes two significant trends: 1) the species with the most individuals (the highest abundance) are disproportionately decreasing in number, and 2) no other species have increased to the high numbers previously seen. This likely explains the frequent observation that there are fewer insects around now than ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

Researchers at iDiv looked at long-term trends of land-based insects, such as beetles, moths, and grasshoppers, and found that decreases in the number of the formerly most common species have contributed most to local insect declines. Common or abundant insect species are those species that are locally found in the highest numbers, but which species these are differ among locations. The study’s findings challenge the idea that changes in insect biodiversity result from rarer species disappearing.

The study follows the recent sounding of alarm bells about insect loss, as researchers note dramatic declines in the total number of insects in many parts of the world. However, little is known about the general trends among locally rare and abundant species over long periods. “It was obvious this needed exploring,” says Dr Roel van Klink, lead author of the study and senior scientist at iDiv and MLU. “We had to know whether observations about declines in total abundances of insects differed among common and rare species, and how this translated into changes in the overall insect diversity.”

More common species are losing out

Van Klink and colleagues set out to better understand trends in insect numbers by diving into past studies. They compiled a database on insect communities using data collected over periods between 9 and 64 years from 106 studies. For example, one Dutch study on ground beetles was started in 1959 and continues today. 

With this updated database, the researchers confirmed that despite variation among the data, on the whole, land-based insects from these long-term surveys are declining by 1.5% each year. To better understand this pattern, they compared the trends of species in different abundance categories and found that species that were the most abundant at the start of the time series showed the strongest average decline – around 8% annually – while rarer species declined less.

Importantly, the losses of previously dominant species were not compensated for by rises in other species, which has far-reaching implications: Abundant species are a staple food for birds and other insect-eating animals, making them essential for ecosystems. “Food webs must already be rewiring substantially in response to the decline of the most common species”, explains van Klink. “These species are super important for all kinds of other organisms and for the overall functioning of the ecosystem”.

Winners and Losers

The analysis clearly shows that the formerly abundant species are consistently losing the most individuals compared to the less abundant insect species. However, less abundant and rare species are also taking losses, driving declines in local species numbers. The study found a modest decrease in the overall number of species of just under 0.3% annually. This decline indicates that in addition to significant losses of common species, some rare species are going locally extinct.

Coming out on top are new arrivals who managed to successfully establish themselves. Most of these new arrivals stay locally rare and replace other formerly rare insects, but occasionally they become very abundant. The invasive Asian Ladybeetle (Harmonia axyridis), which is now common throughout Europe, the Americas and South Africa, is one such example.

According to the paper’s authors, further research is necessary to determine the underlying causes of these trends. Although this study did not explicitly investigate possible causes, the declines are likely linked to recent human-related impacts, such as climate change and urbanisation, which are considered major drivers of biodiversity loss. “Insects seem to be taking a heavier hit than many other species as humans continue to dominate the planet,” explains Prof Jonathan Chase, senior author of the study and research group head at iDiv and MLU. “Other studies, including those our team has worked on, have not found such diversity declines at local scales from many other groups of animals and plants”.

While the study’s results are striking, these trends are strongly biased to data on insect communities in Europe and North America. As such, they should not be interpreted as a global phenomenon. Chase adds: “The patterns we observed might be a best-case scenario for quantifying the real impact of people on insects,” referring to what scientists have called the lifeboat effect. “These declines were observed in long-term data from areas that have remained largely intact, sort of like a lifeboat, rather than in areas where massive conversion of natural areas into human-dominated landscapes has occurred, such as malls and parking lots”. 

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni bold)

Roel van Klink, Diana E. Bowler, Konstantin B. Gongalsky, Minghua Shen, Scott R. Swengel, Jonathan M. Chase (2023). Disproportionate declines of formerly abundant species underlie insect loss. Nature, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06861-4

Contact:

Dr Roel van Klink
(speaks English, German and Dutch)
Senior Scientist in the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 1520 3117216
Email: roel.klink@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/788.html

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Christine Coester
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733197
Email: christine.coester@idiv.de

Based on a media release of Leipzig University

Plant odours penetrate the atmosphere

Plants produce a variety of organic compounds to communicate with each other and with their environment. These are known as biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), such as terpenes, which give plants their characteristic scent and help to repel pests. As well as acting as chemical signals, these substances play a role in regulating climate, air quality and atmospheric chemistry. This is because these BVOCs emitted by plants form biogenic secondary organic aerosols (BSOAs) in the air, i.e. particles in the atmosphere. These aerosols in turn affect air quality, cloud formation and the climate.

MyDiv Experiment: Measurements in plots with different tree species

But how do emissions and concentrations of aerosols in the air change as biodiversity declines or plants are stressed by drought? The interdisciplinary team led by scientists Dr Anvar Sanaei and Professor Alexandra Weigelt from Leipzig University and other researchers from TROPOS and iDiv investigated this question. The scientists collected the data at the MyDiv tree diversity experimental site. The iDiv platform, near Bad Lauchstädt in Saxony-Anhalt, covers around two hectares and has 80 plots with ten tree species growing together in monocultures or mixtures of different species. For the study, the team spent almost two weeks collecting air samples from ten of the 11x11 metre plots, which grow four tree species – rowan, wild cherry, common ash and sycamore – in different combinations.

Fewer plant odours, fewer risks 

“In the field, we measured BVOCs and BSOA compounds in ten plots of varying tree diversity. Our results show that the amount of BVOCs decreases with increasing biodiversity in most cases,” says Dr Anvar Sanaei, first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University. It is estimated that global BVOC emissions from vegetation will increase by around a third as a result of climate change. “There are considerable uncertainties here: these precursor gases can form particles, which in turn can become cloud droplets. Whether BVOCs ultimately cool or warm the atmosphere depends on many factors and is difficult to predict. However, more biodiversity and fewer BVOCs would reduce the changes in the atmosphere and thus also the risks of climate change – including changes in precipitation,” adds Professor Hartmut Herrmann from TROPOS. The second part of the study shows how difficult it is to investigate these complex processes in the field: the team was unable to establish any clear correlations for BSOAs, which could be partly due to environmental influences, as the conversion of BVOC gases into BSOA particles takes a certain amount of time. At just under two weeks, the measurement campaign was also comparatively short. That is why the team wants to continue the research – not least because many questions remain unanswered.

More stress, more plant odours?

Previously, it was thought that species-rich forests and grasslands released more gases into the atmosphere than species-poor ones. The reason for this was thought to be that species-rich systems produce more biomass because they can utilise resources such as light, water and nutrients more efficiently. More biomass then also means more leaf surface area from which the gases can be emitted. “Our new results, however, suggest that the situation may be due to the fact that plants in species-rich forests and grasslands are under less stress. Compared to monocultures, they face fewer herbivores and less heat and drought. But this is just a hypothesis for now. Much more research is needed to better understand how biodiversity affects the atmosphere, where we need to look more closely at the microclimate, above- and below-ground stress on plants, and many other factors in long-term experiments,” says Professor Nico Eisenhauer from iDiv.

Biology + climate research + chemistry = A team fit for the future

What made this study so special was that different disciplines worked together, combining atmospheric and biological measurements. “Only with knowledge from biology, climate research and atmospheric chemistry can we decipher how plant emissions are linked to biodiversity and the atmosphere. Our study highlights the need for experiments at the local and regional scales and the development of models to improve our understanding of biosphere-atmosphere interactions,” says senior author and iDiv member Professor Alexandra Weigelt from the Institute of Biology. 

Katarina Werneburg and Tilo Arnhold

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Anvar Sanaei, Hartmut Herrmann, Loreen Alshaabi, Jan Beck, Olga Ferlian, Khanneh Wadinga Fomba, Sylvia Haferkorn, Manuela van Pinxteren, Johannes Quaas, Julius Quosh, René Rabe, Christian Wirth, Nico Eisenhauer & Alexandra Weigelt (2023). Changes in biodiversity impact atmospheric chemistry and climate through plant volatiles and particles. Commun Earth Environ, DOI: 10.1038/s43247-023-01113-9 

The study was funded by the Saxon State Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism (SMWK; 3-7304/35/6-2021/48880), the European Union (ACTRIS-IMP (871115), ATMO-ACCESS (101008004) and ACTRIS-D (01LK2001A)), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme (Grant Agreement No. 677232) and the German Research Foundation (DFG; via Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (Ei 862/29-1) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig (FZT 118, 202548816)).

Contact:

Prof Dr Alexandra Weigelt
Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity
University of Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49-341-97-38594
Email: alexandra.weigelt@uni-leipzig.de

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Leipzig. An Expert Working Group with involvement of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) has published science-policy recommendations for future research to support transformative pandemic-prevention and preparedness policies. The report was published by Eklipse, a spinoff of a UFZ-led EU project.

The final knowledge synthesis report from the Eklipse Expert Working Group working on biodiversity and pandemics has now been released. This report outlines science policy recommendations regarding biodiversity and pandemics that need to be implemented in order to develop broader transformative policies for human, animal, and ecosystem health. A particular focus lies on policies to support and promote research needed to prevent and manage spillover events in which pathogens originating in wildlife cause disease outbreaks or even pandemics in humans or large-scale disease events in domesticated animals (panzootics).

“This report emphasizes the urgent need for an integrated approach in science policy to address the interplay between biodiversity and human health. I am delighted to have contributed to identifying crucial gaps in our understanding of the interactions between pandemics and biodiversity”, says Dr Miguel Fernandez, researcher at iDiv and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. “As a key message, our report advocates for interdisciplinary research strategies to address pandemics and broader environmental crises, highlighting the crucial role of science in achieving a more sustainable future.”

The report, which was requested by the European Commission services, was prepared by an Eklipse Expert Working Group active from 2022 to 2023. The group undertook a scoping review of scientific literature and collected input from a large body of external experts through an online survey and focus group discussions. Using these results, the group formulated recommendations for shaping a strategic research agenda on biodiversity and pandemics.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Soushieta Jagadesh, Alexandre Caron, Claire Lajaunie, Hatice Mahur Turan, Nils Bunnefeld, Andrew Cunningham, Miguel Fernandez, Alister Scott, Norbert Tchouaffe Tchiadje, Adam Izdebski, Julie Teresa Shapiro (2023). Biodiversity and pandemics: Interdisciplinary research and action priorities. Eklipse Evidence Report 02/2023

Link to report

View PDF

Contact:

Dr Miguel Alejandro Fernandez Trigoso (speaks Englisch and Spanish)
Lead Scientific Officer
Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 9733192
Email: miguel.fernandez@idiv.de

Based on a media release of Leipzig University

“Soil temperature plays a central role in controlling important ecosystem processes related to water, carbon and nutrient dynamics, microbial activity and agricultural productivity,” explains the lead author of the study, Dr Yuanyuan Huang. Despite its importance, no study has yet investigated whether plant diversity in particular acts as a buffer against fluctuations in soil temperature during long-term plant community development.

In their study, Huang and her colleagues present the results of a comprehensive data set collected from 2004 to 2021 in a large-scale grassland biodiversity experiment – the Jena Experiment. The experimental site consists of 80 plots with a variety of plants ranging from one to 60 species. In addition, four plots of unplanted soil and two plots of uncontrolled vegetation provided important reference points. Soil temperature was automatically recorded at depths of five and 15 centimetres at one-minute intervals over a period of 18 years, which spanned considerable climate variability. Dr Anne Ebeling, scientific coordinator of the experiment, says: “We have just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Jena Experiment. Over these two decades, we have experienced a number of extreme weather events, including prolonged droughts, a major flood in 2013 and exceptionally cold springs.” Gideon Stein, the second author of the study and responsible for the data preparation, adds: “It is really interesting to see how many historical events can be found in the temperature data of the Jena Experiment.”

“This unprecedented analysis of long-term, high-resolution data provides compelling evidence that plant diversity acts as a natural buffer and provides stability in the face of climate extremes,” emphasises Huang. Throughout the 18-year period, plant diversity showed a remarkable ability to protect the soil from overheating in scorching heat and to help retain heat in colder periods.

In summer, on days with particularly high air temperatures, the soil temperature in plant communities with 60 species was 5.04 degrees Celsius lower than in plots with no plants. For comparison, this difference is more than double the difference between monocultures and bare soil at the same time. However, on days with particularly low air temperatures, the soil temperature in the 60-species plant community was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than in the plots with no plants, which in this case is almost five times the difference between monocultures and the bare soil.

The researchers concluded that plant diversity can stabilise soil temperature throughout the year. The effects intensified as the experimental communities became older, and are even more pronounced under the harshest climate conditions, such as scorching hot days and dry years.

In a second step, Huang and her colleagues set out to investigate the causes of the stabilising effect of plant diversity. Plant diversity not only increased the total leaf area of the plants, leading to greater shading, but also increased the organic carbon content of the soil. The stabilising effect of plant diversity was demonstrated by a reduction in heat conduction in the top 60 centimetres of soil. As a result, soil temperature remained more stable throughout the year and throughout the topsoil in communities with higher plant diversity.

These findings have far-reaching implications. In temperate grasslands and beyond, the stabilisation of soil temperature provided by plant diversity could be crucial in mitigating the negative effects of extreme climate events. This includes the decomposition of carbon in the soil and its release into the atmosphere. According to the researchers, this natural mechanism thus also has the potential to slow down the process of global warming.

“Our research shows the remarkable ability of plant diversity to act as a protective shield against the impacts of climate change. It is a stark reminder of the importance of conserving and promoting biodiversity in our ecosystems to protect the environment and ensure a sustainable future,” says Professor Nico Eisenhauer, head of the study and spokesperson for the Jena experiment. He adds that the study not only adds to our understanding of the vital role of biodiversity, but also offers a glimmer of hope in the ongoing fight against climate change.

Susann Sika

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Yuanyuan Huang, Gideon Stein, Olaf Kolle, Karl Kübler, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Hui Dong, David Eichenberg, Gerd Gleixner, Anke Hildebrandt, Markus Lange, Christiane Roscher, Holger Schielzeth, Bernhard Schmid, Alexandra Weigelt, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Maha Shadaydeh, Joachim Denzler, Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer (2023). Enhanced stability of grassland soil temperature by plant diversity, Nature Geoscience, doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01338-5

Contact:

Dr Yuanyuan Huang
Experimental Interation Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9739159
Email: yuanyuan.huang@idiv.de

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) evaluates field-specific indicators in five categories: research performance, research influence, international cooperation, research quality, and international academic awards.

Led by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, the GRAS was first published in 2017. At that time, the three universities that make up the iDiv consortium were ranked between 151 to 200 in the field of ecology. In the new 2023 ranking, the Central German universities jumped to the top of the list based on evaluations made between 2018 and 2022.

These strides are also seen when looking at the number of peer-reviewed publications that came out of iDiv over the same time span. Founded in 2012, iDiv helps link the biodiversity research taking place in Central Germany. From 2013 to 2017, iDiv researchers published 1,301 publications, and from 2018 to 2022, iDiv researchers produced 2,266 publications – a 74% increase in scientific output.

“When iDiv was founded eleven years ago, our three universities laid the foundations for a wonderful success story,” says iDiv speaker Prof Henrique Pereira, research group head at iDiv and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. "iDiv was the necessary catalyst that helped us win international recognition for German research in the field of ecology. Today we are playing in the ecological Champions League, alongside universities such as Stanford, Oxford, and Zurich.”

According to Pereira, the Shanghai Ranking’s findings validate the work and effort put forward in recent years: “Investing in research pays off. We have to continue advancing this great trend in the international recognition of our universities.”
Volker Hahn

* together with 24 other universities (places 51-75)

International GRAS ranking in the field of ecology:
https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0106

Methodology:
https://www.shanghairanking.com/methodology/gras/2023

Contact:

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

The following iDiv researchers can be found on the list (in alphabetical order):

• Prof Bruno Glaser (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, iDiv)

• Dr Jens Kattge (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, iDiv)

• Dr Martin Mascher (Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, iDiv)

• Prof Henrique Pereira (iDiv, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Prof Markus Reichstein (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, iDiv)

• Prof Josef Settele (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, iDiv, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Dr Marten Winter (iDiv, Leipzig University)

• Prof Sönke Zaehle (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, iDiv)

In total, approximately 6,900 researchers have been selected.

See full list: https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/

Contact:

Based on a media release of Leipzig University

Air pollution, species loss, overfishing – the list of challenges to sustainable development is long. In most cases, it is people who have overexploited natural resources for economic gain: they have overfished the oceans, crowded out insects through unbalanced agricultural practices and polluted the air with industrial emissions. Some of these undesirable developments have already been partially reversed, but in some cases new problems have arisen. The new Research Training Group, Economics of Connected Natural Commons (ECO-N), will explore these complex interactions between economic demands, human behaviour and natural resources.

From 1 April 2024 until 2029, 42 doctoral researchers will develop an integrative perspective on the sustainable use of natural commons in the areas of atmosphere and biodiversity. In interdisciplinary collaborative projects, they will develop a shared, overarching understanding of the interaction between economic activity and natural dynamics. “On this basis, and by synthesising many forms of management of natural commons, we aim to propose instruments and mechanisms for the sustainable use of natural commons,” says Professor Martin Quaas, spokesperson of the Research Training Group (RTG). “This new RTG is also an important milestone for us on the way to a potential Cluster of Excellence, called Breathing Nature, for which we submitted a draft proposal at the end of May as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments,” adds Professor Johannes Quaas, a meteorologist at Leipzig University and designated spokesperson for the proposed Cluster of Excellence.

ECO-N is a response to the growing demand in research, government and practice for academically qualified specialists who are capable of analysing difficult sustainability problems across sectors and disciplines. The new Research Training Group combines the expertise of the Faculty of Economics and Management Science, the Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences and the Faculty of Life Sciences at Leipzig University. Also involved are iDiv and the non-university research institutions Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ).

Dr. Katarina Werneburg

Contact:

Prof Dr Martin Quaas
Head of research group Biodiversity Economics
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Leipzig University
Phone: Please contact the iDiv Media and Communications department
Email: martin.quaas@idiv.de

Based on a media release of Leipzig University

In a study around two years ago, the research team already demonstrated that biodiversity in western literature has been steadily declining since the 1830s. The researchers have now published a follow-up study. They explain how factors such as the author’s gender, place of residence or age influence the importance given to nature in their works. According to their findings, it makes a difference whether a literary work was written, for example, by a young woman from a US village or by a middle-aged man from a European city.

The study involved researchers from the digital humanities, biology and literary studies. The researchers again used the Project Gutenberg library for their analysis. They linked the works contained therein – mostly western literature from Europe and North America – to biographical information about the authors, which they gathered from online sources such as Wikidata, LibraryThing.de and WorldCat.org, and then manually categorised. In the end, 13,493 works from 1705 to 1969 by 2847 authors were analysed using machine learning methods.

In the 2021 study, the researchers already developed metrics that make it possible to measure biodiversity in literary works. For example, they counted the number of terms used to describe animals or plants in each work, or calculated the variety of vocabulary used to describe living things. Now they have used an algorithm to relate those values to the biographical information about the authors. 

They found that, on average, works written by women contained more biodiversity than those written by men across all the periods analysed. 
Where the authors came from and where they lived also played a role: the researchers found more occurrences of nature in the works of North American authors than in European works. In addition, writers from smaller towns tended to describe more biodiversity in their work than those living in larger cities. 
In terms of age, the picture was mixed: on average, young authors under 25 and older authors over 70 wrote about plants and animals more often than middle-aged authors. According to the analysis, however, whether the writer had children had no influence on the occurrences of biodiversity in their works. 
In addition to these five core variables, the researchers included many other aspects in the analysis, such as the authors’ level of education, the literary genre and the intention of the works.

“The results are statistically highly significant,” says Lars Langer, a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Computer Science at Leipzig University and lead author of the study. “However, it is important to stress that these are statistical statements, which means that in individual cases the situation can be completely different or even the opposite.” 

The study does not provide any direct answers to the question of why the authors’ personal circumstances affect the occurrences of biodiversity in their works. But Langer makes an assumption: “Almost all the correlations we can find can be traced back indirectly to the corresponding education and socialisation. High standards of general education promote an appreciation of nature.” The findings therefore also have implications when it comes to educating specific target groups within society and raising their awareness of biodiversity issues. 

Almost as a by-product of the study, a new resource was created for future use by the scientific community. According to the research team, the text corpus, enriched with biographical information, is a valuable new source for further research projects at the intersection of literary studies and the digital humanities.

Nina Vogt

Original publication
Lars Langer, Manuel Burghardt, Roland Borgards, Ronny Richter, Christian Wirth (2023). The relation between biodiversity in literature and social and spatial situation of authors: Reflections on the nature–culture entanglement", People and Nature, DOI: doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10551 

Contact:

Lars Langer
Computational Humanities
Leipzig University
Email: lars.langer@uni-leipzig.de

Lima, Halle, Leipzig. Sustainable biodiversity conservation requires cooperation among scientific, societal, economic, and political institutions. In the journal Conservation Science and Practice, researchers have published a new approach to co-designing biodiversity indicators relevant for conservation. They brought together multiple stakeholders in a consultative process, tailoring user-relevant biodiversity information to local needs. The project was led by researchers of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, together with multiple partners in the Tropical Andes. The collaborative approach can serve as a blueprint for making biodiversity information more inclusive, considering the diverse worldviews, values, and knowledge systems between science, policy, and practice.

The study demonstrates the power of engaging local stakeholders in biodiversity decision-making. Over 400 people participated in localised surveys and workshops across Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. They included local communities, businesses, and civil society organisations in each country.

"This process amplified underrepresented voices frequently excluded from policymaking," said Gabriela Orihuela, President of the Association in support of the National Botanical Garden of Lima. "It enabled the development of scalable conservation solutions aligned to local needs and priorities."

The researchers used tailored storylines and ecological narratives during the surveys and workshops to effectively communicate biodiversity challenges and potential solutions among the participants. 

Based on participant feedback, the team then co-designed biodiversity insights that meet user needs. The team collaborated with stakeholders to transform raw biodiversity data into actionable insights and user-friendly products, tailored for policymakers, communities, and key audiences to use in conservation efforts and decision-making in the region.

“Stakeholders expressed the need for biodiversity information in clear formats and languages,” said Natividad Quillahuaman of the Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA) “This process transformed raw biodiversity data into actionable information to support urgent biodiversity needs across sectors.”

The study led to new collaborations among six institutions across Latin America and Europe, pioneering an inclusive biodiversity research model. It also produced scientific publications and news coverage in multiple languages, while building local capacity through training programs to ensure sustained impact. Significantly, most authors were locally based, representing the communities in the regions, underscoring the commitment to amplifying regional voices.

"By engaging local voices tailoring solutions that address local needs and priorities, we created a blueprint for effective biodiversity policies in this globally vital region," stated lead author Dr. Jose Valdez, researcher at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. "This inclusive approach can serve as a model for balancing conservation, development and sustainability not just in the Tropical Andes but other regions as well.”

As biodiversity threats mount globally, this study's inclusive approach demonstrates the power of participatory processes to amplify local voices and strike a critical balance between urgent conservation needs and community priorities in globally vital ecosystems.

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni bold)

Valdez, J.W., Pereira, H.M., Morejón, G.F., Acosta-Muñoz, C., Bonet Garcia, F.J., Castro Vergara, L., Claros R. X., Gill, M.J., Josse, C., Lafuente-Cartagena, I., Langstroth, R., Novoa Sheppard, S., Orihuela, G., Prieto-Albuja, F.J., Quillahuaman, N., Terán, M.F., Zambrana-Torrelio, C.M., Navarro, L.M., Fernandez, M. (2023). Tailoring evidence into action: using a codesign approach for biodiversity information in the Tropical Andes. Conservation Science and Practice, DOI: 10.1111/csp2.13035

Contact:

Dr Jose W. Valdez (speaks English and Spanish)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9739168
Email: jose.valdez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1290.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig, Jena. A new collection of papers on artificial light at night show the impact of light pollution to be surprisingly far-reaching, with even low levels of artificial light disrupting species communities and entire ecosystems. Published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the special theme issue, which includes 16 scientific papers, looks at the effects of light pollution in complex ecological systems, including soil, grassland, and insect communities. Led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the collection notes the increasing ubiquity of light pollution, while emphasising the domino effect light pollution has on ecosystem function and stability.

Night skies are becoming brighter as the use of artificial lighting spreads across the globe. With an estimated annual uptick of up to 10%, the prevalence of light pollution is disrupting the natural light cycles that have been largely consistent throughout the Earth’s history. These light cycles are vitally important to organisms who rely on light as a source of energy and information. To date, studies looking at the impact of light pollution have largely focused on human health and individual species’ responses, whereas investigating entire ecosystems, where species are linked through diverse interactions, has remained scarce. “Species do not exist in isolation but rather interact in numerous ways”, explains iDiv and the University of Jena’s Dr Myriam Hirt, who led the compilation and editing of the theme issue together with Dr Remo Ryser. “Our aim was to better understand how the brightening of the night sky affects entire ecosystems and the benefits they provide”.
 
Using the iDiv Ecotron, which consists of multiple controlled experimental-ecosystem chambers (so-called EcoUnits), several researchers simulated and altered light conditions at night. Key findings include the ability of artificial light to:

• reach belowground soil communities, impacting soil basal respiration and carbon-use efficiency
• influence invertebrate activity, which was linked to higher predation rates at night
• reduce plant biomass and diversity, as well as change plant traits, such as leaf hairiness
• potentially shift – homogenize – the periods when species are active, leading to increased overlap and ultimately threatening species persistence. 

The studies also showed that even low intensities of light pollution – illuminance lower than that of a full moon – have profound effects not only on the behavioural and physiological responses of individual species but at more complex levels, such as communities and ecological networks, like food webs. “Their individual responses to artificial lighting and their relationships with one another determine the outcome for the entire ecological system. For instance, an activity shift of diurnal and crepuscular species into the night increases extinction risks in the entire community”, says Dr Remo Ryser of iDiv and the University of Jena. 
 
Another study in the issue investigated how artificial light produces indirect cascading effects with implications for humans. For example, changes in the abundance and behaviour of mosquitoes – a vector species – in response to artificial light at night. The study shows that exposure leads to changes in the timing of key behaviors, such as host-seeking, mating, and flight activity, which might carry wide-scale consequences on the transmission of vector-borne diseases, like malaria. A further paper looked at how different lighting strategies may mitigate the negative effects of artificial light. However, the special issue points out that flipping the switch on light pollution requires a nuanced approach given that the impact of light pollution varies significantly among species. This suggests that mitigation strategies may not be universally applicable.

As darkness disappears due to the consistent rise in artificial lighting around the world, the collection of studies highlights the cost of this expansion to people’s health and ecosystems. By acknowledging the impact of this human-caused disturbance on species interactions and feedback loops, the special issue hopes to inspire future research and action that not only helps mitigate the harmful effects of light pollution, but fosters a sustainable coexistence between society’s needs and the natural environment. “The benefits of artificial light during the night are undeniable, but its adverse effects should not be ignored”, says Dr Myriam Hirt. 
Christine Coester

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)
 
Myriam R. Hirt, Darren M. Evans, Colleen R. Miller, Remo Ryser (2023). Light pollution in complex ecological systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb/378/1892

Contact:

Dr Myriam Hirt
Theory in Biodiversity Science research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733206
Email: myriam.hirt@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/104.html

Dr Remo Ryser
Theory in Biodiversity Science research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Email: remo.ryser@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/561.html

Christine Coester
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: christine.coester@idiv.de

Leipzig. Photos of plant and animal species that are posted on social media can help protect biodiversity, especially in tropical regions. This is the conclusion of a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU), and the University of Queensland (UQ). Recently published in BioScience, One Earth, and Conservation Biology, the three studies investigated the benefits of using Facebook data for conservation assessments in Bangladesh. The researchers point out that social media can support species monitoring and significantly contribute to conservation assessments in tropical countries.

The tropics are biodiversity hotspots but our knowledge about the populations of animal and plant species in these regions is spotty at best. While monitoring programmes and citizen science initiatives are well established in developed countries, they are still rare in developing countries. However, accurate documentation of biodiversity can help identify which species need special protection. With the increasing use of social media and the widespread availability of high-quality digital cameras, new opportunities are arising. Nature photographers worldwide are sharing their biodiversity observations on social media, which has huge potential. A research team has used the South Asian country of Bangladesh as an example to investigate what contribution Facebook data can make to biodiversity monitoring and, ultimately, to assessing potential protected areas.

In their study, the scientists scraped Facebook groups for nature photographs taken in Bangladesh. The information they were able to derive from the species and location information in the photos was entered into a common data pool with data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The GBIF is fed by established citizen science platforms, such as eBird and iNaturalist. This is already working well in the global North. For animal and plant species in developing and emerging countries; however, there is significantly less data. By integrating Facebook data, the research team was able to compile more than 44,000 records for nearly 1,000 animal species, 288 of which are considered endangered according to the IUCN. Over 25% of the data came from Facebook groups, and more than half of the data was for butterflies and birds. "If we only used the data from the GBIF, we would have missed out on data on the distribution of hundreds of endangered species", says Dr Shawan Chowdhury, researcher at iDiv, UFZ and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Facebook data shows priority conservation areas

Using this new database, the research team created a map of particularly suitable habitats for the different animal species and compared it with existing protected areas. Currently, only 4.6% of Bangladesh's land area is designated as protected areas, much of which is located in the southwest of the country. In particular, areas where already-threatened species are found are not adequately covered by the current protected areas - a typical phenomenon in tropical regions. To ensure that there are enough protected areas for all threatened species in Bangladesh, the proportion of the area under protection would have to be increased to 39% and these areas would need to be better distributed in the country. The data also showed that, for example, 45% of the butterfly species in Bangladesh were found in green areas in the capital Dhaka, almost half of which are considered endangered. This finding suggests that when planning new protected areas, it might be worth looking at unconventional areas, such as in and around urban areas.

Social media data should be handled with care

Despite these results, the use of social media data still poses challenges. As with many citizen science initiatives, the data collected from users is rarely evenly distributed. Instead, they are often concentrated in easily accessible regions, such as in close proximity to cities. Making social media data usable for research is also currently very time-consuming. For their study, the researchers manually searched the Facebook groups for the species on the Red List and verified each individual photo, including species and location information. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence and deep learning, could make this process easier in the future. 

“The integration of biodiversity data from citizen science and published on social media holds great potential, especially for tropical regions where there is a lack of reliable and up-to-date structured monitoring data to inform conservation planning”, says Professor Aletta Bonn, head of research group Ecosystem Services at UFZ, the University of Jena and iDiv. In these regions, observation data published on Facebook or other social media platforms can contribute to a better and systematic assessment of potential protected areas – an important step towards achieving the Kunming-Montreal goals and placing 30 per cent of land and marine areas under protection by 2030.

Kati Kietzmann

Original publications
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Shawan Chowdhury, Upama Aich, Md Rokonuzzaman, Shafiul Alam, Priyanka Das, Asma Siddika, Sultan Ahmed, Mahzabin M. Labi, Moreno Di Marco, Richard A. Fuller, Corey T. Callaghan (2023). Increasing biodiversity knowledge through social media: a case study from tropical Bangladesh. BioScience; DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biad042

Shawan Chowdhury, Richard A. Fuller, Md. Rokonuzzaman, Shofiul Alam, Priyanka Das, Asma Siddika, Sultan Ahmed, Mahzabin Muzahid Labi, Sayam U. Chowdhury, Sharif A. Mukul, Monika Böhm, Jeffrey O. Hanson (2023). Insights from citizen science reveal priority areas for conserving biodiversity in Bangladesh. One Earth; DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2023.08.025

Shawan Chowdhury, Richard A. Fuller, Sultan Ahmed, Shofiul Alam, Corey T. Callaghan, Priyanka Das, Ricardo A. Correia, Moreno Di Marco, Enrico Di Minin, Ivan Jarić, Mahzabin Muzahid Labi, Richard J. Ladle, Md. Rokonuzzaman, Uri Roll, Valerio Sbragaglia, Asma Siddika, Aletta Bonn (2023). Using social media records to inform conservation planning. Conservation Biology, DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14161

Contact:

Dr Shawan Chowdhury
German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Email: shawan.chowdhury@idiv.de

Prof Dr Aletta Bonn
Head of Department Ecosystem Services
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733153
Email: aletta.bonn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/137.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Joint media release from iDiv, Leipzig University and Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Biodiversity affects how ecosystems function and the services they provide to us. Over the past 20 years, these relationships have been studied in Europe’s largest outdoor biodiversity laboratory, the Jena Experiment.

The ten hectares of former farmland on the banks of the river Saale are now home to some 150 experimental plots with different combinations of grassland plants: plots with only one species, with two, four, eight, sixteen or sixty species. This unique, long-term experiment is shedding light on the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

In 2019, the DFG decided to fund a new Research Unit in the Jena Experiment (FOR 5000). After four successful years, this funding is now being extended for a further four years, with a total budget of around 5 million euros. The new focus is on the stabilising effect of biodiversity against extreme climate events such as heat, frost or heavy rainfall. A central hypothesis is that species-rich grasslands are more stable than those with fewer species. In this context, stable means that the properties and functions of an ecosystem (e.g. plant biomass, soil temperature or nutrient levels) change little over time.

In some cases, biodiversity has already been shown to have a stabilising effect. For example, a large meta-study involving the Jena Experiment showed that the growth of species-rich grasslands is less affected by particularly wet or dry weather than that of species-poor grasslands. The researchers will now investigate this stabilising effect for other important ecosystem functions and aim to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

The new phase of the Research Unit is working on a total of twelve sub-projects involving twelve German research institutions. In addition to iDiv and the Universities of Leipzig and Jena, these include the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. Moreover, there are international partners from Austria, the Netherlands, the US, China and France.

“Two important processes are taking place at the moment: both the climate and biodiversity are changing rapidly. This is why it is very important to investigate whether, and how, biodiversity can help to stabilise ecosystem functions,” says Professor Nico Eisenhauer, spokesperson for the DFG Research Unit and group head at iDiv and Leipzig University. “The Jena Experiment, with its long-term experiment in the Saale floodplain, offers ideal experimental conditions for this research question. We have been measuring ecosystem processes and environmental changes here for more than 20 years and can now study what makes ecosystems stable. Agriculture and nature conservation will also benefit from our findings.”
Volker Hahn, Kati Kietzmann

Contact:

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by TUD

If many different tree species all grow together in a specific area, it has a positive effect on their growth and, as a result, on timber production - this has already been confirmed by a number of other studies. The greater the diversity of tree species in a forest, the more complex the structures. The species do not only grow to different heights in a given period and have very differently developed canopies, they also have individual demands for light, water and nutrients. So far, it has been unclear how structural complexity is related to productivity and which mechanisms are at work in an area of mixed tree species.

Near the town of Bad Lauchstädt in southern Saxony-Anhalt, the MyDiv tree diversity experiment was established in the spring of 2015: A total of 140 saplings were planted in 80 plots of 121 m² each (11 m x 11 m). There are a total of ten native deciduous tree species in different combinations: as monocultures, or with a mixture of two or even four different tree species. Over the past two years, researchers investigated the importance of the structural complexity of the plots for productivity. In addition to the direct measurement of tree height and trunk diameter to calculate the wood volume of the trees, terrestrial laser scanning was used to calculate an index of the three-dimensional structural complexity for each plot. 

The results show that it is not species diversity alone that makes for better tree growth, but also the associated structural complexity. Structurally complex communities were almost twice as productive as their structurally simple counterparts. A mix of tree species that require a lot of light paired with shade-tolerant species proved to be particularly effective.

A unique feature of the MyDiv experiment is that the two main types of mycorrhiza — arbuscular mycorrhiza and ectomycorrhiza — are each represented by five tree species. Mycorrhiza is the term used to describe the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants, in which the mycelium of the fungus is connected to a tree root, for example, and nutrients are exchanged for the benefit of both partners. This allowed the scientists to investigate not only the influence of above-ground structures, but also what happens below the soil. It turned out that a mix of trees with different types of mycorrhiza had no effect on tree growth.

The study provides valuable information for reforestation projects and shows that the right composition of tree species can ensure significantly faster tree growth. This is all the more important because trees are effective carbon stores, and reforestation is considered an important tool in the effort to combat climate change. 

Original publication
(Authors with iDiv affiliation and alumni bold)

Ray, T., Delory, B.M., Beugnon, R., Bruelheide, H., Cesarz, S., Eisenhauer, N., Ferlian, O., Quosh, J., von Oheimb, G., Fichtner, A. (2023). Tree diversity increases productivity through enhancing structural complexity across mycorrhizal types. Science Advances 9,eadi2362. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi2362

Contact:

Dr Olga Ferlian
Postdoctoral researcher
Experimental Interaction Ecology research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Email: olga.ferlian@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/108.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig. The decline in invertebrates also affects the functioning of ecosystems, including two critical ecosystem services: aboveground pest control and belowground decomposition of organic material, according to a new study published in Current Biology and led by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University. The study provides evidence that loss of invertebrates leads to a reduction in important ecosystem services and to the decoupling of ecosystem processes, making immediate protection measures necessary.

Invertebrates, such as insects and also other arthropods, snails, slugs and nematodes, represent ~75% of all species described on Earth and are a fundamental part of ecosystems, providing many critical ecosystem functions and services, such as pollination, decomposition, and natural pest control. Human-caused environmental changes, in particular land-use change, landscape simplification, and urbanization, including habitat loss and chemical pollution, have been driving the global decline of invertebrates in recent decades. However, measuring the potential effect of this loss has so far proven difficult. “The manipulation of aboveground invertebrate communities has been a major challenge in ecological research, because of their functional diversity and mobility”, explains Nico Eisenhauer, lead author and professor for Experimental Interaction Ecology at iDiv and Leipzig University.

A team of researchers used the iDiv Ecotron, a joint research platform of iDiv and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). It consists of several controlled mini-ecosystems (so-called EcoUnits), to study the effects of these complex communities. “Apart from offering a bridge between small-scale experiments under highly controlled conditions and less controllable large-scale field experiments or monitoring programs, the goal of the iDiv Ecotron was to enable experiments manipulating biodiversity changes at different levels of food webs in above- and belowground ecosystem compartments”, says iDiv Honorary Member Francois Buscot, professor emeritus at Leipzig University and former head of the UFZ department for Soil Ecology.

The researchers simulated and tested how various ecosystem services and plant diversity respond in 24 distinct grassland ecosystems across three levels of aboveground invertebrate biomass (100%, 36%, and 0%). A biomass level of 36% reflects the dramatic decline of invertebrates reported across German grasslands in the last decade. All plant and invertebrate species were collected from the same adjacent hay meadow, and the researchers simulated the natural turnover of aboveground invertebrate communities by exchanging invertebrate communities three times from May until November 2018. “I am particularly excited about this simulation of the phenology of invertebrate communities - something that has, to my knowledge, not been done before”, Nico Eisenhauer, head of the iDiv Ecotron, adds.

The researchers found that as the biomass of invertebrates decreases, so does the number of ecosystem services. For example, aboveground invertebrates play an important role in natural pest control. The researchers observed that declines in invertebrates went hand in hand with aphid outbreaks indicating that pest outbreaks may be a widespread consequence of biodiversity loss at higher trophic levels, with significant cascading effects on crop production and other ecosystem services.

Further, loss of aboveground invertebrates led to a significant reduction in belowground decomposition. “Aboveground and belowground processes are connected by invertebrates that consume plants and leaf litter. Loss of those connections will change nutrient cycling and how much carbon can be sequestered in ecosystems," explains Ecotron coordinator Dr Jes Hines from iDiv and Leipzig University. 

The amount of invertebrate biomass also affected the plants that were growing in the experimental grassland ecosystems. Aboveground plant biomass increased in the EcoUnits with reduced invertebrate biomass. This could be because invertebrates usually eat more of the plant aboveground. “This way, energy is channeled up from plants to higher trophic levels in intact invertebrate communities”, explains Jes Hines. The researchers also found that the concentration of carbon and nitrogen in plant tissue significantly decreased, which, in turn, may alter the quality of resources and nutrients fueling biological activity in soils.

“In a healthy ecosystem, biotic and biogeochemical properties are coupled. This study shows that a decrease in aboveground invertebrate biomass reduces this coupling, which might threaten species diversity, as well as animal, plant, and microbial nutrition”, says Nico Eisenhauer. Despite these alarming findings, ecosystems may recover following legislative changes that favor invertebrate diversity. For example, there is evidence of freshwater insect populations increasing following the Clean Water Act. Immediate protection measures stand to turn the tide on safeguarding diverse invertebrate communities and important ecosystem functions.

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Nico Eisenhauer, Raúl Ochoa-Hueso, Yuanyuan Huang, Kathryn E. Barry, Alban Gebler, Carlos A. Guerra, Jes Hines, Malte Jochum, Karl Andraczek, Solveig Franziska Bucher, François Buscot, Marcel Ciobanu, Hongmei Chen, Robert Junker, Markus Lange, Anika Lehmann, Matthias Rillig, Christine Römermann, Josephine Ulrich, Alexandra Weigelt, Anja Schmidt, & Manfred Türke (2023). Ecosystem consequences of invertebrate decline. Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.012

Contact:

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Based on a media release from the University of St. Andrews

Previous research showed that the size of trophy fish in fishing competitions is going down, and that many of the most threatened species are large. This study connects the dots and shows change in body size is the result of not only individuals within species becoming smaller, but also larger species being replaced by smaller ones. "Whether it's because of what humans prefer to eat or their habitats getting warmer, big fish just can't seem to catch a break,” explains the lead author Dr Inês Martins from the University of St. Andrews.

The researchers used two sources of body size trait data — direct measurements of biomass taken in the field and average body size estimates from major trait databases — to assess the body size change across over 5,000 ecological assemblage time series spanning 1960-2020. This allowed them to designate body size changes as either a within-species change or a compositional change. 

Shrinking was most common among fish, but among other groups of organisms – such as plants and invertebrates – changes were more varied. By looking across groups of species, this study reveals there are some complex changes taking place, with some organisms becoming bigger while others shrink. The authors believe this suggests that when large organisms disappear, other ones try to take up their place and use up the resources that become available. 

Reflecting on the importance of these results, co-author Prof Jonathan Chase from iDiv and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), adds: "As with most things, changes through time are not always ‘one-size-fits-all’. It is important to dig into the complexity of when organisms become smaller or bigger to more thoroughly understand how body size is changing through time.”

The study also noted the replacement of a few large organisms with many small ones, while keeping the total amount of life – known as biomass – constant. This surprising result supports the idea that ecosystems tend to compensate for change by keeping overall biomass of the studied species in a particular habitat stable. This stability is attributed to a trade-off between reductions in body size and concurrent increases in abundance among the organisms.

These findings have far-reaching implications for our understanding of how various organisms are adapting to the challenges posed by humans in the Anthropocene era.

The senior author of the paper, Prof Maria Dornelas from the University of St. Andrews, comments: “It is clear the widespread species replacement we see around the world is having measurable consequences. Organisms becoming smaller has important effects as the size of animals mediates their contribution to how ecosystems function, and how humans benefit from them. Bigger fish can usually feed more people than smaller fish.”

Currently, there is not enough data to draw clear conclusions for most organisms other than fish. Collecting similar measurements – especially when exploring food webs and other species interactions – stands to significantly benefit future research.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni bold)

Inês S. Martins, Franziska Schrodt, Shane A. Blowes, Amanda E. Bates, Anne D. Bjorkman, Viviana Brambilla, Juan Carvajal-Quintero, Cher F. Y. Chow, Gergana N. Daskalova, Kyle Edwards, Nico Eisenhauer, Richard Field, Ada Fontrodona-Eslava, Jonathan J. Henn, Roel van Klink, Joshua S. Madin, Anne E. Magurran, Michael McWilliam, Faye Moyes, Brittany Pugh, Alban Sagouis, Isaac Trindade-Santos, Brian McGill, Jonathan M. Chase, Maria Dornelas. (2023). Widespread shifts in body size within populations and assemblages, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adg6006

Contact:

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Dr Inês Martins
University of St. Andrews
Email: istmartins@gmail.com

Christin Coester
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: christin.coester@idiv.de

The WissZeitVG is a law that specifically determines the contract and working conditions of PhD students and postdocs at German universities and research institutes, ~90% of whom work under temporary contracts for 2-3 years.

These temporary positions create enormous pressure on scientists and compromise the quality of our research. At iDiv, the research addresses big challenges the world faces, such as species extinction, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Understanding these threats to ecosystems, economics, and society requires time and focus. Short-term contracts drastically reduce these and prevent scientists from contributing forward-looking research and solutions to these issues.

The problems of short-term contracts are manifold:

• Interdisciplinary high-quality research and finding a common language that connects specialised researchers from different disciplines requires sufficient time and continuity (also in employment). This is something that especially affects us at iDiv.
• Time pressure to deliver results needed to secure the next job or third-party funding: Excellent research needs time, getting to know colleagues, establishing collaborations, and getting acquainted with local processes. Proposals and job applications need careful preparation, an established team or support from others, and even marketing skills to present yourself and your ideas. Increased time pressure reduces the quality of scientific output and may increase academic misconduct. 
• Mental health issues due to increasing pressure, instability, and lack of future perspectives; time loss due to frequent relocation; loss of familiar surroundings and friends and, therefore, more stress, which results in less productivity.
• Risk of starting a family: The postdoc phase typically coincides with the phase of starting a family. The temporary reduction of time devoted to work exposes scientists who want to care for their kids to a higher risk of getting pushed out of science. Because women still often take on a larger share of childcare work than men, so fixed-term contracts discriminate against women more than men.
• Legal instability of foreign researchers: Visas often expire immediately upon contract end. Thus a funding gap of only a month can already cause expulsion, and renewing (or getting a new) visa can take more than six months. This increases pressure and hampers the participation of scientists from the Global South, who most often need a visa even to enter the country.
• Established postdocs often take on important roles as mentors, lecturers, co-supervisors, etc. Losing them can thus disrupt the education of students and doctoral students.  

If Germany wants to continue to produce internationally high quality research, and be considered a "research wonderland", it must enable its highly qualified scientists to do what they are good at: Science.

From our point of view, the current WissZeitVG proposal, together with the general political and financial setting for universities and research institutes in Germany, does not lead to more permanent positions and thus not to an improvement of the situation but instead to an aggravation. Accordingly, experienced scholars will have to leave the system even earlier. They will be replaced by less experienced junior researchers, which will be catastrophic for the quality of research and teaching.

Good science needs:

More permanent positions at universities and research institutes. After the doctorate, permanent employment in positions other than professorship should be possible, as in most countries (for example, France and England, see Kreckel 2016), where 70-90% of research positions are permanent. This is currently almost impossible in Germany because of, inter alia, numerous legal, bureaucratic but especially systemic and financial hurdles. 

We strongly encourage decision-makers and the BMBF to consider our concerns and commit to changing the law(s) so that more permanent positions arise in order to strengthen Germany as a leading science location with future-oriented top-level research.

¹ This refers to all scientists who do not have a permanent position (usually a professorship). Among researchers in Germany under the age of 45 and without a professorship, this is 92%.

References

• Research in Germany - Two Minutes in a Research Wonderland!
• Reinhard Kreckel, Zur Lage des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses an Universitäten: Deutschland im Vergleich mit Frankreich, England, den USA und Österreich, Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 38. Jahrgang, 2016 (PDF)
• Markus A. Dahlem, Die Umgehung der Zwölf-Jahres-Regelung, Spektrum Scilogs, 2011
• Bartosz Bartkowski, Warum Entfristung und Finanzierung aus Drittmitteln in der Wissenschaft kein grundsätzlicher Widerspruch sein müssen, 2022

Contact:

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Halle/Saale, Fort Lauderdale. More than 100 years of observations in nature have revealed a universal pattern of species abundances: Most species are rare but not very rare, and only a few species are very common. These so-called global species abundance distributions have become fully unveiled for some well-monitored species groups, such as birds. For other species groups, such as insects, however, the veil remains partially unlifted. These are the findings of an international team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Florida (UF), published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The study demonstrates how important biodiversity monitoring is for detecting species abundances on planet Earth and for understanding how they change.

“Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare?” This question was asked by Charles Darwin in his ground-breaking book “The Origin of Species”, published over 150 years ago. A related challenge has been to understand how many species are common (numerous) and how many are rare, the so-called global species abundance distribution (gSAD).

Two main gSAD models have been proposed in the last century: R. A. Fisher, a statistician and biologist, proposed that most species are very rare and that the number of species declines for more common species (so-called log-series model). On the other hand, F. W. Preston, an engineer and ecologist, argued that only few species are actually very rare and that most species have some intermediate level of commonness (so-called log-normal model). However, until now and despite decades of research, scientists did not know which model describes the planet’s true gSAD. 

Solving this problem calls for vast amounts of data. The study authors used data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and downloaded data representing over 1 billion species observations in nature from 1900 to 2019. 

“The GBIF database is an amazing resource for all sorts of biodiversity related research, particularly because it brings together both data collected from professional and citizen scientists all over the world,” says first author Dr Corey Callaghan. He began the study while working at iDiv and MLU and is now working at the UF. 

Callaghan and his fellow researchers divided the downloaded data into 39 species groups, for instance, birds, insects, or mammals. For each, they compiled the respective global species abundance distribution (gSAD). 

The researchers detected a potentially universal pattern, which emerges once the species abundance distribution is fully unveiled: Most species are rare but not very rare, and only a few species are very common, as predicted in the log-normal model. However, the researchers also found that the veil has been fully lifted only for a few species groups like cycads and birds. For all other species groups, the data are yet insufficient.

“If you don’t have enough data, it looks as though most species are very rare,” says senior author Prof Henrique Pereira, research group head at iDiv and the MLU. “But by adding more and more observations, the picture changes. You start seeing that there are, in fact, more rare species than very rare species. You can see this shift for cycads and birds when comparing the species observations from back in 1900, when less data was available, with the more comprehensive species observations we have today. It is fascinating: we can clearly see the phenomenon of unveiling the full species abundance distribution, as predicted by Preston several decades ago, but only now demonstrated at the scale of the entire planet.”

“Even though we have been recording observations for decades, we have only lifted the veil for a few species groups,” says Callaghan. “We still have a long way to go. But GBIF and the sharing of data really represents the future of biodiversity research and monitoring, to me.”

The new study's findings enable scientists to assess how far the gSADs have been unveiled for different species groups. This allows for answering another long-standing research question: How many species are out there? This study finds that while for some groups like birds, nearly all species have been identified, this is not the case for other taxa such as insects and cephalopods.

The researchers believe that their findings may help in answering Darwin’s question of why some species are rare, and others are common. The universal pattern they found may point to general ecological or evolutionary mechanisms that govern the commonness and rarity of species. While more research is being done, humans continue to alter the planet’s surface and the abundance of species, for instance, by making common species less common. This complicates the researchers’ task: They need not only to understand how species abundances evolve naturally but also how human impacts are altering these patterns simultaneously. There may still be a long way to go before Darwin’s question is finally answered.
Volker Hahn

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)
Callaghan, C. T., Borda-de-Água, L., van Klink, R., Rozzi, R., Pereira, H. M. (2023). Unveiling the global species abundance distributions of Eukaryotes, Nature Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02173-y

Contact:

Dr Corey Callaghan
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Email: corey.callaghan@idiv.de

Prof Dr Henrique Miguel Pereira (speaks English and Portuguese)
Head of Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Email: henrique.pereira@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/132.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Vegetation that relies on groundwater for its health and survival often forms biodiversity hotspots, provides critical habitat and sustains human livelihoods and ecosystem services.

However, there is a lack of harmonised biome-wise mapping of the distribution and extent of pGDV in the Mediterranean. To address this challenge, we integrated global geodata on groundwater-vegetation interaction, soil, topography, land cover and hydrogeology with a simple index. Our index allows the detection of areas with suitable conditions to hold pGDV where vegetation behaviour also indicates groundwater use.

The Mediterranean map reveals that regions with high pGDV are distributed throughout the entire biome. We also see an increased occurrence in coastal lowlands and in riverine landscapes. These areas indicate precipitation-independent high vitality and evapotranspiration of natural vegetation in low permeable valleys or on low slopes where water accumulates and the groundwater table is shallow while soil properties allow infiltration.

We were surprised that the proportion of high pGDV (31 %) was lower than estimated in a recent global meta-analysis (50 %). However, only one tenth of the catchments in the biome have an area share of high pGDV above 50 %. These catchments may be prioritised for further analysis of GDV. We tested the plausibility of our results against known GDV locations in Italy and California and found good agreement.

Reliable identification of GDV requires big data and high computational power when applied on a large scale. Using the pGDV index, regional authorities or researchers can select regions of interest where the proportion of pGDV is high and detailed analysis is required. The index is initially designed for the Mediterranean biome, but is ideally adaptable to other semi-arid climates. With minor adjustments to the geodata and the vegetation characteristics, the concept could also be transferred to temperate or tropical regions. 

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

El-Hokayem, L., De Vita, P., Usman, M., Link, A. and Conrad, C. (2023) Mapping Potentially Groundwater-Dependent Vegetation in the Mediterranean Biome Using Global Geodata Targeting Site Conditions and Vegetation Characteristics. Science of The Total Environment, 898, 166397. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166397.

Contact:

Léonard El-Hokayem
Doctoral researcher
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: leonard.el-hokayem@geo.uni-halle.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1651.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Based on a media release of GEO BON

At a time of nature crisis driven by unparalleled rates of biodiversity loss, a new interconnected system to monitor biodiversity around the world is urgently needed to direct and focus conservation action.

"The lethal combination of habitat loss, the exploitation of natural populations, pollution, and climate change is causing species extinction rates not seen since the last mass extinction 65 million years ago," said Prof. Andrew Gonzalez, Liber Ero Chair in Conservation Biology at McGill University, and co-Chair of GEO BON. "We lack the means to monitor these impacts fast enough across most areas of the planet."

Operating much like the existing global network of weather stations that monitor climate change and its impacts, the Global Biodiversity Observing System (GBiOS), is a proposal developed by scientists from the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), and its partners, that will combine technology, data, and knowledge from around the world to foster collaboration and data sharing among countries and to provide the data urgently needed to monitor biodiversity change and target action.

GBiOS can galvanize collaboration on the critical issue of biodiversity data access, sharing, and equitable use. "It can provide the information we need at the pace we need it to support countries as they make progress towards their biodiversity goals", said Prof. Alice Hughes, Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong, and one of the dozens of scientists who collaborated to develop the proposal for GBiOS. GBiOS is a missing piece of the science-policy puzzle needed to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon at the COP-15 conference in Montreal last year, contributing to a representative and inclusive understanding of biodiversity change and supporting effective implementation of policies that are designed to reverse biodiversity loss and achieve the global goals for nature in the coming decades.

“It is now clear that in order to effectively implement the Kumming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, a Global Biodiversity Observing System needs to be created. iDiv has been taking a leadership role in these efforts both globally in GEO BON and by coordinating the development of the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EuropaBON)”, said co-author Professor Henrique Pereira from iDiv and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)
Andrew Gonzalez, Petteri Vihervaara, Patricia Balvanera, Amanda E. Bates, Elisa Bayraktarov, Peter J. Bellingham, Andreas Bruder, Jillian Campbell, Michael D. Catchen, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Jonathan Chase, Nicholas Coops, Mark J. Costello, Maria Dornelas, Grégoire Dubois, Emmett J. Duffy, Hilde Eggermont, Nestor Fernandez, Simon Ferrier, Gary N. Geller, Michael Gill, Dominique Gravel, Carlos A. Guerra, Robert Guralnick, Michael Harfoot, Tim Hirsch, Sean Hoban, Alice C. Hughes, Margaret E. Hunter, Forest Isbell, Walter Jetz, Norbert Juergens, W. Daniel Kissling, Cornelia B. Krug, Yvan Le Bras, Brian Leung, Maria Cecilia Londoño-Murcia, Jean-Michel Lord, Michel Loreau, Amy Luers, Keping Ma, Anna J. MacDonald, Melodie McGeoch, Katie L. Millette, Zsolt Molnar, Akira S. Mori, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Hiroyuki Muraoka, Laetitia Navarro, Tim Newbold, Aidin Niamir, David Obura, Mary O’Connor, Marc Paganini, Henrique Pereira, Timothée Poisot, Laura J. Pollock, Andy Purvis, Adriana Radulovici, Duccio Rocchini, Michael Schaepman, Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, Dirk S. Schmeller, Ute Schmiedel, Fabian D. Schneider, Mangal Man Shakya, Andrew Skidmore, Andrew L. Skowno, Yayoi Takeuchi, Mao-Ning Tuanmu, Eren Turak, Woody Turner, Mark C. Urban, Nicolás Urbina-Cardona, Ruben Valbuena, Basile van Havre, Elaine Wright (2023). A global biodiversity observing system to unite monitoring and guide action. Nature Ecol Evol. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02171-0

Contact:

Prof Andrew Gonzalez
Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Conservation
Co-Chair GEO BON
Email: andrew.gonzalez@mcgill.ca

Prof Dr Henrique Miguel Pereira (speaks English and Portuguese)
Head of Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Email: henrique.pereira@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/132.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig/Katsina. To date, over 1000 vascular plants in Nigeria may be undescribed, making it impossible to know whether or not these plants are endangered and in need of protection. This is one of the key results of a new study led by researchers from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University, published in Annals of Botany. In order to meet the targets of the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework, urgent measures are required that promote local taxonomic activities.

Africa is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, hosting a quarter of global biodiversity. The continent is home to 8 of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, and of many endemic and endangered species. One of these biodiversity hotspots is the Niger Delta mangrove forest in Nigeria. Nigeria is home to over 4,700 vascular plants – and likely many more undocumented species. “Documenting the full account of plant diversity is essential for protecting threatened species and ensuring they can sustain human needs before they become extinct”, says senior author Professor Muellner-Riehl from Leipzig University, who is also an iDiv Member.

A team of researchers from iDiv and Leipzig University set out to update species diversity data from Nigeria, thus supporting plant-species-related indicators in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This framework calls for urgent action to recover biodiversity by 2030 for the benefit of both the planet and people, and a key part of the Kunming–Montreal GBF is the goal of a tenfold reduction of the rate of species extinction and risk by 2050. Many international organizations, including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have called for speeding up species description to better understand and protect biodiversity.

To find out more about this process in Nigeria, the researchers analysed the numbers of species described per year in a time series starting as early as 1753 and ending in 2020. They then simulated various trends and forecasted future descriptions until 2070. They found that there may be over 1000 as-yet-undescribed vascular plants in Nigeria, based on the current level of taxonomic activity. This bears the potential of an approximate 20% increase in the recognised species of vascular plants in Nigeria over the next 50 years. “To achieve the forecasted value of 1140 species by 2070, each taxonomist active in Nigeria from the year 2000 to the present day would need to describe at least two new species per year”, says Associate Professor Abubakar Bello, first author of the study. “However, over 90% of the taxonomists responsible for documenting Nigeria's vascular plants are non-residents who no longer work within the country. Without further actions, this goal will not be reached.”

Urgent and stringent measures are therefore necessary for Nigeria and other developing economies in tropical Africa to overcome this taxonomic challenge, thereby fulfilling the expectations outlined in their commitments to the CBD's Global Biodiversity Framework vision for 2050. The researchers also outline several key pathways to achieve this objective which could be implemented across tropical African countries, such as leveraging funding opportunities, fostering collaborations, investing in education and training, promoting public engagement, and recognizing local expertise.

This work was supported by a call of iDiv’s Flexpool, which encouraged proposals supporting capacity building, and specifically topics focused on communities and regions that are underrepresented in science. The focus of this call was initiated by iDiv’s Internationalisation and Capacity Building Committee.

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication

Abubakar Bello, Stewart M. Edie, Kowiyou Yessoufou, Alexandra Nora Muellner-Riehl (2023). Trends in botanical exploration in Nigeria forecast over 1000 yet undescribed vascular plant species. Annals of Botany, DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcad106

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Abubakar Bello
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Helle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Umaru Musa Yar’adua University
Email: abubakar.bello@idiv.de

Prof Alexandra Muellner-Riehl
Leipzig University
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +493419738581
Email: muellner-riehl@uni-leipzig.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Report by Dr Gerrit Angst, postdoctoral researcher of the Experimental Interaction Ecology at iDiv, Leipzig University, and the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-author:

As the winter approaches and first freezing temperatures sweep across temperate climates, plants become dormant and shed their leaves. However, some trees and grasses retain their leaves and stalks during autumn and winter, although already pale and without colour. This phenomenon, termed marcescence, can be recognized all around when walking through a snowy landscape. But has marcescence a function in nature or is it a remnant from the bygone summer without specific meaning? 

We knew that marcescence had been relatively well researched in arid ecosystems, in which solar radiation strongly degrades difficult-to-decompose compounds in retained biomass. This facilitates decomposition of and nutrient release from that biomass once shed, with potential competitive advantages for the respective plants. In temperate regions, however, research has been scarce and mainly focused on tree species, with few exceptions, and virtually nothing is known about marcescence in the temperate herbaceous flora, although simple observations indicate that it is widespread. We thus asked ourselves how common marcescence is in our latitudes and whether it can be linked to certain plant traits.

Fortunately, we had access to a large common garden experiment that was running at the botanical gardens in Prague. The experiment was ideal to tackle our research question as a large variety of plants were grown in the same soil substrate and under the same climate. We created a battle plan and finally sampled dead biomass from 127 plants shortly before the start of the subsequent growing season, determined the proportion of marcescence for each of these plants, and related this proportion to plant functional traits.

To our surprise, almost all of the investigated plants (123 of 127) kept at least part of their biomass marcescent, indicating the commonness of marcescence in the temperate flora. Marcescence particularly predominated in tall plant species with small leaves and high carbon concentrations in their tissues and in those commonly preferring intensely disturbed sites. Marcescence may thus provide advantages for certain plants in the initial stages of succession and might influence carbon and nutrient cycling. As we are just beginning to understand the determinants and function of marcescence in temperate regions, intensified research efforts are crucially needed to disentangle the relevance of this widely overlooked phenomenon to ecosystem functioning. 

Original publication
(Researcher with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Ondřej Mudrák, Šárka Angst, Gerrit Angst, Hana Veselá, Renáta Schnablová, Tomáš Herben, Jan Frouz (2023). Ecological significance of standing dead phytomass: Marcescence as a puzzle piece to the nutrient cycle in temperate ecosystems. Journal of Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.14174

Contact:

Dr Gerrit Angst
Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Institute of Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry
Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Phone: +49 341 9739179
Email: gerrit.angst@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The full text is only available in German.

Based on a media release by the University of Göttingen

The researchers investigated how the plants of Tenerife differ in functional terms from plants from other parts of the world. They conducted extensive field research and measurements at over 500 sites using the most up-to-date methods of functional ecology. The sites were scattered all over the island at altitudes ranging from sea level to mountainous regions above 3,300 metres. The scientists recorded about 80% of Tenerife's native seed plants, and surveyed eight plant characteristics: plant size, specific wood density, leaf thickness, absolute and specific leaf area, leaf dry matter, nitrogen concentration in leaf tissue, and seed weight. They compared their data with data on more than 2,000 plant species found on the mainland. 

"Our study shows, for the first time and contrary to all expectations, that species groups that evolved on the Canary Islands do not contribute to the expansion of the breadth of different traits. This means they do not lead to more functional diversity," explains the lead of the study, Professor Holger Kreft from Göttingen University. Previous comparisons show that species occurring on islands can differ significantly from their relatives on the mainland. A well-known example is provided by the Galapagos giant tortoise: the species is only found on the Galapagos Islands and, as a result of adaptation to its environmental conditions, is much larger than tortoises from the mainland. The research team expected similar differences between island and mainland plants, but this was not the case. "Rather, we see that most species follow the constraints of the island climate. Thus, medium-sized, woody species develop. These tend to live with the limited resources and high risks of extinction on the island. That is, they grow slowly. The high functional diversity is mainly due to the species that are widespread on the island and the nearby mainland," explains Kreft.

"At the beginning of our research, we assumed that island plants would show fundamental differences and would be characterised by rather limited diversity in terms of function due to their geographical isolation," explains first author Dr Paola Barajas Barbosa, who is now working as a researcher at iDiv. The results are part of her doctoral thesis, which she did at the University of Göttingen. "We were all the more surprised to find that the plants of Tenerife have a comparatively high functional diversity.”

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Martha Paola Barajas Barbosa, Dylan Craven, Patrick Weigelt, Pierre Denelle, Rüdiger Otto, Sandra Díaz, Jonathan Price, José María Fernández-Palacios, Holger Kreft (2023). Assembly of functional diversity in an oceanic island flora. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06305-z

Contact:

Dr Martha Paola Barajas Barbosa
Biodiversity Synthesis
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733254
Email: paola.barajas@idiv.de

Prof Dr Holger Kreft
University of Göttingen
Biodiversity, Macroecology and Biogeography Research Group
Phone: +49 551 39-28757
Email: hkreft@uni-goettingen.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Report by Dr Gerrit Angst, postdoctoral researcher of the Experimental Interaction Ecology at iDiv, Leipzig University, and the Czech Academy of Sciences and first author:

A key question for land management is how to sustain and increase the vast amounts of carbon stored in soil to help mitigate climate change. In contrast to carbon contained in partly decomposed plant fragments, which is considered labile and remains in the soil for a few days to years, carbon associated with minerals, which can persist for centuries to millennia in soil, has received specific attention as a potential management target. Undifferentiated focus on this “stabilized” carbon, however, falls short of establishing soils as carbon sinks because various environmental factors, such as related to land use or specific soil types, render management of this carbon inefficient. We were puzzled by the strong emphasis on mineral-associated carbon in the literature, whose context-independent valuation hampers informed and targeted management of soils as carbon sinks. Together with colleagues from Germany, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Denmark, we thus developed a framework for the contextualization of management strategies that considers the diversity and complexity of soils.

Our framework specifically highlights the relevance of labile carbon in partly decomposed plant fragments as a management target in various environmental contexts. For example, the capacity of some soils to accumulate rather stable, mineral-associated carbon is very low; some soils also feature conditions that hamper the formation of stabilized carbon but favor the accumulation of labile carbon. Management that is aimed at increasing and perpetuating labile carbon in such soils will be more effective in increasing carbon sequestration than that focused on stabilized carbon. We cannot overemphasize the need to consider context-dependent environmental conditions for an effective management of soils as carbon sinks, which constrain whether management should target labile or stabilized carbon, or both.

We expect contextualization of management strategies within the novel framework to maximize carbon sequestration in soil and generate synergies with related management targets, such as related to soil health, biodiversity, or crop performance. Only if we see soils as a complex, holistic system with its specific chemical, physical, and biological features, will we be able to successfully manage them in a rapidly changing environment.

Original publication
(Scientists with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Angst, G., Mueller, K.E., Castellano, M.J., Vogel, C., Wiesmeier, M., Mueller, C.W. (2023): Unlocking complex soil systems as carbon sinks: multi-pool management as the key. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38700-5

Contact:

Dr Gerrit Angst
Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Institute of Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry
Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Phone: +49 341 9739179
Email: gerrit.angst@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig/Jena/Bad Lauchstädt. Global warming is affecting terrestrial insects in multiple ways. In response to increasingly frequent heat extremes, they have to either reduce their activity or seek shelter in more suitable microhabitats. A new study led by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Friedrich Schiller University Jena shows: The more diverse these microhabitats are, the better for the insects. For their study, published in Global Change Biology, they developed a new approach to accurately track insect movements and activity.

Anthropogenic global warming has far-reaching implications for the world we live in. Some of these changes might be less obvious and often go unnoticed for a long time. For example, a warming climate is also affecting terrestrial insects such as beetles, ants, and butterflies. To survive under great heat, they have to either reduce their physical activity to conserve energy, or seek shelter in a cooler environment. A natural and diverse ecosystem offers many microhabitats that provide more favourable climate conditions as well as food for insects. But in the face of land-use changes, the diversity of these microhabitats is declining. This is not only affecting terrestrial insects, but also the important ecosystem services they are providing, such as pollination, the formation of humus and general improvement of soil quality.

A team led by researchers from iDiv and Friedrich Schiller University Jena studied the effects of a warming climate and the availability of microhabitats on the activity of terrestrial insects. For their study, they used the iDiv Ecotron, which consists of several isolated ecosystems (so-called EcoUnits). Here, environmental conditions such as light, nutrients and humidity can be controlled and manipulated. The researchers studied six insect species that can be found in the surrounding area of Leipzig (Germany), including the beetle species Carabus coriaceus, firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus), and house crickets (Acheta domesticus).

Accurate activity tracking based on Radio Frequency Identification

To accurately track the movements of a total of 465 insect individuals, the researchers developed a new tracking method based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). “Heavy GPS collars that are typically used for large mammals are not suitable for small animals such as insects. With the help of a very light RFID tag, we can now also track movement patterns of insects in complex habitats”, says first author Jördis Terlau, who led the study as a doctoral researcher at iDiv and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Within the EcoUnits, the researchers simulated heat extremes based on data that had been recorded by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) in 2018 and 2019. Temperatures were reaching a maximum of 38.7 °C. They also added leaf litter from four different tree species to the EcoUnits – the litter was either separated or well-mixed. With the help of the RFID tracking, they found that insects apply different strategies in response to heat extremes, depending on the microhabitat conditions. In mixed litter conditions, the insects significantly reduced their activity. In contrast, they increased their activity when the leaf litter was spatially separated. “We assume that mixed leaf litter not only provides protection from heat, but also various food sources. Insects can move less and still find enough food, which helps them save energy”, says Jördis Terlau.  

Diverse microhabitats can mitigate the effects of heat extremes

However, in environments with spatially separated leaf litter, the insects had to move more in order to find enough food and leave their shelter. This, in turn, increased their energy consumption, which is of disadvantage under extreme heat and increases the risk of overheating. “This stresses the importance of diverse habitats and microhabitats. In this way, the effects of extreme heat on insects can be significantly mitigated”, says last author Dr Myriam Hirt from iDiv and Friedrich Schiller University Jena. The study also highlights the various benefits of heterogeneous habitats such as mixed forests. They provide terrestrial insects with favourable conditions and food, and help ensure that important ecosystem services can be provided in the future also in the face of climate change.

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118)

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Jördis F. Terlau, Ulrich Brose, Nico Eisenhauer, Angelos Amyntas, Thomas Boy, Alexander Dyer, Alban Gebler, Christian Hof, Tao Liu, Christoph Scherber, Ulrike E. Schlägel, Anja Schmidt, Myriam R. Hirt (2023). Microhabitat conditions remedy heat stress effects on insect activity. Global Change Biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16712

Contact:

Jördis Terlau
Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change
Centre for Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Science (zbm)
Email: joerdis.terlau@gmail.com

Dr Myriam Hirt
Research group Theory in Biodiversity Science
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733206
Email: myriam.hirt@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) celebrated its 10th anniversary today with a ceremony in the Leipzig University Paulinum. Over 300 guests from politics, science and civil society took part, including the ministers-president of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, Michael Kretschmer, Dr Reiner Haseloff and Bodo Ramelow as well as the Federal Government Commissioner for eastern Germany, Carsten Schneider. They acknowledged the research centre’s important contributions to the protection of biological diversity. In his welcoming message, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed the importance of “world-class basic research” for international biodiversity policy.

Alongside the contributions from politicians, biodiversity research itself was an important feature of the event. Scientists presented highlights of iDiv research and their significance for the development of effective measures to combat the biodiversity crisis. Guest speaker, Ana María Hernández Salgar, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services IPBES, emphasised the importance of iDiv’s findings for evidence-based biodiversity policy at local, national and global levels. All speakers affirmed the excellence and worldwide visibility of the research centre.

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor: “Congratulations on ten years of world-class basic research! This is how scientific excellence is created, excellence which the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change turn to again and again. This strengthens the German voice on the international stage.”

Carsten Schneider, Minister of State and Federal Government Commissioner for eastern Germany: “The creation of iDiv was possible because this form of cooperation enjoys the express support of the three federal states and the federal government. Excellent science needs outstanding conditions. This form of 7 cooperation can stand as a model for the whole of eastern Germany, indeed for the entire Federal Republic. We need more ‘iDiv’”.

Michael Kretschmer, Minister President of the Free State of Saxony: “iDiv is unique in the complex area of biodiversity research. It bundles the activities of many stakeholders from science across national borders most impressively and clearly shows what the focusing of research, scientific cooperation and keen collaboration can achieve for the common goal.”

Dr Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt: “Today, iDiv stands as one of the world’s leading locations for biodiversity research. It attracts the best scientists from all over the world and has become a magnet for research and a beacon for our region. Here, biodiversity is examined in its full complexity. I wish this were the standard approach for all issues, especially those of relevance to society as a whole.”

Bodo Ramelow, Minister President of the Free State of Thuringia: “For 10 years now, iDiv has been researching and developing – also with considerable support from Thuringia – the fundamentals of the preservation of biodiversity and thus the basis of all life on earth. Our planet is dynamic – and, given the current biodiversity crisis, unfortunately also in a negative way. The research achievements of the last few years can, therefore, not be overestimated. I say, ‘Congratulations!’”

Dr Heide Ahrens, Secretary General of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation): “iDiv fulfils everything the DFG understands as excellent research. It is an outstanding intermediary between science and politics. In the face of devastated ecosystems and biological impoverishment, it would be highly desirable if iDiv were significantly strengthened by the three federal states and the federal government in the future.”

Prof Dr Walter Rosenthal, Chairman of the iDiv Board of Trustees and President of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena: “Ten years of iDiv - that's ten years of internationally competitive research on one of humanity’s most pressing issues: the preservation of biodiversity. In the last decade, almost 1,000 researchers have worked to identify the drivers and consequences of changes in biodiversity, and to develop models and concrete proposals for measures to effectively counteract the changes. The fact that iDiv enjoys the highest international 8 reputation is evident from the many high-profile publications in the most renowned journals, and from its participation in important committees dealing with the issue of biodiversity.”

Prof Dr Christian Wirth, iDiv Speaker: “These have been an eventful and moving few years. 10 years for the future, because the last 10 years were really just the beginning: The tasks of stopping biodiversity loss and using its potential to move forward sustainably are enormous. Political will has grown, but implementation will continue to require excellent research in the future. We are ready for that.”

Background:
Changes in ecosystems and biotic communities, and the loss of species are among the greatest challenges of our time. Changes in land use, direct exploitation, climate change, and pollution threaten the biological diversity of the planet. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimates that around one eighth of all animal and plant species are threatened with extinction – with negative consequences for the functioning of ecosystems.

For 10 years, iDiv scientists have been researching global changes in biological diversity and developing the foundations of evidence-based policy and practice. The research centre integrates a wide range of research fields, from molecular interactions between animals and plants to global trends in biodiversity change. For example, iDiv researchers recently found that species with small areas of distribution are at particularly high risk, while at the same time, the threat is reduced when these species live in protected areas.

iDiv has developed into a globally visible beacon of biodiversity science. More than 300 employees from 40 nations currently work at the research centre. In addition, more than 150 member groups of the scientific network conduct research at various locations in Halle, Jena and Leipzig. iDiv is run together with the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, as well as in cooperation with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ; seven Leibniz and Max Planck institutes are involved as cooperation partners. Up to now, iDiv has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2024, the three states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, together with other partners, will take over the basic financing of the research centre.

Contact:

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig. Whether an animal is flying, running or swimming, its traveling speed is limited by how effectively it sheds the excess heat generated by its muscles, according to a new study led by Alexander Dyer from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, published in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

An animal’s capacity to travel is a crucial part of its survival and dictates where – and how far – it can migrate, find food and mates, and spread into new territories. This becomes even more challenging in a human-dominated world characterized by increasingly fragmented habitats and limited food and water resources under climate change. 

Dyer and his colleagues developed a model to look at the relationship between animal size and traveling speed, using data from 532 species. While larger animals should be able to travel faster due to their longer wings, legs or tails, the researchers found it is particularly the medium-sized animals that typically have the fastest sustained speeds. The researchers attribute this to the fact that larger animals require more time to dissipate the heat that their muscles produce while moving, they have to travel more slowly to avoid overheating. They conclude that any animal’s traveling speed can be jointly explained by how efficiently it uses energy and sheds heat.

“The new study provides a way to understand animal movement capacities across species and can be used to estimate any animal’s traveling speed based on its size”, says first author Dyer, doctoral researcher at iDiv and Friedrich Schiller University Jena. “For example, this approach can be applied to predict whether an animal might be able to move between habitats fragmented by human development, even when the details of its biology are unknown”. Last author Dr Myriam Hirt from iDiv and the University of Jena adds, “We anticipate that large animals are potentially more susceptible to the effects of habitat fragmentation in a warming climate than previously anticipated and therefore more prone to extinction. But this needs further investigation.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118 as well as research unit DynaCom, FOR 2716) and the Open Access Publication Fund of the Thüringer Universitäts- and Landesbibliothek Jena.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Alexander Dyer, Ulrich Brose, Emilio Berti, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Myriam R. Hirt (2023). The travel speeds of large animals are limited by their heat-dissipation capacities. PLOS Biology, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001820

Contact:

Alexander Dyer
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Email: dyer.alexander@protonmail.com

Dr Myriam Hirt
Research group Theory in Biodiversity Science
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733206
Email: myriam.hirt@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Joint media release of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

"Jonathan Chase is one of the most distinguished researchers at the University of Halle. He is the author of acclaimed studies and his work makes a significant contribution to making biodiversity research from central Germany known worldwide. We are proud that his scientific work has now been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. This is a great signal for MLU and iDiv," says MLU Rector Prof. Dr. Claudia Becker.

Prof. Dr. Henrique Pereira, iDiv speaker and professor at MLU, adds: “Jon Chase’s work at iDiv has had a far-ranging impact on biodiversity research. He has led several global synthesis analysis and has shown how the scale of analysis affects different metrics of biodiversity change. The ERC Advanced Grant recognises his extraordinary achievements and provides support for the continuation of his work."

"I thank the ERC for the great trust placed in me with the Advanced Grant. I will use the funding to close important knowledge gaps in how biodiversity is changing through time," says Prof. Dr. Jonathan Chase. His new research project will use a common problem of biodiversity research as a starting point: even though extensive data on local and global biodiversity exists, these are often not comparable with each other. "Studies often disagree on the question of what is actually meant by biodiversity and what it means that it is changing. The differences are magnified because studies are so different when it comes to the species studied, the methods used and the analytical procedures," says Chase. This makes it difficult to make concrete statements about how and where biodiversity is changing, and importantly, to identify the reasons for these changes. "There is no question that biodiversity is changing in many ways around the world, and that these changes are ongoing because of the actions of people. However, we lack a clear and consistent way to quantify exactly what these changes are and how to attribute potential causes of these changes," Chase continues. This knowledge, however, is required for accurate and effective conservation measures, which have also been mandated by the recent international agreements at the UN.

One of Chase's fields of expertise is the synthesis of large data sets on the distribution and abundance of species from across the world with the help of computer-assisted methods. With this synthesis, new insights are gained. With the help of the ERC funding, Chase now wants to take this work to a new level: "One of the biggest challenges we have in biodiversity science is that we are getting much better at understanding what has happened to biodiversity in the past, and we’re starting to provide some answers as to the potential causes of those changes. However, we are particularly bad at forecasting biodiversity change into the future. There are many ways to try this, although which ones work best is anyone’s guess." By compiling biodiversity change through time from many thousands of sites across the planet, and combining it with new statistical tools, the researcher hopes to  provide better forecasts for how biodiversity might change in the future.

Jonathan Chase was born in the USA. After studying at the University of Michigan and Utah State University, he completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1998. After several years of teaching and doing research at various US universities, Chase was appointed Professor of Biodiversity Synthesis at MLU and iDiv in Germany in 2014. He is the author of more than 138 scientific articles published in renowned journals such as Nature, Science and PNAS, as well as two foundational books. Clarivate Analytics included Chase in the list of "highly cited researchers 2022", representing the most frequently cited researchers worldwide.

The ERC Advanced Grants are among the most prestigious and coveted research awards in Europe. The European Research Council awards them to world-leading scientists who applied for funding of their highly ambitious and promising research projects. A total of almost 1,650 project proposals was submitted in this round of ERC Advanced Grants, from which 218 were selected for funding across Europe. The funding rate is thus 13.2 percent.

Contact:

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

sDiv head Marten Winter summarized “2500 participations within 10 years is a huge achievement and shows the continuing demand of the research community for those collaborative synthesis projects. But it also shows how successful we as iDiv community support the sDiv mechanism at all levels to make it happen in the end (e.g. participation, leadership, admin, governance, advertisements of calls etc)”

Carolin Kögler

Contact:

Dr Marten Winter
sDiv - Synthesis Centre
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9733129
Email: marten.winter@idiv.de

Leipzig/Halle. Human activities are accelerating biodiversity change and promoting a rapid turnover in species composition. A team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) has now shown that more widespread species tend to benefit from anthropogenic changes and increase the number of sites they occupy, whereas more narrowly distributed species decrease. Their results, which were published in Nature Communications, are based on an extensive dataset of over 200 studies and provide evidence that habitat protection can mitigate some effects of biodiversity change and reduce the systematic decrease of small-ranged species.

Every living species on the planet has its own unique geographic range, with some species occurring over large parts of the globe, while others inhabiting only a few select areas. But does the range size of a species influence how it responds to human activities and changes in the number of sites it occupies through time?

A team led by researchers from iDiv and MLU set out to evaluate the connection between the size of a species’ range and the changes in their regional occupancy over time. To do so, the researchers used an extensive dataset of 238 studies that monitored plant and animal species assemblages from across many sites for 10-90 years. From these time series, they were able to determine which species were increasing in the numbers of sites they occupied through time, which were decreasing in their site occupancy, and which stayed the same. They then wanted to compare the trends of species to the size of their ranges to see if there was a connection. To determine the range sizes of nearly 19,000 species from across the tree-of-life that were identified in the time series, they used data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), which includes data on the occurrences of species from across the world, including data collected from popular smartphone apps like iNaturalist and eBird.

Species with larger ranges tend to increase in occupancy

The researchers found that on average across all studies, species with larger ranges tended to increase in occupancy through time, whereas small-ranged species decreased. For example, in a study from northern Australia, species that were native to only a small part of the region, such as red cabbage palm (Livistona mariae), lost ground from when they were first surveyed in the 1990s, while more widely distributed species, such as Polynesian arrowroot (Tacca leontopetaloides) and diamond burbark (Triumfetta rhomboidea), were found at more sites. Likewise, narrowly distributed fish in the kelp beds off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, like the rainbow perch (Hypsurus caryi) were found at fewer sites since monitoring started in 2000, while more widespread species like Scropaenichthys marmoratus occurred at more sites. “One reason could be because widespread species tend to have wider niche breadth, meaning that they live in many different kinds of habitats. These species can more rapidly disperse across sites than more narrowly distributed species, and thus are more likely to persist or even increase in response to global environmental changes”, says first author Dr. Wubing Xu from iDiv and MLU. These relationships were stronger in marine than in terrestrial and freshwater realms. “One reason could be that marine species are often more sensitive to environmental changes such as climate warming”, explains Wubing Xu.

These results also help resolve previous discrepancies. Professor Anne Magurran and Professor Maria Dornelas, both from the University of St. Andrews and co-authors on the new study, led an earlier study that compiled time series of biodiversity data from across the world into a database that they called BioTIME. The new study added many new datasets to that compilation. “Our work with the first versions of BioTIME showed no clear general trend one way or the other in local species richness, but this does not mean the world is not changing and that humans are not having a dramatic impact on biodiversity”, said Dornelas. “We saw substantial changes in species composition, and what is nice about these new results is that we were able to show that these changes are associated with characteristics of the species that are winning and losing through time. It is clear that to understand biodiversity change we need to use multiple metrics at multiple scales.”

Protected status can mitigate biodiversity change

To date, ~17% of terrestrial areas and inland waters and ~8% of coastal and marine areas are designated as ‘protected’ in some way. Recent international agreements at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference aim to increase this substantially in the next decade. By comparing the trends inside and outside of protected areas, the researchers found that changes in occupancy were less extreme in terrestrial protected areas. For example, the investigators found that more narrow-ranged bird species like Little bustard (Tetrax tetrax) increased their occupancy through time in an area given special protection status in Portugal, whereas they were declining in a nearby intensively farmed region. “Reducing anthropogenic pressures by establishing protected areas can temper the decreases in occupancy of small-ranged species that we often observe”, says senior author Professor Jonathan Chase from iDiv and MLU. “This is why it is imperative that the international community follow through on its promise to increase the amount of habitat protected and restored across the world.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Wu-Bing Xu, Shane A. Blowes, Viviana Brambilla, Cher F. Y. Chow, Ada Fontrodona-Eslava, Inês S. Martins, Daniel McGlinn, Faye Moyes, Alban Sagouis, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Roel van Klink, Anne E. Magurran, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill, Maria Dornelas, Jonathan M. Chase (2023). Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series. Nature Communications. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37127-2

Contact:

Dr Wubing Xu
Biodiversity Synthesis
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Email: Wubing.xu@idiv.de

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig. Intense fishing and overexploitation have led to evolutionary changes in fish stocks like cod, reducing both their productivity and value on the market. These changes can be reversed by more sustainable and far-sighted fisheries management. The new study by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University and the Institute of Marine Research in Tromsø, which was published in Nature Sustainability, shows that reversal of evolutionary change would only slightly reduce the profit of fishing, but would help regain and conserve natural genetic diversity.

The impact of global fisheries on marine ecosystems is severe: fish stocks have declined and the degradation of marine habitats as well as the loss of biodiversity have been accelerated. Less visible, intense fishing has also affected the age and size structure of fish stocks and caused evolutionary change, often towards lower growth rates, smaller maturation sizes and earlier reproduction age. For example, cod in the North Sea, which has been heavily exploited in the past, matures at sizes just above 50 cm, compared to more than 70 cm expected in an unfished population.

Earlier reproduction can increase stock resilience in the short-term, but over time results in populations with smaller fish that have less offspring. “At the end of the day, this can reduce both the productivity of a stock and the value on the market,” says first author Hanna Schenk from iDiv and Leipzig University. “Apart from this, we don’t know much about potential consequences such as trophic cascades and other ecosystem changes that feed back onto the harvested species and may interfere with critical ecological functions.”

Only long-term planning can reverse evolutionary decline 

But evolution is not a one-way street. This is why the researchers from iDiv, Leipzig University and the Institute of Marine Research in Tromsø (Norway) wanted to find out what it takes to reverse evolutionary decline after decades of intensive exploitation, in particular with regard to planning horizons in fisheries management. For this, they developed a model that took various processes into account: Biological growth and reproduction as well as economic harvesting costs and consumer preferences. The researchers also analysed potential trade-offs between economic profit and conservation targets.

They found that evolutionary decline is profitable to reverse under century-long planning horizons. With more typical short-term planning, stock recovery in terms of biomass is achieved, but evolutionary decline continues, albeit at much lower rates. “Fisheries typically consider short planning horizons of a few years. This stands in contrast to long-term sustainability and biodiversity targets”, says Hanna Schenk. The researchers found that more far-sighted planning horizons would help to rebuild the stock but evolutionary decline continues. According to Schenk, reversing this process takes much longer than the recovery of the stock biomass and is only achieved with century-long planning horizons.

Appropriate conservation targets only slightly reduce profit 

The researchers also show that setting conservation targets for restoring not only fish stocks, but also their genetic composition would only slightly reduce profits. The cost and time of evolutionary reversal could be reduced further if fisheries can select fish depending on their genes, which may be possible to some extent by choosing the time and place of harvest. However, current conservation agendas do not include the restoration of genetic diversity, for example target 14 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), which calls for an end to overfishing.

“More selective fishing could reverse evolutionary decline in the long term”, says senior author Professor Martin Quaas from iDiv and Leipzig University. Economic incentives alone may not be sufficient to achieve these sustainability goals, which is why genetic diversity and conservation should be included explicitly in sustainable development goals and UN biodiversity targets. “From an economist’s perspective, fishing should have largely avoided undesired evolutionary changes. Now that these changes have taken place, they are costly to reverse in the short run, but in the long run, this would pay off in economic terms.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Hanna Schenk, Fabian Zimmermann, Martin Quaas (2023). The Economics of reversing fisheries-induced evolution. Nature Sustainability. Doi: 10.1038/s41893-023-01078-9

Contact:

Dr Hanna Schenk
Biodiversity Economics
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9733168
Email: hanna.schenk@idiv.de

Prof Dr Martin Quaas
Head of research group Biodiversity Economics
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Leipzig University
Phone: Please contact the iDiv Media and Communications department
Email: martin.quaas@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig/Halle. Islands are “laboratories of evolution” and home to animal species with many unique features, including dwarfs that evolved to very small sizes compared to their mainland relatives, and giants that evolved to large sizes. A team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) has now found that species that evolved to more extreme body sizes compared to their mainland relatives have a higher risk of extinction than those that evolved to less extreme sizes. Their study, which was published in Science, also shows that extinction rates of mammals on islands worldwide increased significantly after the arrival of modern humans. 

Islands are hotspots for biodiversity – they cover less than 7% of the Earth’s land area, but account for up to 20% of all terrestrial species on the planet. However, islands are also hotspots for species extinction as 50% of today’s IUCN threatened species are native to islands. 

In response to the unique characteristics of island environments, many organisms undergo remarkable evolutionary changes, among the most notable of which include extreme modifications of body size. This phenomenon is known as gigantism or dwarfism – in general, relatives of large continental species tend to become smaller on islands and small species tend to become larger. Some of these are already extinct evolutionary marvels such as dwarf mammoths and hippos that shrunk to less than one-tenth the size of their mainland ancestors, and rodents and gymnures of unusual size that increased by over 100-fold. These also include dwarf and giant species currently threatened with extinction, such as the tamaraw of Mindoro (Bubalus mindorensis), a dwarf buffalo with a shoulder height of approximately 100 cm, and the giant Jamaican hutia (Geocapromys brownii), a rat-like mammal about the size of a rabbit. 

A team of researchers led by iDiv and MLU now confirmed that evolution towards these features frequently goes hand in hand with increased susceptibility to extinctions. “On the one hand, phyletic giants might provide bigger reward for hunting”, explains Dr Roberto Rozzi, former postdoctoral researcher at iDiv’s synthesis centre sDiv and at the Berlin Museum of Natural History, and now Curator of Palaeontology at the ZNS of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. “On the other hand, dwarfed species seem to have less deterrence power, facilitating hunting or predation by introduced predators.”

Higher extinction risk of extreme dwarfs and giants

To quantify how evolution towards dwarfism and gigantism may have affected the risk and rate of extinction (before and after human arrival), the researchers used data on fossil and living island mammals including over 1,200 extant and 350 extinct species of insular mammals on 182 islands and paleo-islands (formerly isolated landmasses that are now part of the mainland areas) worldwide.

Their findings indicate a previously unknown result that those species that underwent more extreme body size shifts, either larger or smaller, were more likely to be endangered or to go extinct on islands. Comparison between the two directions of body size change showed that insular giant species have a slightly higher extinction risk than insular dwarfs. However, this difference was only significant when extinct species were included. Since the European expansion around the globe, extinctions have similarly affected dwarfed and giant insular mammals. “This likely reflects the impact of more intense and multifaceted human pressures, such as overexploitation and accelerated habitat loss, but also introductions of novel diseases and invasive predators”, says Dr Roberto Rozzi.

Overlap of human colonization and increased extinction rates of insular mammals

The researchers also analysed the global fossil record of mammals on islands over the last 23 million years (late Cenozoic) and found a clear correlation between island extinctions at a global level and the arrival of modern humans. “We recorded an abrupt shift in the extinction regime from pre-sapiens to sapiens-dominated island ecosystems. Time overlap of insular mammals with H. sapiens increased their extinction rates more than 10-fold. However, our results at the global level do not rule out the concomitant contribution of environmental drivers such as climate change on local extinctions of island mammals”, says senior author Prof Jonathan Chase from iDiv and MLU. “While it is important to acquire more paleontological field data to further refine extinction chronologies, conservation agendas should, at the same time, give special priority to protecting the most extreme insular giants and dwarfs, many of which are already threatened with extinction.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Roberto Rozzi, Mark V. Lomolino, Alexandra A. E. van der Geer, Daniele Silvestro, S. Kathleen Lyons, Pere Bover, Josep A. Alcover, Ana Benítez-López, Cheng-Hsiu Tsai, Masaki Fujita, Mugino O. Kubo, Janine Ochoa, Matthew E. Scarborough, Samuel T. Turvey, Alexander Zizka, Jonathan M. Chase (2023). Dwarfism and gigantism drive human-mediated extinctions on islands. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.add8606

Contact:

Dr Roberto Rozzi
Zentralmagazin Naturwissenschaftlicher Sammlungen
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49(0)345 55-26073
Email: roberto.rozzi@zns.uni-halle.de

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Based on a media release of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Ever since Alexander von Humboldt’s voyages of exploration, it has been clear that the characteristics of plants depend heavily on the Earth’s climate zones. For example, giant trees and plants with enormous leaves can be found in tropical rainforests, while desert or subarctic vegetation grows lower to the ground and has smaller leaves to withstand drought or cold temperatures. Climate change is causing these zones to shift – raising questions as to how higher temperatures and altered periods of precipitation affect the composition of plant species at a given location. “Studies have found relatively weak correlations between global climate gradients and the characteristics of local plant communities,” explains Dr Stephan Kambach, research associate at MLU and former postdoctoral researcher at iDiv. “It is possible that the global effects are being obscured by local factors such as plant composition, soil conditions, microclimate, groundwater levels or human land use.” 

To get to the heart of this phenomenon, the researchers have compiled over 300,000 vegetation plots from all over Europe that contain complete information on the predominant plant species and climate data. This has been done as part of the Biodiversa programme “FeedBaCks”. The raw data were taken from the CHELSA climate database and the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), which includes over 1.7 million vegetation plots of nearly 14,000 plant species. “First, we examined nine main types of habitats, for example forests, moorlands or wetlands,” explains Kambach. “Then we subdivided these habitats into two additional sub-levels, for example deciduous forests on the second level and poplar floodplain forests on the third level.” In order to compare the vegetation in the different habitats, four key vegetation characteristics were defined: height of growth, leaf area, root length and seed mass. 

Stephan Kambach used linear regression to investigate the influence of climate variables, especially temperature and precipitation, on vegetation. Linear regression is a statistical tool that can be used to describe major dependencies between influencing and target variables. The analysis revealed some surprising results: When all vegetation types are considered, climate is a significant predictor of plant characteristics. In the Mediterranean region or along Europe’s coasts, plants grow taller on average, produce more seed mass and have longer roots, however their leaf area is smaller. A look at the individual habitats, however, reveals exceptions: In forests, for example, plant height decreases as temperatures increase, in wetlands the leaf area is getting larger, and in moorlands the roots are getting shorter. “Here the opposing influences between the trends at the global and local levels become apparent,” explains Professor Helge Bruelheide, who heads the FeedBaCks project at MLU and is also an iDiv Member.  “In southern regions, growth is generally facilitated by a higher light intensity and longer growing seasons, however decreased availability of water can lead to the opposite effect in certain habitats. In contrast, low levels of precipitation seem to have little effect on wetlands.” 

The more one “zooms in” on the habitats, the harder it is to make generalisations about climate effects. “When it comes to leaf area and root length, climate appears to have a strong effect in more tightly defined habitats,” says Kambach. “But what we see in the main habitat types is not necessarily reflected in the subtypes.” For example, the analysis revealed that the mean height of growth in grasslands increases towards the Mediterranean, but not in seasonally wet meadows. The situation is similar in wetlands: Here, plants grow taller as temperatures increase, but this is not the case in exposed riparian zones. 

“We were able to show that the global climate is definitely a significant indicator for local plant communities,” states Kambach. “However, if we want to prepare for changing climate conditions, especially in agriculture and forestry, we have to look very closely at habitats with similar floristic compositions, a common evolutionary history, and comparable environmental conditions.” 

A total of seven European partner institutions are taking part in the FeedBaCks project (Feedbacks between Biodiversity and Climate, biodiv-feedbacks.org), which is coordinated at WSL in Zurich. The general aim of the project is to investigate the feedback mechanisms of biodiversity on climate. 

Original Publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Stephan Kambach, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Fabio Attorre, Idoia Biurrun, Gerhard Boenisch, Gianmaria Bonari, Andraž Čarni, Maria Laura Carranza, Alessandro Chiarucci, Milan Chytrý, Jürgen Dengler, Emmanuel Garbolino, Valentin Golub, Behlül Güler, Ute Jandt, Jan Jansen, Anni Jašková, Borja Jiménez-Alfaro, Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Jens Kattge, Ilona Knollová, Gabriele Midolo, Jesper Erenskjold Moeslund, Remigiusz Pielech, Valerijus Rašomavičius, Solvita Rūsiņa, Jozef Šibík, Zvjezdana Stančić, Angela Stanisci, Jens-Christian Svenning, Sergey Yamalov, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Helge Bruelheide (2023). Climate-trait relationships exhibit strong habitat specificity in plant communities across Europe, Nature Communications, DOI.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36240-6

Contact:

Dr Stephan Kambach
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: stephan.kambach@botanik.uni-halle.de

Based on a media release by the University of Göttingen

The researchers isolated plots within natural ecosystems and separated the plots from accessing plant roots with a plastic barrier (a technique known as ‘root trenching’). Their study included rainforest, as well as both rubber and oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia. As a comparison, they removed all dead leaves, the main resource of decomposer animals, from other experimental plots. They found that without living roots, animal abundance in the rainforest plots decreases by 42 percent and in plantations by 30 percent. 

By contrast, removing the dead leaves has almost no effect on the animals in the underlying soil, but decreased the total animal abundance (in the soil and dead leaves) by 60 percent in rainforest and rubber plantations due to physical litter removal. However, the effects of plant litter removal were not observed in oil palm plantations, where litter is very scarce in any case. The study also revealed that living roots are especially important for the smaller soil animals, such as mites and springtails. Interestingly, after adding artificial plastic leaves in oil palm plantations, abundance of some animal groups – such as prostigmata – increased, highlighting that improving habitat structure, for instance by mulching, can promote soil food networks and the services they provide.

“The study provides novel perspectives for the management of the resources provided by plant litter in tropical plantations, fostering soil animal biodiversity. This is important to develop sustainable agricultural landscapes in the tropics,” says Professor Stefan Scheu, head of the Animal Ecology Working Group at the University of Göttingen.

“This study's findings are significant not only for the conservation of tropical soil biodiversity, but also for the development of global ecosystem models describing carbon cycling in the tropics. We need a better understanding of the complex ecological systems that support life on Earth,” adds Dr Anton Potapov, head of the ‘Soil Biodiversity and Functions’ research group at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). 

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Original publication: 
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Zheng Zhou, Jing-Zhong Lu, Jooris Preiser, Rahayu Widyastuti, Stefan Scheu, Anton Potapov (2023): Plant roots fuel tropical soil animal communities. Ecology Letters, DOI: 10.1111/ele.14191

Contact:

Dr Anton Potapov
Head of Junior Research Group "Soil Biological Diversity and Functions"
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Email: anton.potapov@idiv.de

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

By providing technical support and data, tools and knowledge, NaturaConnect can help EU Member States revise their protected area pledges and implement them on the ground. NaturaConnect is also tasked with assisting with the evaluation of the first round of Member States’ protected area pledges under the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. In an ambitious and far-reaching program of measures, the Strategy aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in the EU. The event provided participants with the chance to initiate conversations between actors from science, public administration, and non-governmental organizations, to engage in dialogue aimed at determining how to implement the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, including the design and management of the TEN-N. 

Neil McIntosh, representing the EUROPARC Federation, welcomed participants to the event, noting that the day would be focused on “building the dialogue necessary to protect and preserve biodiversity, and connect areas, nature and people, through a variety of participatory processes.”

As a representative of NaturaConnect's leading organization, Piero Visconti from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) emphasised NaturaConnect's key role in supporting EU Member States in their TEN-N design.

The participants then had small group discussions on what the specific needs are for the realisation of a coherent and resilient TEN-N. Governance and financial gridlocks were extensively discussed. Among the key takeaways from the session on the future TEN-N were the value of co-creation of knowledge and guidance for TEN-N together with those responsible for planning and implementation and the need for a long-term perspective on area-based conservation planning in Europe, which prioritizes the quality of conserved areas. 

"The ample engagement in this event of members from the European Commission, National administrations and NGOs demonstrates great policy expectations and interest in the scientific outputs that the NaturaConnect will offer", said the project's deputy coordinator Néstor Fernández from iDiv and MLU. 

Frank Vassen from the European Commission Directorate-General for Environment highlighted the critical role that science, and this project in particular, will have in supporting effective protected area policies in Europe.

Background: 

NaturaConnect aims to design and develop a blueprint for a truly coherent Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N) of conserved areas that protect at least 30% of land in the European Union, with at least one-third of it under strict protection. Our project unites universities and research institutes, government bodies and non-governmental organizations, working together with key stakeholders to create targeted knowledge and tools and build the capacity needed to support European Union Member States in realising an ecologically representative, resilient and well-connected network of conserved areas across Europe.

Contact:

naturaconnect@iiasa.ac.at

www.naturaconnect.eu

Contact:

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig/Halle. Existing data are too biased to provide a reliable picture of the global average of local species richness trends. This is the conclusion of an international research team led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The authors recommend prioritising local and regional assessments of biodiversity change instead of attempting to quantify global change and advocate standardised monitoring programmes, supported by models that take measurement errors and spatial biases into account. The study was published in the journal Ecography. 

The global loss of biodiversity has been recognised by society and politicians as one of the most urgent challenges facing humanity in the coming generations. At the World Biodiversity Conference COP15 that recently took place in Montréal, the member states of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted new goals and rules accordingly to slow down and eventually reverse this decline. In order to be able to measure the successes of this new agreement, one of these targets calls for improved biodiversity monitoring to record and evaluate trends.

While there are many different ways to measure biodiversity, the most common is species richness at the local scale. However, although species are being lost at alarming rates at the global level, this does not always reflect what is occurring at the local scale. Previous global syntheses have indicated conflicting results on the extent and even direction to which local species richness is changing. 
“There has been a heated debate on the scientific community on why major global syntheses so far have not found negative trends of local species richness,” states Prof Henrique Pereira, head of the Biodiversity and Conservation Research Group at iDiv and MLU and last author of the study. “We show that the declines in local species richness are likely to be much smaller than many anticipated and that, in those conditions, even minor spatial biases and errors in monitoring lead to the lack of detection of global trends.”

In order to create a global picture of what is occurring at the local scale, all available observation data must be compiled and evaluated across time. “The occurrence of species is recorded locally all over the world by many different people and organisations,” says first author Dr Jose Valdez, a postdoctoral researcher at iDiv and MLU. “The problem with the data is that they were and are recorded under completely different conditions and mostly not under standardised rules. If you then pile them together, the errors and deviations add up, making the result very inaccurate.”

The researchers were able to show that the monitoring results are significantly influenced by various factors, such as the time intervals between sampling, the size of the sampling sites, or small errors in counting the number of species at a site. A significant problem in recording global biodiversity trends is also the regional imbalance. For example, most of the data is collected in world regions such as Europe and the United States, particularly habitats such as temperate deciduous and mixed forests. The underrepresentation of the tropical regions and habitats, areas with the highest species richness and also the largest losses, can lead to a significantly distorted impression of the global biodiversity status.

To find out whether and how these biases can be compensated for, the researchers simulated thousands of monitoring networks that varied in the above-mentioned factors. The basis for this was provided by the PREDICTS projections of local species richness trends, based on a model developed with a globally comprehensive compilation of data from over 32,000 sites worldwide and over 51,000 species. The researchers found that global changes in biodiversity could theoretically be determined in hundreds of perfectly sampled sites within a decade and thousands of sites within a 3-year period.

Changes in species richness on a global scale only detectable with unrealistically many sampling sites

However, perfect sampling does not exist in reality. Studies show that monitoring data typically contain 10% to 30% errors due to missing or misidentifying species during sampling. By just adding very small measurement errors of up to 5%, the researchers found that it drastically reduced the ability to detect any global change. With more realistic errors and further imprecision factors, detecting the average global trend may simply be impossible.

“Our results demonstrate that capturing accurate trends in local species richness would require monitoring an unfeasibly large number of perfectly sampled sites,” adds Jose Valdez. “However, the question is whether this would even be useful or meaningful for effective and responsive biodiversity conservation. Conservation strategies and measures are coordinated and implemented not on a global level, but at local and national scales. Measuring biodiversity trends at these smaller scales is not only more practical but also helps in understanding the drivers of biodiversity loss and assessing the progress of conservation policies.”

“A substantial increase of biodiversity monitoring is needed, combined with analysis that uses models to fill in data gaps”, says Henrique Pereira. The authors advise establishing a representative network of sampling sites around the world that provides independent, integrated, and regularly updated biodiversity data. Such an approach is currently being developed for the European Union with the EuropaBON project.

This research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; FZT-118) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme EuropaBON Project under grant agreement number 101003553.
Sebastian Tilch

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)
Valdez, J., Callaghan, C.T., Junker, J., Andy Purvis, Samantha L.L. Hill, Pereira, H. M. (2022): The undetectability of global biodiversity trends using local species richness. Ecography, DOI: 10.1111/ecog.06604

Contact:

Dr Jose W. Valdez (speaks English and Spanish)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Research group Biodiversity Conservation
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9739168
Email: jose.valdez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1290.html

Prof Dr Henrique Miguel Pereira (speaks English and Portuguese)
Head of Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Email: henrique.pereira@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/132.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by the University of Amsterdam

Humans have brains three times the size of other primate species. A diverse, high-quality diet and a prolonged childhood with sufficient time to learn complex food acquisition skills are thought to be important evolutionary drivers of our large brains. In contrast to the diet of other primates, the human diet is characterised by a diverse variety of high-quality and difficult-to-acquire foods, such as meat and fish, as well as tubers or many species of nuts and caterpillars. To collect these, complex foraging skills are needed that are thought to be developed from an early age. 

To better understand how humans learn these foraging skills, the international research team accompanied 27 children of a modern forager society, the BaYaka, in the Republic of the Congo for one year. The children start foraging independently in peer groups from as young as five years old. The researchers investigated the children’s foraging methods, dietary composition, and botanical knowledge on their daily food-finding trips. Besides observing the behaviour, they also conducted nutritional analyses of the collected food. To achieve this, the researchers set up an interdisciplinary collaboration between a botanist and cognitive behavioural ecologists from the University of Leiden and Amsterdam, chemical ecologists from iDiv, the University of Jena, and UFZ, anthropologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and nutritional ecologist from the Charles Perkins Centre from the University of Sydney. The fieldwork resulted in a unique dataset containing 798 hours of observational data.

The BaYaka children spent one-third of their time searching and acquiring food. Half of that time, they searched independently from adults and showed a high level of autonomy. “I was impressed to see how skilled the children were already at a very young age”, says Jorin Veen, first author of the paper, who performed this study for his Master thesis at the UvA. “The largest share of the food were fallen fruits, seeds, and tubers, but the children also climbed 40 meters high trees to collect honey or fruits, which can be a risky endeavour.” 

Differences between boys and girls

The results revealed an early onset in the specialisation in foraging skills. Foraging groups with more boys were more likely to eat fruits and seeds, which often requires risky climbing skills. Girls were more likely to collect tubers than boys. “Collecting tubers requires exceptional digging skills, as the lianas that lead to tubers are not easy to recognize and keep track off”, explains Prof Karline Janmaat, supervisor of the lead author and researcher at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the UvA. “This early onset of a gendered-based specialisation of foraging skills, combined with the high level of food sharing in forager societies, likely enabled the human species to have a more stable energy and nutrient supply – a supply that could have ultimately enabled us to afford a substantially larger brain than our closest living relatives.” 

“Our analyses revealed that especially the fruits, which made up 40 per cent of the children’s diet, contained more sugars, especially glucose and fructose, compared to other plant items”, says co-author Prof Nicole van Dam. “No wonder that they put so much effort into obtaining them.” Van Dam, who led the molecular analyses, headed the Molecular Interaction Ecology group at iDiv and the University of Jena until 2022, when she became the director of the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) in Grossbeeren. 

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Jorin Veen, Haneul Jang, David Raubenheimer, Bryndan O.C.M. van Pinxteren, Vidrige Kandza, Patrick G. Meirmans, Nicole M. van Dam, Susanne Dunker, Petra Hoffmann, Anja Worrich, Karline R.L. Janmaat (2023) Development of embodied capital: diet composition, foraging skills, and botanical knowledge of forager children in the Congo Basin”, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.935987

Contact:

Jorin Veen
Department of Theoretical and Computational Ecology
Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED)
University of Amsterdam
Email: jorinveen@outlook.com

Prof Dr Nicole van Dam
Leibniz Institute for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller-University Jena
Email: nicole.vandam@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/van_dam_nicole.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig/Minnesota. Agriculture is considered a major disturbance for ecological systems – the recovery of degraded or formally used agricultural land might take a long time. However, without any active restoration interventions, this recovery can take an exceedingly long time and is often incomplete, as shown by a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University (UL), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). Their study, which was published in the Journal of Ecology, sheds light on the recovery process at different scales in former agricultural sites, pointing to specific restoration interventions that could help biodiversity to recovery.

Land use such as transforming natural habitats into agricultural areas is the most important driver for biodiversity loss worldwide. However, one might assume that, given enough time, removal of major anthropogenic disturbances will allow biodiversity to recover. Ecological restoration is the science and practice of directing and speeding up the recovery of disturbed ecosystems. In accordance with Target 2 of the recently adopted Global Biodiversity Framework of the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), at least 30% of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems should be under effective restoration by 2030.

To find out more about this recovery process in former agricultural sites, the researchers measured the recovery of biodiversity and species composition in 17 temperate grasslands in Minnesota (US). These grasslands were ploughed and used for agriculture, but different fields were abandoned between 1927 and 2015 so that natural succession and recovery of the vegetation could be followed. The researchers compared these abandoned sites to sites that were never ploughed, which acted as a reference and for what natural systems could look like. “What we wanted to know was how fast and how completely disturbed grasslands can regain their biodiversity if they are left to recover. Understanding that recovery process can give us insights into how we can assist and speed it up using restoration”, says first author Dr Emma Ladouceur from iDiv, MLU and UL, who is also a guest researcher at the UFZ.

After 80 years, species richness was still lagging behind

The researchers found that even after 80 years, the abandoned fields had not recovered on their own compared to never-ploughed sites. The number of different species in old fields was on average 65% of that in never-ploughed sites. In addition, the types of plant species that lived at the site recovered over time, but not completely. When the fields were first recovering, they were colonised by species that were unique to old field sites, like many weedy and disturbance-tolerant species. After some time, many species characteristic of the never disturbed sites colonized and increased through time. However, across the whole study, there were 63 native species unique to the never-ploughed sites, and the recovering old fields had more introduced grasses and weeds.

In their study, the researchers focused on the recovery of old fields without any active restoration efforts to promote this process. With the help of this information, restoration actions can be designed to help these systems better recover. “By looking closely at the recovery of species composition at different scales, we can get a better idea of what species could be targeted in restoration treatments, and how we could help these systems recover best”, explains co-author Prof Dr Stan Harpole, head of the Physiological Diversity research group at UFZ, iDiv, and MLU. “Specific restoration measures could include the seeding or planting of species that we know are not part of the composition of recovering fields, combined with the management of exotic species to reduce competition with native species”, adds Dr Emma Ladouceur.

Informed advice for policy

“With our study, we show that using valuable and rare data across a long-time scale and looking at important spatially-dependent patterns can lead to practical outcomes that are directly relevant for policy. For example, our results can be used to provide important context for understanding restoration outcomes and targets as part of international forums such as the recent United National Biodiversity Conference (COP15)”, says senior author Prof Dr Jonathan Chase, head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group at iDiv and MLU.

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(iDiv researchers and alumni in bold)

Ladouceur, Emma; Forest, Isbell; Clark, Adam; Harpole, W. Stanley; Reich, Peter; Tilman, David; Chase, Jonathan (2023); The recovery of plant community composition following passive restoration across spatial scales. Journal of Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.14063

Contact:

Dr Emma Ladouceur
Postdoctoral Researcher in the Physiological Diversity & Biodiversity Synthesis Research Groups
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9733255
Email: emma.ladouceur@idiv.de

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig/Jena. Insect numbers have been declining over the past decades in many parts of the world. Protected areas could safeguard threatened insects, but a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the University of Queensland now found that 76 per cent of globally assessed insect species are not adequately covered by protected areas worldwide. In the journal One Earth, the researchers encourage decision-makers to give more consideration to the by far biggest species group in implementing the new goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

Over 80 per cent of all animal species are estimated to be insects. This species group plays crucial roles in almost every ecosystem. Insects pollinate more than 80 per cent of plants, play a key role in the natural nutrient cycle and in pest control, and are a major source of food for thousands of vertebrate species. However, insects have been historically overlooked by conservation programmes, and they comprise only 8 per cent of the species assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 

Previous studies proved that protected areas can preserve insect populations if they are tailored to that goal and coincide with their distribution areas. To determine what proportion of insect species is covered by protected areas, a team of researchers led by iDiv, UFZ and the Universities of Jena and Queensland overlaid species distribution data of 89,151 insect species registered in the largest biodiversity data repository, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), with global maps of protected areas. A benchmark for sufficient species coverage by protected areas is provided by the IUCN Global Standards for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas. 

The researchers found that 76 per cent of these insect species are inadequately represented in protected areas, including several critically endangered species such as the Australian dinosaur ant (Nothomyrmecia macrops), the crimson Hawaiian damselfly (Megalagrion leptodemas), and the harnessed tiger moth (Apantesis phalerata). Furthermore, the global distributions of 1,876 species from 225 families do not overlap with protected areas at all. 

First author Dr Shawan Chowdhury, a postdoctoral researcher at iDiv, the UFZ, and the University of Jena, was surprised by the degree of underrepresentation. “A lot of insect data come from protected areas, so we thought that the proportion of species covered by protected areas would be higher,” says Chowdhury. “The shortfall is also much more severe than for vertebrate species, for which a similar analysis found that 57 per cent were inadequately covered.”

In some regions, insects were better protected than others. Relatively high proportions of insect species received adequate protection in Amazonia, South and Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Australia and Central Europe, but protection fell short for many species in North America, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia and parts of Australia.

“Insects have often been neglected as a focal group when designating new protected areas,” says Chowdhury. “The focus is usually on vertebrates, and their requirements for habitat are usually quite different from insects. For a species group that contains a vast proportion of the animal kingdom and performs diverse ecosystem functions, that is worrying.”

The member states of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) just have approved a new Global Biodiversity framework. Target 3 calls for at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas to be effectively conserved through protected areas. According to the authors, insects should be given much more consideration in the selection and planning of new areas.

“However, in order to implement this globally and to effectively evaluate success, much better data is needed, especially in regions with high biodiversity, such as the tropics, which have so far been completely underrepresented in monitoring programmes,” says senior author Prof Richard Fuller from the University of Queensland. “Citizen science could have an enormous impact in filling the data gap on insect distributions. Scientists and policymakers must now step up and help with this challenge of identifying sites of importance for insect conservation.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118). It is a product of the sDiv working group sMon. iDiv’s synthesis centre sDiv supports working group meetings where international scientists work together on scientific issues.
Sebastian Tilch

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Chowdhury, S., Zalucki, M. P., Hanson, J. O., Tiatragul, S., Green, D., Watson, J. E. M., Fuller, R. A. (2023): Three quarters of insect species are insufficiently represented by protected areas. One Earth. DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2022.12.003

Contact:

Berlin. Implementation of the recently agreed UN nature conservation targets will only succeed if all stakeholders – from policy and practice, civil society, business and science - work together. Science provides the knowledge base for effective action, thus playing a key role in the implementation of these global objectives. This was the tenor of discussion at the parliamentary evening on 17 January in the State Representation of Saxony-Anhalt in Berlin, to which the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Science, Energy, Climate Protection and the Environment had invited. The scientists call for a high-level national biodiversity council as an essential element in making the conservation of biological diversity a core political issue across all relevant ministries. 

It is about nothing less than the very foundations of life. Many animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Many ecosystems are under pressure. With them, the services which biological diversity provides, and on which human well-being depends, are in danger of disappearing. To reverse the decline in global biodiversity loss, the 196 member states of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a new agreement on biodiversity, setting global targets up to 2030 at the COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference in Montréal last December.

“We now have good, ambitious international biodiversity goals, which the German government has also helped to promote,” says iDiv Professor Aletta Bonn, head of the Department of Ecosystem Services at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), iDiv and Friedrich Schiller University Jena. However, experience shows that even the best and most ambitious global targets are pointless if they are not implemented at the national level with effective measures involving stakeholders from all areas of society. “We must now actively push ahead with the implementation of these global targets. This can only succeed if policy, business, civil society and research work together and invest ambitiously in our environment in order to safeguard our health, and our children and grandchildren’s future.”
At the parliamentary evening in the Saxony-Anhalt State Representation, the Secretary of State of the Federal Ministry for the Environment Bettina Hoffmann, the chair of Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) Olaf Bandt as well as Andreas Jahn, CEO of the Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft, discussed with members of the Bundestag and representatives from research, business and civil society, which actions need to be taken now by which groups in order for Germany to make its contribution to achieving the global targets.

With a letter signed by more than 500 scientists from all over Germany, the researchers call for setting up a politically high-ranking national biodiversity council, which will help make the conservation of biodiversity, our foundation of life, a core issue across all ministries together with young people.

“The best available scientific evidence can guide the identification of measures to reverse current negative biodiversity trends,” says iDiv speaker Prof Henrique Pereira from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. “Whether the measures adopted are then implemented, and have an effect, must be consistently evaluated. For this, we need systematic and effective biodiversity monitoring. We are happy that the federal government has established the National Monitoring Centre for Biodiversity (NMZB) in Leipzig right on our doorstep.”

Prof Christian Wirth, iDiv speaker from Leipzig University, also sees long-term, guaranteed funding of basic research as an essential prerequisite for enabling the achievement of global biodiversity goals. “Our planet is changing faster than we would like, and with that, its biological diversity. What is considered reliable knowledge today is already outdated tomorrow. It is the task of basic research to not only observe these changes, but to understand them in real-time so we remain capable of acting to save the planet, both now and in the future”.

Co-host of the parliamentary evening, Prof Armin Willingmann, Saxony-Anhalt Minister for Science, Energy, Climate Protection and the Environment, stated, “The conservation of biodiversity is one of the most urgent challenges worldwide. With iDiv, we established a beacon for biodiversity research in Central Germany. iDiv is now also at the international forefront of this research. Especially regarding the implementation of the agreement on biodiversity achieved in Montréal in December 2022, I strongly urge the federal government to join the states of Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia, in order to secure the long-term funding of iDiv.”

“iDiv is an outstanding example of how cross-border synergies in research and its funding can be utilised,” says Prof Eva Inés Obergfell, rector of Leipzig University and vice chairperson of the iDiv Board of Trustees. “We would like to extend this formula for success beyond federal limits and involve other partners, such as Germany’s federal government, in research funding. The biodiversity crisis will keep us busy for a long time. iDiv's excellent research provides the basis for courses of action to rise to this challenge for humanity.” 

You can find the Federal Secretary of State’s speech at the event here. 

Background 
In the ten years since it was founded, iDiv has developed into an internationally renowned research institution. 350 employees from 40 nations, nine professors and four junior research groups create the scientific basis for a sustainable approach to biological diversity. ‘Biodiversity’ encompasses the entire variety of life – not only species diversity, but also genetic diversity, diversity of functions, interactions and ecosystems. As well as the employees at the core centre in Leipzig, there are over 150 members; researchers at the three participating universities – the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Leipzig University, as well as the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and seven other institutions - who work on integrative biodiversity research issues. Through their expertise, they significantly support iDiv’s scientific uniqueness.

iDiv research findings create the basis for the conservation of biodiversity. They are relevant in a number of societal areas, including politics; internationally, for example, through contributions to the World Biodiversity Council IPBES, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and analyses of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Also at the federal level, by, for example, helping to shape national biodiversity monitoring, and at the state level through policy consultation in the state parliaments. 
Sebastian Tilch 

Contact:

Prof Dr Aletta Bonn
Head of Department Ecosystem Services
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Phone: +49 341 9733153
Email: aletta.bonn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/137.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release of the University of Zurich

In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Zurich and colleagues from Leipzig and Jena analyzed the stability of plant biomass production over two decades in one of the longest-running grassland biodiversity experiments in the world, the Jena Experiment in Germany. After more than a decade, plant species in more diverse experimental communities complemented each other in producing stable biomass at the community level. At low plant diversity, by contrast, this “compensatory” effect was not realized and community biomass varied much more from year to year. During the first decade of the experiment species-rich communities had not yet stabilized because of large fluctuations in species populations. This long-term research shows that biodiversity plays an increasingly important role in stabilizing ecosystem productivity over time as plant communities mature. Because ecosystem stability incurs resilience in the face of environmental perturbations, it follows that in a changing world, older, more diverse ecosystems should be particularly highly valued.

The first author, Dr. Cameron Wagg from the University of Zurich, says: “We now realize that the mechanisms by which diverse species communities maintain ecosystem functioning in the long-term are continually developing even two decades later. Such findings in this study highlight the importance of long-term research studies to fully appreciate the invaluable role of biodiversity for supporting ecosystem functions and services into the future.” The corresponding author, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schmid from the University of Zurich, adds: “These novel results fit with other recent findings of our research group, suggesting that over time evolutionary processes in diverse plant communities select the most “collaborative” plant genotypes among the different species, thus increasing division of labor, community productivity and ecosystem stability.” Prof. Dr. Nico Eisenhauer from iDiv and Leipzig University and speaker of the Jena Experiment, highlights: “Only such long-term studies can draw a realistic and comprehensive picture of the relevance of biodiversity for ecosystems and human well-being”.

Original Publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Cameron Wagg, Christiane Roscher, Alexandra Weigelt, Anja Vogel, Anne Ebeling, Enrica de Luca, Anna Roeder, Clemens Kleinspehn, Vicky M. Temperton, Sebastian T. Meyer, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Nina Buchmann, Markus Fischer, Wolfgang W. Weisser, Nico Eisenhauer, Bernhard Schmid (2022). Biodiversity–stability relationships strengthen over time in a long-term grassland experiment. Nature Communications. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35189-2.

Contact:

Prof Dr Bernhard Schmid
Department of Geography
Remote Sensing Laboratories
University of Zürich
Email: bernhard.schmid@uzh.ch

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

In the far north of the planet, climate change is clearly noticeable. A new study in Finland now shows that in parallel there have been dramatic changes in pollinating insects. Researchers from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv) have discovered that the network of plants and their pollinators there has changed considerably since the end of the 19th century. As the scientists warn in an article published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, this could lead to plants being pollinated less effectively. This, in turn, would adversely affect their reproduction.

Their service is invaluable. The army of insects and other animals that pollinates the numerous plants of this earth has an essential function. Without these flower visitors, numerous wild plants could reproduce only poorly – or not at all. Ecosystems would thus no longer be able to function in their current form. More than three quarters of the most important crops depend on pollinators in order to be able to produce a high yield and good quality. A loss of pollinators would therefore also lead to economic losses amounting to billions.

It remains unclear whether the pollinators will still be able to provide their usual service. That’s because plants and their pollinators are intertwined in an elaborate network in which the distribution and abundance of the species involved as well as their seasonal occurrence, physiology, and behaviour are finely tuned. Even small changes could throw everything out of balance. Experts thus fear that human influences such as changes in climate and land use could lead to less effective pollination services.

However, because few studies have investigated the interaction between plants and different pollinator groups over longer periods of time, it is difficult to say whether and to what extent such developments are already under way. This makes the more than 120-year-old data from Finland on which the new study is based all the more exciting. Between 1895 and 1900, in the vicinity of Kittilä (a village that lies about 120 km north of the Arctic Circle), forester Frans Silén systematically recorded which insects visited which flowers and how often.

“I am passionate about working with historical datasets like this”, says senior author Prof. Tiffany Knight from iDiv and UFZ. “If you repeat the historic studies again today, it’s often the only way to learn about long-term ecological processes”. For her, such work also challenges the imagination. “I am trying to understand what motivated the people who collected the data in the past and what challenges they faced”, she explains. “This information can then be used to plan a comparable modern study”.

The scientists thus first looked around Kittilä for sites where Silén had also made observations – and where the 17 plant species he studied best still grow today. At these sites, the team repeated the pollinator census in 2018 and 2019. The area remains sparsely populated, and little has changed in terms of land use. However, it has not escaped the consequences of climate change. “We have noticed drastic changes in the networks of pollinators”, says first author Leana Zoller from MLU and iDiv. Only 7% of the flower visits observed involved the same species of insects and plants as back then. “That is surprisingly little”, says Zoller. 

For example, hoverflies and moths appear much less frequently on the flowers around the village today than they used to. This is probably not good news. That’s because these two groups have some particularly effective pollinators among them. These include the bumblebee hoverfly (Volucella bombylans) – a large, furry fly resembling a bumblebee. In Silén’s time, this species was the most frequent visitor to the Arctic raspberry (Rubus arcticus) and the woodland geranium (Geranium sylvaticum). The bumblebee hoverfly was likely able to effectively transfer the pollen of these species from one plant to the next. 

Also moths use a physical advantage during pollination: with their long proboscis, they can also reach the nectar from the base of tubular flowers. This is why they used to be the most frequent visitors of the fringed pink (Dianthus superbus) and bladder campion (Silene vulgaris), both of which have such flowers. 

Whilst these insects have become rarer, the flowers around Kittilä are now getting considerably more visits from bumblebees and certain flies. Whether these animals work as effectively as the earlier pollinators is not yet known. However, one trend in particular concerns the researchers. There are now considerably fewer insects that are specialists for certain flower shapes. These have been replaced by flies of the genus Thricops, which visit many different plants. Such generalists are often more robust when it comes to environmental changes; if one of their host plants is lacking, they can easily switch to others. But they also carry the pollen of various other plant species onto a flower, thereby potentially providing a less effective pollination service than the specialists. 

“So far, the pollinator network in our study area still seems to be working well”, says Zoller. “There is no evidence so far that the plants are getting too little pollen and are thus less capable of reproducing”. But according to the scientists, this can change in the future if changes in the insect communities continues. So far, the flies there seem to be coping with the rising temperatures. But further north in the high Arctic, one study has revealed a massive decrease in the number of flies. “If this also happens in our study area, it could become a problem”, says Zoller. Because at some point, the plants will no longer be able to compensate for the losses in their pollinator network.

Original Publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Leana Zoller, Joanne Bennett, Tiffany M. Knight (2022): Plant-pollinator network change across a century in the subarctic. Nature Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01928-3

Contact:

Leana Zoller
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: leana.zoller@idiv.de

Prof Tiffany Knight
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733158
Email: tiffany.knight@idiv.de

Based on a media release by INRAE 

The rewilding approach proposes to “let nature (re)take care of itself”, often with temporary help at first, and benefit from natural processes to adapt ecosystems to climate change and support their biodiversity. This multidisciplinary research and innovation programme will address the link between climate and biodiversity in close association with the socio-economic dimension of large-scale restoration. It compares scenarios from various land uses, assesses associated risks and opportunities, and explores new approaches to make ecological restoration a socially and economically viable solution for local actors and communities.

wildE will provide scientific knowledge, methods and tools for different geographical, ecological and social contexts based on Europe-wide studies as well as individual case studies. Inter alia, a German case study in collaboration with Wageningen University and BSWR - Biologische Station Westliches Ruhrgebiet e.V. will focus on “urban rewilding” as a nature-based solution in the Ruhrgebiet area. Other case studies focus on large-scale remote areas such as the Tatra Mountains.

The project aims to help policymakers (the EU, national governments, regions, and local communities) and commercial companies to integrate ecological restoration through rewilding into their policy or management to achieve carbon neutrality, strengthen climate adaptation and reverse biodiversity loss. 

These results will be widely communicated to a broad range of stakeholders (landowners, conservation managers, companies, society at large, etc.) to improve everyone's knowledge of these challenges and opportunities. This interactive sharing will be made possible in particular through a collaborative web platform, which will also function as a shared workspace for stakeholders. 

wildE is supported by a team of 22 academic and non-academic partners (NGOs, companies, etc.) from 12 European and coordinated at INRAE in France. 

“Climate mitigation by restoring ecosystems only works with large-scale measures. Rewilding can deliver the kind of upscaling that is needed for significant climate mitigation of European ecosystems,” says Prof Henrique Pereira, head of the Biodiversity Conservation Group at iDiv and leader of the wildE work package the conceptual framework on climate-smart rewilding. “This project will be the first to assess the potential of rewilding for climate mitigation in Europe. And to facilitate the implementation of climate-smart rewilding, we will identify priority areas.”

The Project is funded via the EU Horizon Europe programme with 8.5 Million Euros for four years.

Original media release by INRAE

Contact:

Dr Néstor Fernández (speaks English and Spanish)
Scientific Employee Biodiversity Conservation Group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 97 33229
Email: nestor.fernandez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/342.html

Prof Dr Henrique Miguel Pereira
Head of Biodiversity Conservation research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Email: henrique.pereira@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/132.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Groundwater is an important resource for terrestrial vegetation. 50% of the vegetation in the semi-arid Mediterranean biome is known to use groundwater. As these ecosystems are threatened by climate change and pressure from land use, on-the-ground identification is necessary. 

Our final map of the study area shows that GDV is located more frequently in broadleaf and coniferous forests standing on low permeable rocks with surficial groundwater circulation. Data from a botanical field campaign in summer 2021 was used to further validate the results. By analysing vegetation surveys, we could show that significant differences between GDV and non-GDV detected from remote sensing were also visible in the field. In GDV, tree species that are known to use groundwater (phreatophytes) dominate. In non-GDV the most important plants are drought-adapted shrubs. In general, GDV indicated areas with better water supply during the annual dry period. We also saw that plant diversity is actually higher in ecosystems reliant on groundwater. Surprisingly, two oak species occurred in both groundwater-influenced areas and non-dependent ecosystems. We further analysed the vitality of both species in the field. Our results show that the oaks, which according to our map are more likely to be GDV, are also more vital on the ground. 

Methods to locate GDV using remote sensing and geodata have gained importance in recent years, as they allow covering larger areas at a relatively lower cost. However, a comprehensive combination of different indicators was still pending. Our mapping framework combines vegetation, topography, hydrogeology and climate for the first time. Furthermore, we introduced a new simple ecohydrological rule set (phreatophyte cover and mean moisture value of non-phreatophyte species) to classify vegetation in the field and optimise our final map.

From our results, we learned that while remote sensing can identify GDV, in situ validation data is still needed. Areas that were identified as GDV can contribute to the development of adapted water management methods and pinpoint systems worthy of conservation. Our framework can be understood as a step towards the creation of a harmonised GDV map for the whole Mediterranean biome.
Léonard El-Hokayem

Original publication:
(iDiv researchers bold)
El-Hokayem, L., De Vita, P. and Conrad, C. (2022) Local Identification of Groundwater Dependent Vegetation Using High-Resolution Sentinel-2 Data – A Mediterranean Case Study. Ecological Indicators, 146, 109784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109784

Contact:

Léonard El-Hokayem
Doctoral researcher
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: leonard.el-hokayem@geo.uni-halle.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1651.html

Dr Volker Hahn
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Joint media release by iDiv and Leipzig University

The idea that humans are facing a global extinction of experience of nature is popular, but there is poor empirical evidence of its reality. To shed more light on this, the scientists measured how the average distance from an individual’s home to the nearest area with low human impact changed in the last decade. They found that humans currently live 9.7 km away from a natural area on average, which is 7% further away than in the year 2000. Europe and East Asia have the highest average distance to natural areas, such as 22 km in Germany and 16 km in France. “What is striking is that all other countries in the world are following a similar pattern,” explains first author Dr Victor Cazalis, a postdoctoral researcher at iDiv and Leipzig University. 

The authors also showed that tree cover within cities has declined worldwide since 2000, particularly in Central Africa and South-East Asia. “This finding suggests that the possibility for the urban population to access green spaces is reducing as well,” concludes Dr Gladys Barragan-Jason, a researcher at the Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station and co-author of the study. “Indeed, the study reveals that the destruction of natural areas combined with a strong increase in urban population is leading to a growing spatial distance between humans and nature, especially in Asia, Africa and South America.”

In the same study, the authors systematically searched for scientific publications assessing a trend in experiences of nature: from direct ones such as hiking in national parks, to vicarious experiences like natural settings in cultural products like cartoons, computer games or books. They found that the number of studies assessing these trends was very low (N=18), with a strong bias towards the US, Europe and Japan. This shows that any claim about the extinction of nature experience is based on poor evidence and that more studies should investigate this question, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The 18 studies found by the authors show for instance a decline in visits to nature parks in the US and Japan, a decrease in camping activities in the US, and a decrease in the number of flower species observed by Japanese children. They also find signs of disconnection in the depletion of natural elements in novels, songs, children’s albums and animated movies, which are less and less imbued with natural imagery (as shown e.g. by a former iDiv study from 2021).

Despite these examples of decline, other interactions are stagnating or even increasing. Watching wildlife documentaries or interacting with wild animals in video games is, for example, more common than a few years ago. “New ways of digitally interacting with nature have certainly emerged or increased in recent decades,” says Gladys Barragan-Jason. “But several former studies show that these interactions have a lesser effect on our sense of connection with nature than direct interaction.”

“The knowledge about these human-nature interactions is crucial, as they are key in the construction of our relationship with nature and our behaviours,” says Victor Cazalis. We need to maintain a good connection with nature in order to enable the necessary societal transformations of the 21st century. Only then can humanity ‘live in harmony with nature by 2050’ as ambitioned by our governments through the Global Biodiversity Framework that is being discussed currently in the COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity.”

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through its support of sDiv, the Synthesis Centre at iDiv (DFG; FZT-118).

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Cazalis, V., Loreau, M., Barragan-Jason, G. (2022). A global synthesis of trends in human experience of nature. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. DOI: XXX

Contact:

Dr Victor Cazalis
Postdoctoral researcher
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9733224
Email: victor.cazalis@idiv.de

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

South-east Asia is a melting pot of otters that are very difficult to monitor in the wild. We developed and tested a novel, accurate, and affordable DNA-based method to reliably identify three endemic Asian otter species in a paper published today in Ecology and Evolution. The protocol developed by our team of South Asian researchers from the Malaysian Nature Society, Sunway University, Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN), Peninsular Malaysia, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) will help in monitoring and conservation of threatened otter species in Asia. We also highlight the importance and need of cost-effective and replicable techniques to advance biodiversity monitoring in highly biodiverse yet under-represented parts of the world.

Accurate and effective monitoring is critical to advance the scientific knowledge and status of biodiversity. South-East Asia, a global biodiversity hotspot, is also exposed to several human-induced threats that are pushing the species to peril. Four otter species co-occur in this part of the world, and not much is known about the distribution and population size of these species. They are threatened by habitat loss, illegal wildlife trade, pollution and degradation of aquatic habitat, human-otter conflict, and climate change. The rapidly growing Asian economy and associated infrastructural development such as roads are becoming another cause of otter mortality. 

Otters, sentinels of freshwater ecosystems, are difficult to distinguish and monitor in wild due to their elusive nature and similarities in appearance among species. This calls for an advanced technique that is not only accurate and replicable, but also affordable to wildlife researchers of the region, who often work at shoestring research funding. With this objective, we developed a suite of PCR-RFLP analysis protocol that is also efficient in analysis of DNA sourced from non-invasive samples such as feces (spraints in case of otters). We tested this protocol on known reference samples, and further on spraint samples collected from otter habitat in Malaysia. Our technique has very high amplification success (97%) for reliable and efficient species identification of three Asian otter species. We anticipate that it helps in tracking the status of otter populations in South and South-East Asia.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Sandeep Sharma, Woo Chee-Yoong, Adrian Kannan, Suganiya Rama Rao, Pazil Abdul-Patah, Shyamala Ratnayeke (2022). Identification of three Asian otter species (Aonyx cinereus, Lutra sumatrana, and Lutrogale perspicillata) using a novel noninvasive PCR-RFLP analysis. Ecology and Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9585

Contact:

Dr Sandeep Sharma
Biodiversity Conservation
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733136
Email: sandeep.sharma@idiv.de

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

von Gönner, J., Bowler, D.E., Gröning, J., Klauer, A.-K., Liess, M., Neuer, L. & Bonn, A. (2023) Citizen science for assessing pesticide impacts in agricultural streams. Science of The Total Environment, 857, 159607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159607

The full text is only available in German.

London/Leipzig. 82% of Madagascar’s plants and 90% of vertebrates are found nowhere else on Earth. But its biodiversity is as unique as it is threatened. This is the main message of two new papers published today in Science. Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and partners from over 50 global organisations including the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University have undertaken a major review of Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity. The authors highlight the urgent need for collaborative science-based conservation that integrates needs of local communities

Madagascar is one of the world’s foremost biodiversity hotspots, with a unique assemblage of plants, animals, and fungi, the majority of which evolved on the island and occur nowhere else. And yet these papers highlight that there is still much to learn, particularly for groups such as fungi and invertebrates, where current scientific species descriptions represent a small fraction of the full diversity present. Despite species descriptions accelerating in recent years, there is much to do to describe the full range of Malagasy species and to understand their past, present and future.

Understanding the origins, evolution, current distribution, and uses of Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity in this way is crucial to highlighting its global importance and guiding urgent conservation efforts. It is estimated that there are 11,516 described species of native Malagasy vascular plants, of which a staggering 82% are endemic. Among the 1,314 species of native terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates, the figure is even higher - with 90% endemism overall.

This unique diversity is in grave danger. The research team compiled available IUCN assessment data on plants and vertebrates, and used machine learning to predict the extinction risks for plant species lacking assessments. Only a third of all Malagasy plant species (just under half of native species) have been formally assessed, and yet researchers found that Madagascar is home to a disproportionately high number of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species and that the number of threatened ferns and their relatives may have been underestimated. Their analyses showed that overexploitation (the direct hunting and harvesting of species) and unsustainable agricultural practices affect 62.1% and 56.8% of vertebrate species, respectively, and each affect nearly 90% of all plant species. They conclude the current knowledge on Madagascar’s biodiversity and its decline indicates an urgent need for action. 

“Nature is our biggest asset in the fight against climate change and food insecurity,” says last author Professor Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “Yet, we’ve degraded every ecosystem on this planet to a fraction of their past extent, killing off large numbers of species and putting many more at risk. Madagascar is a point in case: its biodiversity is as unique as it is threatened. We wanted to showcase this global hotspot and outline the actions required to reset our relationship with nature and ensure its protection and sustainable use. The key solution is addressing the needs of people”. 

Currently, protected areas cover 10.4% of Madagascar and are relatively well-placed to capture the island nation’s biodiversity. The team found that the network provides good coverage of the major habitats, particularly mangroves, spiny forest, humid forest, and tapia, but that subhumid forest and grassland-woodland mosaic have very low areas under protection (5.7% and 1.8% respectively). Nevertheless, 79.6% of threatened plants and 97.7% of threatened vertebrates occur within at least one protected area. Complementary to this, ex situ collections hold 18% of vertebrate species and 23% of plant species. Maintaining and improving the quality of protection in these areas, along with effective ex situ conservation, such as seed banks and breeding and reintroduction programmes, and integrated community programmes, will be the key to success. 

Madagascar’s rich biodiversity, particularly its diverse flora, has provided many opportunities for human utilization and there are many more useful properties waiting to be unlocked. Of the 40,283 plant species documented to be used by humans worldwide, 1,916 (5%) are found on Madagascar. Of these, 1,596 are native and endemic to the island. The challenge is to find a balance between the local use of biodiversity and conserving the integrity of protected areas. The majority of Madagascar’s over 28 million inhabitants live outside of, but often very close to, protected areas. These communities face challenges connected to widespread poverty, which itself is related to the degradation of natural capital in the landscape, limited access to formal education, health care and regulatory issues including land tenure. 

“Madagascar has always been known as a biodiversity hotspot,” says first author Dr Hélène Ralimanana, Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre, Operations Team Leader. ”The results from the analysis in these papers are alarming as Madagascar’s biodiversity and landscape have changed dramatically over the last decades. It’s unthinkable that we will lose this richness if no urgent actions are taken. Malagasy people are currently feeling the effects of climate change, which impact household livelihoods. Saving Madagascar’s biodiversity is the responsibility of everyone including civil societies, policy makers and based communities, the time is now to take action.”

“Madagascar is one of the most threatened biodiversity hotspots in the world. Understanding the origin of its exceptional biodiversity requires monitoring and describing it, which is a challenge by itself,” says co-author Dr Renske Ostein, who joined the study as a researcher at iDiv and Leipzig University. Since September 2022, she is a researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. “However, understanding the origin and evolution of its biodiversity is crucial to predict how it will respond to current and future threats, and to decide on effective conservation strategies, for example by prioritising certain species or areas for protection.”

Madagascar has made important progress towards achieving international climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development goals, providing a foundation on which to build in the coming decades. The researchers frame biodiversity as the greatest opportunity and most valuable asset for Madagascar’s future development - a key resource for the sustainable future and well-being of its citizens.

They propose five opportunities for action to further conservation in a just and equitable way: 

1. Investment in conservation and restoration must be based on evidence and effectiveness, rather than simplistic area-based metrics and tailored to meet future challenges through inclusive solutions. 
2. Expanded biodiversity monitoring, including increased dataset production and availability, is key to safeguarding Madagascar's most valuable natural assets. 
3. Improving the effectiveness of existing protected areas, for example through community engagement, training, and income opportunities, is more important than creating new ones. 
4. Conservation and restoration should not focus solely on the protected areas network but should also include the surrounding landscapes and communities. 
5. Conservation actions must address the root causes of biodiversity loss, including poverty and food insecurity. 

This body of research and the evidence collated makes a clear case for Madagascar as one of the world’s foremost conservation priorities. The researchers have presented a clearer and more detailed understanding than ever before of past and present Malagasy diversity, its current distribution and the threats it faces. The underlying data is the product of decades of research from Malagasy and international biologists, and the authors argue that the gathering and analysis of data must continue and accelerate if we are to safeguard Madagascar’s unique biota. 

Original publications:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation or alumni bold)

1. Alexandre Antonelli, Renske E. Onstein, Alexander Zizka & Hélène Ralimanana (2022): Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity: Evolution, distribution, and use, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.abf0869
2. Hélène Ralimanana, ..., Renske Onstein, ..., Alexander Zizka & Alexandre Antonelli (2022): Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity: Threats and opportunities, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.adf1466

Contact:

Dr Renske Onstein
Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherland
Former head of the junior research group Evolution and Adaptation
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +31 6 46583916 

Sebastian Tilch
Abteilung Medien und Kommunikation
Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Tel.: +49 341 97 33197
E-Mail: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: www.idiv.de/media

Jena. The President of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Prof. Walter Rosenthal, has been named "University Manager of the Year 2022". Rosenthal has been Chair of the iDiv Board of Trustees since 2018.

The full text is available on the website of the University of Jena:

https://www.uni-jena.de/en/221201-hochschulmanager22

Contact:

Leipzig. The world is experiencing two megatrends: Climate extremes are increasing in magnitude and frequency while biodiversity is declining. Writing in Nature, researchers from Leipzig University and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) with collaborators across Europe, express concern that these two trends can mutually exacerbate each other. The researchers call for a new research agenda emphasizing the interconnecting risks of climate extremes and biodiversity decline.

To date, awareness is growing that global warming and biodiversity loss are interconnected, even if driven by different mechanisms. If we want to fully understand one of these trends, we should not neglect the other. Consequently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) are calling for collaborative approaches to further investigate these interconnected topics.

One of the most salient features of climate changes is that extreme events will increase in intensity and frequency. Writing this week in Nature, a group of researchers from Leipzig University, iDiv and collaborating European institutions expressed particular concern that this specific process will interact with biodiversity decline. In particular, the researchers identified one question that has not yet been investigated at all when they ask whether “... more intense extremes, happening more frequently, accelerate the degradation and uniformization of ecosystems, which then, in turn, promote further climate extremes?” In other words: does the decline of biodiversity add to the magnitude of extremes? If this was true, and there is some evidence for this, a whole new research agenda would have to be developed.

Interdisciplinary approaches are needed

To address this question, interdisciplinary approaches are needed. “Ecologists and climate scientists need to establish a joint scientific vision and agenda, so we are properly forewarned not just of the risks of removing biodiversity buffers against climate extremes, but also of the risk of amplifying extreme events themselves”, the researchers conclude.

The good news is that the necessary methods and tools for data collection and analysis as well as novel measurement techniques provide unique insights into plant responses to stress. But this data must be turned into predictions – with the help of high-quality models, digital twins and artificial intelligence methods.

CBD COP 15 should highlight climate and biodiversity linkages

High-level policy is starting to acknowledge the interconnectedness of climate extremes and biodiversity loss, for example by the European Commission’s formal recognition of the multifunctional value of forests and their role in regulating atmospheric processes as well as our climate. A few days ago, new climate policies were adopted at the UNFCC COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh; starting on 7 December, politicians will discuss new biodiversity policies at the CBD COP 15 in Montreal. In their comment in Nature, the researchers stress the need for better linking the research informing policies that target both climate and biodiversity: “Ecologists, climate scientists, remote sensing experts, modellers and data scientists need to work more collaboratively to fill our critical gaps in understanding, in order to thoroughly quantify the risk that lies ahead.”

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Miguel D. Mahecha, Ana Bastos, Friedrich Bohn, Nico Eisenhauer, Hannes Feilhauer, Henrik Hartmann, Thomas Hickler, Heike Kalesse-Los, Mirco Migliavacca, Friederike E.L. Otto, Jian Peng, Johannes Quaas, Ina Tegen, Alexandra Weigelt, Manfred Wendisch, Christian Wirth (2022). Biodiversity loss and climate extremes - study the feedbacks, Nature, DOI: d41586-022-04152-y

Contact:

Prof. Dr Miguel Mahecha
Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research
Leipzig University
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: miguel.mahecha@uni-leipzig.de

Prof Christian Wirth
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig / Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena
Head of the Department for Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity at Leipzig University
Phone: +49-341-97-38591
Email: cwirth@uni-leipzig.de
Web: https://biologie.biphaps.uni-leipzig.de/en/institut/ag/systematic-botany-and-functional-biodiversity/people/christian-wirth/

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The full text is only available in German.

Based on a media release of the University of Alicante

Grazing is an essential land use that sustains the livelihood of billions of people and is tightly linked to many UN Sustainable Development Goals. Grazing is particularly important in drylands, which cover about 41% of the Earth's land surface, host one in three humans inhabiting our planet and over 50% of all livestock existing in our planet. 

Despite the importance of grazing for humans and ecosystems, to date no previous study had attempted to characterize its impacts on the delivery of ecosystem services at the global scale using field data. For doing so, Prof Fernando T. Maestre, Distinguished Researcher at UA and former iDiv sabbatical, teamed up with more than 100 colleagues to carry out a unique global survey conducted in 326 drylands located in 25 countries from six continents. 

“We used standardized protocols to assess the impacts of increasing grazing pressure on the capacity of drylands to deliver nine essential ecosystem services, including soil fertility and erosion, forage/wood production and climate regulation. Doing so allowed us to characterize how the impacts of grazing depend on local climatic, soil and local biodiversity conditions, and to gain additional insights on the role of biodiversity on the provision of ecosystem services essential to sustain human livelihoods”, says first author Fernando T. Maestre.

The researchers found that the relationships between climate, soil conditions, biodiversity and the ecosystem services measured varied with grazing pressure. As climate became warmer, carbon stocks decreased and soil erosion increased under high grazing pressure, an effect that was not observed under low grazing pressure. These results suggest that the response of drylands to ongoing climate change may depend on how they are managed locally.

The impacts of increasing grazing pressure shifted from mostly positive in colder drylands with a lower rainfall seasonality and higher plant species richness to negative in hotter drylands with lower plant diversity and higher rainfall seasonality. Thus, the effects of grazing, particularly overgrazing, vary across the globe. 

The authors also observed that the diversity of both vascular plants and mammalian herbivores was positively linked to the provision of essential services such as carbon storage, which plays a fundamental role in climate regulation.

"This study does an excellent job of demonstrating that only by considering multiple influencing factors in concert can we make meaningful recommendations for the sustainable management of our ecosystems during changing climate”, says co-author Simone Cesarz, Head of Laboratory of iDiv’s Experimental Interaction Ecology group.

The findings of this study are of great relevance for achieving a more sustainable management of grazing, as well as for establishing effective management and restoration actions aimed at mitigating the effects of ongoing climate change and desertification across global drylands. “We have now reached a human population of 8 billion people and climate change increases the proportion of dry areas worldwide. The present results clearly highlight that we need to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises in concert and to manage ecosystems in a sustainable way to protect their integrity”, says co-author Nico Eisenhauer, head of Experimental Interaction Ecology at iDiv and professor at Leipzig University.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Maestre, F.T., …, Simone Cesarz, Nico Eisenhauer, … Carlos A. Guerra et al. Grazing and ecosystem service delivery in global drylands. Science (2022), doi: 10.1126/science.abq4062

Contact:

Prof Fernando T. Maestre
University of Allicante
Email: ft.maestre@ua.es

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Simone Cesarz
Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Email: simone.cesarz@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

The following iDiv researchers can be found on the list (in alphabetical order):

• Prof Jonathan Chase (iDiv, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Prof Stanley Harpole (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, iDiv, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Dr Jens Kattge (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, iDiv)

• Prof Ingolf Kühn (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, iDiv)

• Prof Markus Reichstein (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, iDiv)

• Prof Josef Settele (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, iDiv, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Dr Marten Winter (iDiv, Leipzig University)

In total, approximately 6,900 researchers have been selected.

See full list: https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2022/

Contact:

As the number of observations submitted to the citizen science platform iNaturalist continues to increase it is increasingly important that these observations can be identified to the finest taxonomic level, maximizing their value for biodiversity research. Here, we explore the benefits of increasing the number of identifiers on iNaturalist.

In an increasingly human-modified world, biodiversity data are essential to the detection and understanding of local to global biodiversity change [1]. Biodiversity monitoring is targeted in the draft post-2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, recognizing that up-to-date knowledge is needed to guide decision making. In recent decades, there has been a massive increase in available biodiversity data — there are currently >2.1 billion species occurrence records in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, representing a 12-fold increase since 2007 [2]. This rise in biodiversity data is due in part to the growing popularity of citizen, or community-based, science.

One of the most globally successful platforms is iNaturalist, a multi-taxa platform and joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. iNaturalist allows participants to contribute observations of any organism (e.g., Figure 1), or traces thereof, along with associated spatiotemporal metadata. Observations are then identified and verified to high taxonomic resolution by the iNaturalist community, in conjunction with the rapidly improving computer vision suggestions. An observation is deemed ‘Research Grade’ when it meets the site’s metadata quality criteria, and has two or more suggested identifications, more than two-thirds of which agree at a species level (i.e., 2/2, 2/3, 3/4, etc.; although records identified to a level finer than family can also become Research Grade if no further progress in identification is deemed possible). While the quantity of data and contributors continue to increase on iNaturalist, one bottleneck to fully realizing the potential of these data for scientific research is the dearth of participants with reasonable expertise (i.e., someone with the skills and ability to make informed identifications) — hereafter ‘identifiers’ — actively participating in the community. The iNaturalist community — as of January 2022 — consists of 2.5 million users, 92% of whom only observe, <1% of whom have only made identifications, and 7% of whom both observe and identify. More recruitment of identifiers is clearly needed.

Seven reasons to contribute to iNaturalist as an identifier

    1. Your contributions increase knowledge of biodiversity

    • When you add an identification to an observation, it can immediately increase the value of that record by advancing the taxonomic level to which that observation is identified

    • Identification efforts can be prioritized for maximum knowledge increase (e.g., by identifying species in undersampled regions of the world, targeting specific taxonomic groups that are threatened, or focusing on regions of the world with high endemism)

    2. The value of opportunistic records is increasing

    • As a result of rapidly increasing statistical advances and data integration approaches with structured sampling, each identified record can advance our understanding of species distributions and abundance trajectories

    • Photographs from iNaturalist are increasingly used in many unique and novel secondary ways, often opportunistic in nature

    3. You can contribute data on threatened, data-deficient, or invasive species

    • Since its inception, iNaturalist users have documented many significant records, including the rediscovery of species thought to be extinct or locally extirpated, considerable range extensions and new national records, previously undocumented behaviors and host associations, and even the discovery and subsequent descriptions of new species

    • iNaturalist is useful in monitoring pathognomonic spread to new locations and for rapid responses in detecting novel introductions

    4. iNaturalist is a ready-made, free, and easy-to-use data-collection infrastructure

    • A computer or smartphone and an internet connection are the only requirements for using iNaturalist, with all aspects of the platform, including uploading, identifying, and downloading data, entirely free

    • An important component of the iNaturalist infrastructure is the computer vision providing automated identification suggestions

    • iNaturalist features a dedicated ‘Identify’ tool that is streamlined for a rapid workflow to make, and review, identifications quickly

    5. You can partake in dynamic, real-time interactions around the world

    • Engaging with iNaturalist prompts you to discuss and collaborate with all types of users in real time, with benefits for everyone involved

    • Discussing identifications is a way of honing and expanding your own skills, including the opportunity for more experienced experts to validate the identifications of less-experienced experts, training the next generation of identifiers

    6. You can engage with a broader audience

    • iNaturalist offers an efficient and powerful mechanism for broader societal impact, since identifiers can engage with thousands of individuals around the world, helping to connect people with the ecosystems of which they are a part

    • Engaging with participants through the platform can also improve the quality and quantity of observations that are useful for biodiversity science

    7. You can enjoy yourself

    • Browsing photographs of even well-known species, and helping new naturalists to identify them, can be enjoyable and personally rewarding

    • There is an official ‘iNat Observation of the Day’ project showcasing such observations

How identifications can contribute to biodiversity research

As an identifier on iNaturalist, you can identify observations that have been made anywhere in the world, and your identification efforts can be prioritized for maximum knowledge increase. For example, correct identifications of poorly-studied invertebrates from the tropics are arguably more valuable than identifications of common birds in the United States. Past misidentifications can be transparently amended on iNaturalist, and the person who made the observation, and any potential future identifiers, can learn about the identification of that organism. Even if an observation is not identifiable to species level, an expert identification to family or genus, coupled with teaching the observer what to look for and capture next time, is often useful for improving data quality in the future.

In addition to the use of opportunistic records to quantify biodiversity in space or time, photographs from iNaturalist are also being used in many unique and novel secondary ways, often opportunistic in nature. For example, opportunistic records have been used to study timing of winter coat molt in mountain goats [4]. The usability of a photograph for these purposes is most valuable when the observation has been identified to the finest possible taxonomic resolution, something that increasing the number of expert identifiers can help achieve. Identifiers can further add value to observations with iNaturalist annotations (e.g., Plant Phenology=Flowering), observation fields (e.g., Host Species), and adding observations to projects (e.g., bees concentrating on nectar; [5]).

Since its inception, iNaturalist users have documented many significant records, including the rediscovery of species thought to be extinct or locally extirpated (e.g., [6]) considerable range extensions and new national records (e.g., [7]), and previously undocumented behaviors and host associations (e.g., [8]). Observations uploaded to the project Australasian Fishes have contributed more than 600 novel findings of undescribed species, range extensions, and undocumented behaviors and species interactions (e.g., [9]), whilst the project First Known Photographs of Living Specimens has more than 3600 records representing the first, and often only, photographic records of those taxa [10]. Novel observations identified promptly can be especially important from a biosecurity perspective. Citizen science can enable the early detection of invasive species [11], and indeed there are an increasing number of records of invasive species having been first detected via iNaturalist. On 31 July 2020, a photograph of feeding damage on an elm leaf (Ulmus sp.) was uploaded to iNaturalist by user Alain Hogue (@alainhogue). Within eight hours, Charley Eiseman (@ceiseman), a North American expert in leaf mining and other herbivorous insect tracks and signs, suggested the observation may represent the first North American record for the Elm Zig-zag Sawfly (Aproceros leucopoda), an invasive pest species outside its native range in eastern Asia. The observation sparked on-site visits by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Canadian Forest Services, where specimens were collected, and additional searches of Ulmus observations from Canada and the USA uncovered more records [12].

A consistent thread across many of these ‘special’ records is that, until seen and identified by an expert, they are just another record among the millions uploaded to the platform. Indeed, there are likely thousands of range shifts or extensions, new national records, rediscoveries, or newly introduced species that have been uploaded to iNaturalist but gone unnoticed due to a dearth, or even absence, of identifiers for particular taxa or regions.

Conclusions

iNaturalist is revolutionizing our understanding of biodiversity at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and across society. While we focus on individuals dedicating their own time identifying iNaturalist observations, we recognize that institutional support for experts to dedicate time to identify observations is an additional opportunity that would yield similar benefits. In the same vein, there exist barriers to the widespread use of iNaturalist globally (i.e., access to the internet or smartphones) that will need to be fully overcame to maximize the value of iNaturalist for biodiversity research in the future. Nevertheless, in the short term, we hope that you will consider contributing your expertise to iNaturalist — a time investment of 30 minutes per day, week, or month can provide substantial contributions to collectively improving our understanding of biodiversity. We conclude by offering an open invitation to all prospective identifiers to reach out to us on iNaturalist for any advice or guidance (see Table S1).

Original publication:

(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Corey T. Callaghan et al. (2022): The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier. PLOS DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001843

Contact:

Dr. Corey T. Callaghan
Assistant Professor
University of Florida
formally: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: 954-577-6300
Email: c.callaghan@ufl.edu 

References

[1] Stephenson PJ, Stengel C. An inventory of biodiversity data sources for conservation monitoring. PLoS One. 2020;10: e0242923.

[2] Heberling JM, Miller JT, Noesgaard D, Weingart SB, Schigel D. Data integration enables global biodiversity synthesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021;118: e2018093118.

[3] Seltzer C, Making Biodiversity Data Social, Shareable, and Scalable: Reflections on iNaturalist & citizen science. Biodivers. Inf. Sci. Stand. 2019; e10197.

[4] Nowak K, Berger J, Panikowski A, Reid DG, Jacob AL, Newman G, et al. Using community photography to investigate phenology: A case study of coat molt in the mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) with missing data. Ecol Evol. 2020;10: 13488-13499.

[5] Portman ZM, Ascher JS, Cariveau DP. Nectar concentrating behavior by bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila). Apidologie. 2021;52: 1-26.

[6] Jones CD, Glon MG, Cedar K, Paiero SM, Pratt PD, Preney TJ. First record of Paintedhand Mudbug (Lacunicambarus polychromatus) in Ontario and Canada and the significance of iNaturalist in making new discoveries. Can Field-Nat. 2019;133: 160-166.

[7] De Roux JM, Noguera-Urbano EA, Ramírez-Chaves HE. The vulnerable Colombian weasel Mustela felipei (Carnivora): new record from Colombia and a review of its distribution in protected areas. Therya. 2019;10: 207-210.

[8] Putman BJ, Williams R, Li E, Pauly GB. The power of community science to quantify ecological interactions in cities. Sci Rep. 2021;11: 1-8.

[9] Booth DJ, Sear J. Coral expansion in Sydney and associated coral-reef fishes. Coral Reefs. 2018;37: 995.

[10] Mesaglio T, Soh A, Kurniawidjaja S, Sexton C. ‘First Known Photographs of Living Specimens’: the power of iNaturalist for recording rare tropical butterflies. J Insect Conserv. 2021;25: 905-911.

[11] Larson ER, Graham BM, Achury R, Coon JJ, Daniels MK, Gambrell DK, et al. From eDNA to citizen science: emerging tools for the early detection of invasive species. Front Ecol Environ. 2020;18: 194-202.

[12] Martel V, Morin O, Monckton SK, Eiseman CS, Béliveau C, Cusson M, et al. Elm zigzag sawfly, Aproceros leucopoda (Hymenoptera: Argidae), recorded for the first time in North America through community science. Can Entomol. 2021;154: 1-18.

Based on a media release by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

In October 2020, European Union Member States committed to legally protect a minimum of 30% of the European Union’s land and sea area and to strictly protect at least a third of these protected areas. This is expected to contribute to the European Green Deal’s goal of preserving and restoring Europe's natural capital and taking a leading role in the Post-2020 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Framework. 

One of the cornerstones of this strategy is to develop a coherent Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N) to function as a connected system through ecological corridors with natural and semi-natural areas, which, if appropriately managed, can deliver a wide range of benefits for biodiversity and people. 

To help the European Union and its Member States realize their ambitious strategy for protected areas, the European Union Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme has funded a new project called NaturaConnect. The Project brings together experts from more than twenty partner institutions*, jointly coordinated by IIASA, iDiv and MLU.

Working closely with protected area managers, conservation organizations, and other stakeholders, the project team will conduct research, engagement, and dissemination activities across Europe to identify the best areas to protect and connect to preserve biodiversity and adapt to climate change. The team will also work with national and sub-national nature conservation agencies and other stakeholders within six case studies to test and refine their approaches and inform local ongoing conservation efforts. One such example is the Carpathian-Danube region, where NaturaConnect will evaluate the connectivity design and implementation challenges in a transboundary area encompassing ten different European Union countries.

“By working with key decision makers, policy experts, and other important stakeholders, NaturaConnect will create a strategic plan for realizing an ecologically representative, well-connected network of conserved areas that contribute to achieving the objectives of the European Union Biodiversity Strategy to 2030,” notes project coordinator Dr Piero Visconti, who leads the Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation Research Group in the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Programme.

“Designing a truly coherent nature protection network is a major scientific challenge since it requires not only predicting where and how biodiversity may be threatened in the future but also finding ways of reconnecting natural areas through highly modified landscapes,” adds deputy coordinator from iDiv and MLU, Dr Néstor Fernández.

The project aims to:
1. Support planning authorities, by collecting and making accessible the best available data and tools to assess biodiversity and the benefits to people
2. Provide input to planning authorities into the design of an effective Trans-European Nature Network by anticipating future developments in climate and land use conditions that may limit or enable the development of such a network
3. Identify alternative configurations of protected areas and corridors based on preferences related to policy targets 
4. Identify opportunities and challenges to the implementation of the network, mechanisms, and instruments of implementation, particularly financial instruments and ways to mitigate barriers through extensive dialogue with practitioners, capacity building, and decision support
5. Showcase applications of the protected area network design through case studies 

“We are excited to embark on this project and to develop and create knowledge, tools, and capacity building programs with our partners to support the European Commission, European Union Member States and conservation practitioners in realizing the vision of TEN-N,” Visconti concludes.

For more information:
https://naturaconnect.eu/

* NaturaConnect is conducted by: International Institute for Applied System Analysis (project lead; Austria); German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig/Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (project co-lead; Germany); Associacao Biopolis (Portugal); BirdLife Europe (Netherlands); Birdlife International (United Kingdom); Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (France); Doñana Research Station - Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior De Ivestigaciones Cientificas (Spain); Europarc Federation (Germany); Finnish Environment Institute (Finland); Humboldt-University of Berlin (Germany); Institute for European Environmental Policy (Belgium); Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands); Rewilding Europe (Netherlands); University of Evora (Portugal); University of Helsinki (Finland); University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria); University of Rome La Sapienza (Italy); University of Warsaw (Poland); Vrie University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); WWF Central and Eastern Europe (Austria); WWF Romania and WWF Hungary. 

Contact:

Dr Piero Visconti
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Research Group Leader
Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation
Research Group Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program
Phone: +43 2236 807 427
Email: visconti@iiasa.ac.at

Dr Néstor Fernández (speaks English and Spanish)
Scientific Employee Biodiversity Conservation Group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 97 33229
Email: nestor.fernandez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/342.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by Natural History Museum London

Whilst climate change has rightly attracted attention for its catastrophic consequences for the natural world, it is currently only the fourth largest driver of biodiversity loss on land, followed by invasive alien species in fifth place. “This major new study, published during the COP27 climate summit, demonstrates clearly that fighting climate change alone will not be enough to prevent the further loss of biodiversity, and with it our future”, says Dr Nicolas Titeux, one of the two first authors. “The various direct drivers should be addressed with similar ambition as the climate crisis and as a whole.” Titeux currently works at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology but conducted the major part of the study at the UFZ with funding from iDiv.

Greenhouse gasses have been known to be the leading cause of the climate crisis for decades but just as important is understanding what is behind the enormous and rapid decline in species. A million species of animal and plant are threatened with extinction within the next few decades without significant countermeasures. Ecosystems worldwide are changing away from their natural condition, which means that they are increasingly unable to provide crucial ecosystem services for human well-being.

The authors of the study, led by Dr Pedro Jaureguiberry from UNC and Dr Nicolas Titeux, also found that climate change is already in second place as a direct driver of species loss in the oceans. Here, the exploitation of fish stocks plays the biggest role. However, based on current developments, the authors assume that the importance of climate change for species loss and the decline of ecosystem services will increase in the coming years and decades and move up in the ranking of direct drivers.

The authors of this study thus confirm and specify the facts that the Global Assessment of the World Biodiversity Council IPBES had already indicated in 2019. “Our publication shows the depth of the work, which was performed in the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), where only the main results could be shown”, says Josef Settele from UFZ and Co-chair of the Global Assessment of IPBES. “It indicates the profoundness of the IPBES work”. 

Need for nature-based solutions

This major study should be a game-changer for understanding how to tackle biodiversity loss. Jaureguiberry says: “Our study brings comprehensive and rigorous information on which drivers cause the most damage to biodiversity at multiple levels, from regions and realms to the different facets of biodiversity, highlighting the importance of each driver in particular contexts. Hopefully, this will contribute to a more holistic approach to generate more efficient policies to reverse biodiversity loss.”

In particular, the research demonstrates the need for a more holistic approach that will tackle the twin threats of climate and the biodiversity crisis together. Titeux points out that “The current global agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change can focus too narrowly on one driver, overlooking or, in the worst-case, undermining solutions for others”. 

Professor Andy Purvis, another co-author of the study, from the Natural History Museum in London, explains: “Climate change and biodiversity loss have been tackled largely separately, by different policies that haven't always considered the other problem. For example, biofuels are proposed as one way to get to net zero, but the expansion of plantations into natural forest that could result would be terrible for nature.” 

The paper also highlights some of the ‘nature-positive’ solutions that tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss such as large-scale restoration of natural forests and effective protection of coastal wetlands.

Andy Purvis adds:” I’d love for 'nature-positive' to get into the public consciousness as much as 'net zero' has. If future generations are going to have the same birthright we had of a liveable, supportive planet, then all parts of society will have to transition as quickly as possible to being both net zero and nature-positive.”

The research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Original Publication:
(iDiv-affiliated researchers and iDiv alumni bold)

Pedro Jaureguiberry, Nicolas Titeux, Martin Wiemers, Diana E. Bowler, Luca Coscieme, Abigail S. Golden, Carlos A. Guerra, Ute Jacob, Yasuo Takahashi, Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz, Zsolt Molnár, Andy Purvis (2022): The direct drivers of recent global anthropogenic biodiversity loss. Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm9982

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Josef Settele
Head of the Department of Conservation Biology & Social-Ecological Systems
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: josef.settele@ufz.de
Web: http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=38572

Dr Nicolas Titeux
Head of the Observatory for Climate, Environment and Biodiversity
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Formerly:
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: (+352) 275 888 5177
Email: nicolas.titeux@list.lu

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Plants need light to grow. However, due to excess nutrients and/or the absence of herbivores less light can reach lower vegetation layers in grasslands. Consequently, few fast-growing species dominate and plant diversity declines. So far, this relationship has been established indirectly through experiments, but never directly by means of experimentally adding light in the field. Now, an international team of researchers including scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), was able to experimentally prove the dominant role of light competition for the first time. The results have been published in Nature.

The team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Anu Eskelinen from the University of Oulu (Finland) used the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) at the UFZ research station in Bad Lauchstädt for their experiments. Scientists from UFZ, iDiv and various universities use the GCEF platform to study the influence of different climate models and land use intensities on plant community structure – specifically food webs and interactions between species.

Anu Eskulinen, who spent several years at the UFZ and iDiv as a visiting scientist, used a new experimental approach: the team directly illuminated the low-growing plants in the grassland with LED lamps, thus increasing the amount of light. In addition to this treatment, fertilisers were applied on some plots and grazing by sheep was used on others.

The experiment showed a sharp decline in species richness and biodiversity as a result of artificial fertilisation if the areas were not grazed at the same time. When the researchers added LED lamps, the loss of species richness was mitigated. Later, the researchers excluded sheep from half of the plots, which caused species richness and diversity do decline. At the same time, the total vegetation cover increased without grazing, which, in turn, reduced the light available to plants. Importantly, adding light to the understorey plants mitigated this loss of diversity. "These results suggest that herbivory is a dominant factor controlling competition for light and plant diversity," says first author Anu Eskelinen.

The research team believes that the results from the field trials should be taken into account for future grassland management and conservation policies. "Our results highlight the importance of conserving native herbivores and using sustainable grazing as a management measure," Anu Eskelinen further emphasises.

Prof. Dr Stan Harpole, co-author and head of the department of Physiological Diversity at UFZ and iDiv, adds: “This study highlights the value of carefully designed manipulative field experiments, which we need so we can strongly test the causes of diversity loss. We could only advance our understanding and test the theory in more realistic conditions because of the excellent infrastructure of the UFZ’s Global Change Experimental Facility and the support provided at the Bad Lauchstädt Research Station, and the cooperation with iDiv.”
 

This study was mainly funded by the Academy of Finland and UFZ.
 

Original publication
(Researcher with iDiv affiliation and alumni are in bold)

Eskelinen, A., Harpole, W.S., Jessen, M.-T., Virtanen, R., & Hautier, Y. Light competition drives herbivore and nutrient effects on plant diversity. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05383-9

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Stan Harpole
Head of Physiological Diversity
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
stan.harpole@idiv.de

Prof. Dr. Anu Eskelinen
University of Oulu (Finland)
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
anu.eskelinen@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Data gathered by habitat mapping programs can make important contributions to biodiversity research. They provide insight into changes of the local flora since the 1980s – a period that is covered by hardly any other sources of information. A team from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the Hamburg Authorities for the Environment, Climate, Energy and Agriculture has now shown how research can benefit from this historic habitat mapping data using habitat maps of the city and federal state of Hamburg as an example. Their results, which have been published in “Ecosphere”, also show a clear decline of species-rich habitats due to urbanization over the last decades.

In Germany, habitat mapping programs (Biotopkartierungen) have been carried out in almost every federal state since the 1980s. Similar sources exist in many other European countries. “The mapping programs are carried out by the authorities to obtain an overview of natural and semi-natural habitats for landscape planning and nature conservation,” says Lina Lüttgert from the Institute of Biology of MLU. These datasets contain comprehensive data on all habitats of the local flora and fauna. Often, they also include information on the plant species found in these areas. This makes the data interesting for research: „They can provide insight into the changes over the last decades. Also, we do not have any other systematic surveys on local diversity from that period,” says Lüttgert.

Together with a team from the Hamburg Authorities for the Environment, Climate, Energy and Agriculture, the researchers from Halle analyzed the habitat mapping data from Hamburg. Their analysis revealed, for example, decreases in area covered by species-rich (semi-)dry grasslands and increases in species-poor habitats. At the same time, human settlements have significantly increased. With the help of the habitat mapping data, the team was able to show that plant species adapted to certain habitats usually had a hard time colonizing other habitats.

According to the researchers, the trends revealed by the data from Hamburg are in line with findings from other regions in Germany and Europe. “In many places, we find that moderately common species are most threatened, while other more common species benefit from the habitat changes,” says Prof Dr Helge Bruelheide, professor for Geobotany at MLU and member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). According to Bruelheide, the study shows how biodiversity research can benefit from data sources that have, so far, hardly been used. “The data is buried in the archives of many authorities, but hold a great potential.”

The new study is an outcome of the project “sMon - Biodiversity Trends in Germany”, which is coordinated by iDiv and financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118). As part of this initiative, data on the development of biodiversity throughout Germany are being compiled and analysed. To this end, researchers are teaming up with public institutions and nature conservationists.

Original publication
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation are in bold)

Lina Lüttgert, Samuel Heisterkamp, Florian Jansen, Reinhard Klenke, Kerstin-Angelika Kreft, Gunnar Seidler, Helge Bruelheide. Repeated habitat mapping data reveal gains and losses of plant species. Ecosphere (2022). doi: 10.1002/ecs2.4244

Insecticides containing flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor can have devastating effects on honey bee health. The substances damage the insects’ intestinal flora, especially when used in conjunction with a common fungicide, making them more susceptible to disease and shortening their life span. This was recently proven in a study conducted at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and with participation of several members of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), as published in Science of the Total Environment. The two insecticides were considered harmless to bees and bumblebees when approved, but their use has since been severely restricted.

For the study, honey bees that were free from environmental influences were first bred in the laboratory. “We wanted to control every aspect of the bees’ lives – from their diet to their exposure to pathogens or pesticides”, says Dr Yahya Al Naggar, the biologist who led the project at MLU and who now works at Tanta University in Egypt. In the first few days, all bees were given the same food: sugar syrup. They were then divided into several groups and various pesticides were added to their food. One group was given flupyradifurone, while another was given sulfoxaflor. Both substances are approved insecticides in Germany, but their use is now limited to greenhouses.

As pesticides are often used as a mixture, the scientists also took this into account in their laboratory experiment by enriching the food administered to two other groups not only with the insecticides mentioned, but also with azoxystrobin, which has been used to protect plants from harmful fungi for many decades. The concentration of the substances was well below the legal requirements in each case. “Our approach was based on the realistic concentrations that might be found in pollen and nectar from plants that have been treated with the pesticides”, says Al Naggar. A control group continued to receive the normal sugar syrup without additives.

Over a period of ten days, the team observed whether the substances had any effects on the bees and, if so, what. They found that the pesticides are anything but harmless: Around half of all bees whose diet had been supplemented with flupyradifurone died during the study – and even more when combined with azoxystrobin. While sulfoxaflor produced similar effects, more insects survived the diet.

The scientists also analysed the bees’ intestinal flora, i.e. the bacteria and fungi living in their digestive tract. “The fungicide azoxystrobin led to a significant reduction in naturally occurring fungi. That was to be expected, as fungicides are used to control fungi”, says Dr Tesfaye Wubet from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), who is also a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). Over the course of the ten-day study, however, the team was able to show that the mixture of fungi and bacteria detected in the insects differed greatly from the control group depending on the substances used. According to the researchers, the bacterium Serratia marcescens was able to spread alarmingly well in the digestive tract of the treated insects. “These bacteria are pathogenic and harmful to bees’ health. They can make it harder for the insects to fight off infection, leading to premature death”, explains Al Naggar.

As the study was conducted in a laboratory in Halle to exclude the number of external influences, it is unclear whether the same results can be found in nature. “The effects of the pesticides could well be even more dramatic – or the bees might be able to fully or at least partially compensate for the negative effects”, concludes Wubet. With this in mind, the team calls for the potential effects of new pesticides on beneficial insects to be researched more rigorously before they are approved and for their effects on aspects such as intestinal flora to be included as standard in the risk assessment.

The study was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation with additional support via the EU-funded project “Poshbee”.

Original Publication:
(Researcher with iDiv affiliation bold)

Al Naggar Y., Singavarapu B., Paxton R.J. & Wubet T.. Bees under interactive stressors: the novel insecticides flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor along with the fungicide azoxystrobin disrupt the gut microbiota of honey bees and increase opportunistic bacterial pathogens. Science of the Total Environment (2022). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157941

Contact:

Dr. Tesfaye Wubet
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Phone: +49 345 558 5204
E-mail: tesfaye.wubet@ufz.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Intergrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig. With high nutrient inputs in grasslands, more plant species get lost over longer periods of time than new ones can establish. In addition, fewer new species settle than under natural nutrient availability. With a worldwide experiment, researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have now been able to show why additional nutrient inputs reduce plant diversity in grasslands. Another finding was that the increase in biomass with nutrient inputs is due to a few plant species that can use higher nutrient inputs to their advantage and remain successfully at a site over long periods of time. The results have been published in the journal Ecology Letters. 

One of the reasons for the global threat to biodiversity is that we humans introduce more nutrients into our environment than would naturally be present there, for example, when fertilising agricultural land. In addition, precipitation re-distributes excess nutrients to other areas, and nutrients can also enter our soils through air pollution.  

Natural grasslands are a habitat for many different plant species including grasses, herbs, wildflowers and orchids, many of which can be threatened by human activities and impacts. Plants need three things to grow: carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air, water and nutrients from the soil. The latter are usually scarce in semi-natural European meadows. Although this limits the growth of individual plants, it favours the possibility of many different species growing side by side. Excessive amounts of nutrients, however, create the image that is ubiquitous in our landscape today: lush green meadows but without the colourful flowers of former times. 

It has long been known that excess nutrients reduce biodiversity, but until now the process behind it has been unclear. Researchers from iDiv, UFZ and MLU have now investigated the causes of this phenomenon in collaboration with a large international team. To do this, they recorded the plant species community on fertilised and unfertilised grassland in experiments at 59 sites on six continents over a period of 13 years.

“The composition of plant species in grasslands always varies slightly; that is quite normal,” says Dr Emma Ladouceur, lead author of the study and a scientist at iDiv and UFZ. “For some species, the conditions in one year are not optimal, and they can only produce a few seeds, or no new plants emerge from them. On the other hand, other species whose seeds were already in the soil or were carried in by wind or animals can germinate. Through these processes, different species occupy new spaces in natural areas. The higher the species diversity, the higher the probability that species adapted to the living conditions are present and are providing ecosystem services humans depend on.”

With high nutrient inputs, more species get lost and less new species arrive

As expected, this experiment also consistently showed a decline in species on the nutrient-enriched plots through time. In order to be able to attribute the observations to changes in plant species, the scientists divided the plant communities into three categories: Species that were permanently present at a site over the entire study period, species that disappeared, and those that newly arrived. 

The analyses showed that on the one hand, more species got lost in the fertilised areas than in the unfertilised grasslands during the study period; on the other hand, fewer new species arrived during this time. The species composition also changed in the unfertilised areas. However, losses and gains were balanced out here - the number of species remained constant in total. 

In addition, the researchers recorded the aboveground biomass produced. As expected, the biomass of the harvested plants was higher on the fertilised trial plots than on the unfertilised ones, observable in the first year of experiments. About 60 % of this increase was due to plant species that were permanently present at a site. The remaining 40 % of the biomass was produced by newly added species, although fewer new species were added each year than on the unfertilised experimental plots. 

Study provides valuable information for practical nature conservation 

“Our results show that when unnaturally large amounts of nutrients are present, a few species benefit particularly,” says Emma Ladouceur. “Many other not-so-competitive species fall by the wayside - we lose them, and new species have a hard time establishing and taking hold.”

“Our study makes a significant contribution to better understanding the effects of unnatural nutrient inputs on our biodiversity,” says senior author Prof Stanley Harpole, head of the Physiological Diversity Research Group at UFZ, iDiv and MLU. With their study, the researchers are also providing valuable information for practical nature conservation. “For nature conservation areas next to an agricultural area, it is important to know how the run-off of nutrients affects the semi-natural ecosystem so that targeted measures can then be taken to protect it,” says Harpole.

The study was conducted within the framework of the international research network NutNet (Nutrient Network), founded in 2005, and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; FZT-118), among others. The experimental sites are distributed over six continents (two sites in Asia, four in Africa). 

Tabea Turrini/Sebastian Tilch

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold).

Emma Ladouceur, Shane A. Blowes, Jonathan M. Chase, Adam T. Clark, Magda Garbowski, …, Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer, …, Christiane Roscher, … & W. Stanley Harpole  (2022): Linking changes in species composition and biomass in a globally distributed grassland experiment. Ecology Letters. DOI: 10.1111/ele.14126

This article has earned Open Data and Open Materials badges. Data and materials are available at: DOI: 10.6073/pasta/293faff7ed2e287b56e85796c87c3e4b.

More information about the Nutrient Network project:
www.nutnet.org

Contact:

Dr Emma Ladouceur
Scientist in the Physiological Diversity & Biodiversity Synthesis Research Groups
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733255
Email: emma.ladouceur@idiv.de

Prof Dr Stan Harpole
Head of department Physiological Diversity
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 9733171
Email: stan.harpole@idiv.de

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Leipzig. Missing knowledge in the global distribution of plant traits could be filled with data from species identification apps. Researchers from Leipzig University, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and other institutions were able to demonstrate this based on data from the popular iNaturalist app. Supplemented with data on plant traits, iNaturalist input results in considerably more precise maps than previous approaches based on extrapolation from limited databases. Among other things, the new maps provide an improved basis for understanding plant-environment interactions and for Earth system modelling. The study has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. 

Nature and climate are mutually dependent. Plant growth is absolutely dependent on climate, but this is, in turn, strongly influenced by plants, such as in a forest, which evaporates a lot of water. In order to be able to make accurate predictions about how the living world may develop, extensive knowledge of the characteristics of the vegetation at the different locations is necessary, for example, leaf surface size, tissue properties and plant height. However, such data usually have to be recorded manually by professional scientists in a painstaking, time-consuming process. Consequently, the available worldwide plant trait data are very sparse and cover only certain regions. 

The TRY database, managed by iDiv and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, currently provides such data on plant traits for almost 280,000 plant species. This makes it one of the most comprehensive databases for plant characteristics mapping in the world. Up to now, global maps of plant traits have been created using extrapolations (estimation beyond the original observation range) from this geographically limited database. However, the resulting maps are not particularly reliable.

In order to fill large data gaps, the Leipzig researchers have now taken a different approach. Instead of extrapolating existing trait data geographically from the TRY database, they have linked it to the vast dataset from the citizen science project iNaturalist.

With iNaturalist, users of the associated smartphone app share their observations of nature, providing species names, photos and geolocation. In this way, more than 19 million data points have been recorded, worldwide, for terrestrial plants alone. The data also feeds the world's largest biodiversity database, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This is accessible to the public and also serves as an important database for biodiversity research.

In order to test the accuracy of the maps based on the combination of iNaturalist observations and TRY plant traits, they were compared to the plant trait evaluations based on sPlotOpen; the iDiv sPlot platform is the world's largest archive of plant community data. It contains nearly two million datasets with complete lists of plant species which occur in the locations (plots) studied by professional researchers. The database is also enhanced with plant trait data from the TRY database.

The conclusion: The new iNaturalist-based map corresponded to the sPlot data map significantly more closely than previous map products based on extrapolation. “That the new maps, based on the citizen science data, seem to be even more precise than the extrapolations was both surprising and impressive,” says first author Sophie Wolf, a doctoral researcher at Leipzig University. “Particularly because iNaturalist and our reference sPlotOpen are very different in structure.”

“Our study convincingly demonstrates the potential for research into voluntary data,” says last author, Dr Teja Kattenborn from Leipzig University and iDiv. “It is encouraging to make increasing use of the synergies between the combined data from thousands of citizens and professional scientists.”

“This work is the result of an initiative of the National Research Data Infrastructure for Biodiversity Research (NFDI4Biodiversity), with which we are pushing for a change in culture towards the open provision of data,” says co-author Prof Miguel Mahecha, head of the working group Modelling Approaches in Remote Sensing at Leipzig University and iDiv. “The free availability of data is an absolute prerequisite for a better understanding of our planet.”

The study was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118) and Future Earth/bioDISCOVERY .

Sebastian Tilch 

Original publication: 
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Wolf, S., Mahecha, M. D., Sabatini, F. M., Wirth, C., Bruelheide, B., Kattge, J., Moreno Martınez, A., Mora, K. & Kattenborn, T. (2022): Citizen science plant observations encode global trait patterns, Nature Ecology & Evolution, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01904-x

Contact:

Sophie Wolf
PhD student
Leipzig University
Email: sophie.wolf@uni-leipzig.de

Dr Teja Kattenborn
Leipzig University
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Email: teja.kattenborn@uni-leipzig.de

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)

It’s a weird paradox: While global biodiversity is lost at an alarming rate, at the local level, many studies are finding no significant decreases in animal and plant species numbers. “However, this doesn’t mean that the developments are not worrying,” warns Prof Helge Bruelheide, an ecologist at MLU and iDiv. After all, it also depends on which species we are talking about. For example, if survival artists that are specially adapted to peatlands or dry grasslands are displaced by common plants, the number of species often remains, in total, the same. However, diversity is still being lost because the once very distinct vegetation of different habitats is now becoming more and more similar.

To find out how strong this trend is in Germany, the team led by MLU and iDiv looked at a multitude of local studies. Numerous experts provided data from more than 7,700 plots whose plant populations were surveyed between 1927 and 2020. These studies, some of which have not been published before, cover a wide range of habitats and provide information on nearly 1,800 plant species. This includes about half of all the vascular plant species that grow in Germany. “Such time series can provide very valuable information,” explains Dr Ute Jandt from MLU and iDiv. This is because very precise botanical censuses can be conducted in plots that are often only ten or twenty square metres in size. “It is highly unlikely that plants disappear or reappear unnoticed in such plots,” Jandt adds.

An analysis of the data shows a negative abundance trend for 1,011 of the species studied and a positive trend for 719. In other words, there have been 41 per cent more losers than winners over the last hundred years. “Even more surprising is that the losses were distributed much more evenly,” says Bruelheide. The team discovered this using the Gini coefficient, which is usually used to analyse the distribution of income and property. The index shows, for example, that in many countries across the globe, a small number of rich people are getting richer while the vast number of the poor are getting poorer. Germany’s plant world is seeing a very similar trend: the losses are more evenly distributed among the many losers, while the gains are concentrated among fewer winners.

The latter group includes, for instance, the black cherry and the northern red oak, both of which originated in North America but have now also taken over many forests in Germany. The frost-sensitive European holly has also gained more and more ground in the course of climate change. The large camp of losers, on the other hand, consists of many types of agricultural weeds such as the cornflower, meadow species such as the small scabious, and wetland specialists such as the devil’s bit.

According to the study, the strongest imbalance between gains and losses occurred between the late 1960s and the early 21st century. “This phase started with the strong intensification of land use. Since then, however, there have been successful nature conservation measures that have weakened the still ongoing negative trend to a certain degree,” says Bruelheide.

No one knows yet whether this also applies to other regions of the Earth. That is why the team advocates collecting and evaluating similar datasets from around the world. This uneven distribution of gains and losses can be taken as an early warning sign of biodiversity changes which will ultimately lead to the extinction of species.

The new study is an outcome of the project “sMon - Biodiversity Trends in Germany”, which is coordinated by iDiv and financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118). As part of this initiative, data on the development of biodiversity throughout Germany are being compiled and analysed. To this end, researchers are teaming up with public institutions and nature conservationists.

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Ute Jandt, Helge Bruelheide, ..., Aletta Bonn, Volker Grescho, Reinhard A. Klenke, Francesco Maria Sabatini, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, ..., Jürgen Dengler, ..., Sylvia Haider, ..., Martin Lindner, ..., Christiane Roscher, ..., Karsten Wesche, ... & Monika Wulf (2022): More losses than gains during one century of plant biodiversity change in Germany. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05320-w

The dataset this new Nature study is based on was also recently published in Scientific Data and is available to anyone interested: Jandt U., Bruelheide H. et al. ReSurveyGermany: Vegetation-plot time-series over the past hundred years in Germany. Scientific Data (2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01688-6

Contact:

Dr Ute Jandt
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49-345-5526287
Email: ute.jandt@botanik.uni-halle.de

Prof Helge Bruelheide
Professor for Geobotany
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49-345 5526222
Email: helge.bruelheide@botanik.uni-halle.de
Web: http://www.botanik.uni-halle.de/geobotanik/helge_bruelheide/

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by the University of Vienna

The global redistribution of ‘alien species’, i.e. species originally not native in a specific geographic region, is closely linked to human movement which accelerated with the onset of European exploration and colonialism in the late 15th century. Back then, European powers introduced species mainly for economic reasons in order to ensure the survival of their population and to foster the establishment of settlements, next to aesthetic and nostalgic reasons. In particular, many plant species were introduced to and from the colonized regions for food, fodder or horticulture and have, over time, established ‘alien floras’ in these regions.

The longer a region was occupied by an empire, the more similar the alien floras

“The European empires restrictive trade policies ensured that plants were predominantly traded between regions occupied by the same power. Hence, the set of species exchanged between regions was restricted to the extent of the empire, and consequently, the regions became more similar in their floras compared to outside regions – a process that intensified with the length of time a region was occupied by the empire”, says the lead author of the study Bernd Lenzner from the University of Vienna. The study shows that this process is equally important as other drivers of the spread of alien species, such as socio-economic development or population density in a region, that explain how alien plant species are distributed today.

Strategic and economic importance of a region increases floristic similarity

Furthermore, regions that played an important economic or strategic role in the empires show even greater similarity in their alien floras compared to all other regions of an empire. Such regions include, for example, former trade hubs like regions in the Indo-Malay Archipelago that were crucial for the international spice trade. Similarly, this also applies to islands like the Azores or St. Helena, which were both important stopover destinations on long trans-oceanic voyages. The researchers state that dependencies based on historic European empires prevail to this day, manifested, for example, in the existence of overseas territories or common languages between regions of the world that still shape preferential trade and hence the exchange of alien plant species.

“With this study, we have successfully shown that the effects of human activity, in this case, the planting of alien plants, can be seen within the same colonies for centuries to come. can still be seen for centuries in today's floras,” says Dr co-author Marten Winter from iDiv. “Human colonisation has in some cases drastically altered ecosystems”.

The full impact of human actions on alien floras will only be observed in the future

The scientists emphasize that understanding the past is essential to draw lessons for the future: “We knew that it may take decades for alien species to establish and spread within a region they have been introduced to and that this process often unfolds with a substantial delay”, says the senior author of the study Dr Franz Essl from the University of Vienna. “However, it is remarkable to be able to detect such legacies after several decades, sometimes even centuries, after the collapse of European empires. This shows that we need to be very careful and aware of which species we move around the globe, as they will likely have lasting impacts on biodiversity and human livelihoods far into the future”.

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Lenzner, B., Latombe, G., Schertler, A., Seebens, H., 3, Yang, Q., Winter, M., Weigelt, P., van Kleunen, M., Pyšek, P., Pergl, P., Kreft, H., Dawson, W., Dullinger, S., & Essl, F. (2022): Naturalized alien floras still carry the legacy of European colonialism. Nature Ecology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01865-1.

Contact:

Dr Marten Winter
Head of sDiv (Synthesis Centre of iDiv)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733129
Email: marten.winter@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/sdiv

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Halle, Leipzig, Seville. Current protected areas only poorly cover the places most relevant for conserving soil ecological values. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature. To assess global hotspots for preserving soil ecological values, an international team of scientists measured different dimensions of soil biodiversity (local species richness and uniqueness) and ecosystem services (like water regulation or carbon storage). They found that these dimensions peaked in contrasting regions of the world. For instance, temperate ecosystems showed higher local soil biodiversity (species richness), while colder ecosystems were identified as hotspots of soil ecosystem services. In addition, the results suggest that tropical and arid ecosystems hold the most unique communities of soil organisms. Soil ecological values are often overlooked in nature conservation management and policy decisions; the new study, published in Nature, demonstrates where efforts to protect them are needed most.

Soils are a world of their own, hidden beneath our feet and bursting with life. They are home to billions of earthworms, nematodes, insects, fungi, bacteria and many other organisms. And yet, we are hardly aware of these organisms or their profound impacts on ecosystems. Without soils, there would be little life on land and surely no humans. In fact, most of the food we consume depends directly or indirectly on soil fertility. However, soils are also vulnerable to climate and land-use change. To better conserve soil ecological values, we must know where their protection is needed most. For plants and animals living above the soil, hotspots of biodiversity were identified decades ago. However, no such assessment was or could be made for soil ecological values until now.

First global assessment considering multiple soil ecological values

In the journal Nature, a team of international scientists led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), and Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS) has published the first global estimate of hotspots for conserving soil ecological values. They conducted an impressive global field survey including more than 10,000 observations of biodiversity (invertebrates, fungi, protists, bacteria, and archaea) and of indicators for ecosystem services within 615 soil samples from all continents. They combined these observations to assess three soil ecological dimensions: (1) local species richness, (2) biodiversity uniqueness, and (3) ecosystem services (like water regulation or carbon storage).

Soil ecological values peak in contrasting regions of the planet

The results show that each of the three dimensions peaked in different regions of the planet. For instance, temperate ecosystems showed the highest local soil species richness, while biodiversity uniqueness peaked in arid ecosystems and the tropics. First author Dr Carlos Guerra explains: “When you dig into a European soil, for instance, in a forest, you will find many different species in one single spot. When you go to a forest some kilometres further, while different, you will find similar species. Not so in the tropics, where a few kilometres can mean completely different communities.” Guerra started working on the project at iDiv and MLU and is now affiliated with iDiv and Leipzig University. Unlike the two dimensions involving biodiversity, ecosystem services – the third dimension assessed – typically peaked in the colder high-latitudinal ecosystems.

Hotspots for soil nature conservation identified

The contrasting spatial patterns found for the three different dimensions demonstrate how complex it is to protect all three of them at once. “It is much more challenging than for plants and mammals, where there is usually a better spatial match of the different dimensions,” says Carlos Guerra. “When it comes to protecting soils, we should probably not focus on locally maximising all soil ecological dimensions at the same time but rather on integrated approaches that highlight the local potential.” Despite these difficulties, the researchers were able to identify ecosystem hotspots that should have the highest priority for soil nature conservation. These hotspots were located mainly in the tropics, in North America, in Northern Europe, and in Asia.

Prioritising soil nature conservation in international policies

The researchers compared these priority hotspots to those areas that are already protected. They found that half of the hotspots identified are currently not under any form of nature conservation. “Protected areas have been selected mostly for conserving plants, birds or mammals,” says senior author Dr Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo from the Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla. “We need to include soils, their biodiversity and services in our perspective. Therefore, governments and decision-makers need to set soil nature conservation as a priority in the context of the international negotiations for the 2030 biodiversity targets.” The new study may prove helpful here as it demonstrates where soil nature conservation efforts are needed the most.

This research was financed inter alia by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; FZT-118).

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Guerra, C. A., … Eisenhauer, N., … Delgado-Baquerizo, M. (2022). Global hotspots for soil nature conservation. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05292-x

Contact:

Dr Carlos António Guerra
(speaks English, Portuguese, and Spanish)
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33174
Email: carlos.guerra@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/474.html

Dr Volker Hahn
(speaks English and German)
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

On 29 September 2022, the iDiv administrator networking event iDay took place at the iDiv Core Centre and the Botanical Gardens Leipzig. For the third time, the Central Services team invited colleagues from the administrations of iDiv’s four hosting institutions – Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ. Following a discourse on administrative topics, in particular critical tasks surrounding the iDiv permanency post-2024, guests were able to get a glimpse of select research projects of various iDiv working groups as well as a tour of the new iDiv Core Centre. In the evening, participants joined at the Botanical Gardens Leipzig for a networking get-together and viewed iDiv’s high-tech research greenhouse, which is in operation since 2021.

iDiv Managing Director Sabine Matthiä on the event: “Due to the complexity and the many special features that the administration of a centre operated in three locations and across federal state lines entails, iDay has become particularly important for fostering exchange and networking between administrators as well as for sharpening a common understanding and joint sense of ownership for iDiv.”

Leipzig. Tropical deforestation causes widespread degradation of biodiversity and carbon stocks. Researchers from the German Center of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Leipzig University were now able to test the relationship between land tenure and deforestation rates in Brazil. Their research, which was published in Nature Communications, shows that poorly defined land rights go hand in hand with increased deforestation rates. Privatising these lands, as is often promoted in the tropics, can only mitigate this effect if combined with strict environmental policies.

Forestlands in Brazil harbor the world’s largest biodiversity and carbon stores. However, increasing pressure from ambitious agroeconomic development leads to widespread deforestation. Land-tenure governs how and by whom land can be used. Therefore, specific land-tenure changes such as privatizing lands or placing them under environmental protection can both have implications for forests. 

Researchers from iDiv and Leipzig University have now analysed 33 years (1985-2018) of agriculture-driven deforestation across Brazilian forestlands. With the help of property-level data, they were able to compare six land-tenure regimes (undesignated/untitled, private, strictly protected and sustainable-use protected areas, indigenous, and “quilombola” lands held by Afro-Brazilian communities) and to draw conclusions on how these regimes affect deforestation.

Lands with poorly defined tenure rights increase deforestation

Publicly owned lands with poorly defined tenure rights clearly and consistently increased deforestation compared to all other alternatives. These lands that are neither titled nor designated to any use, but may be inhabited by rural settlers with little-to-no guaranteed property rights, account for almost one hundred million hectares in Brazil. 

“High deforestation rates in these lands may have many reasons”, explains first author Andrea Pacheco, former researcher at iDiv and now working at the University of Bonn. “For example, the government may simply not have the capacity to effectively monitor on-the-ground deforestation in these lands, resulting in limited enforcement of illegal deforestation here. This, in turn, can attract speculators who clear forest to later claim use rights. Alternatively, poor landless settlers may feel forced to illegally clear these lands for agriculture, if prices on legal land markets are too high for them.”

“This is why land-tenure interventions on these lands are so important. Our study shows that whatever alternative tenure regime with well-defined rights and regulations is implemented, it would likely help reduce this deforestation”, adds last author Dr Carsten Meyer from iDiv and UL. 

Private regimes can be effective if associated with strict environmental policy

“Privatizing undesignated and untitled lands can be highly effective as a means to reduce deforestation, but only under certain conditions and if associated with strict environmental policies. If this is not the case, deforestation may actually increase”, warns Carsten Meyer. One example for such environmental policies is the Forest Code in the Amazon, which requires landowners to maintain 80% of their land under native vegetation.

However, across very different contexts, private regimes tend to decrease deforestation less effectively and less reliably than alternative well-defined regimes. The researchers showed that both strictly protected areas and sustainable-use protected areas most reliably reduced deforestation rates across Brazil. 

They also showed that the effects of tenure held by indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) were dependent on the context. Nonetheless, privatizing IPLC lands would likely increase the risk of deforestation across Brazil. “As much of the world’s remaining forestlands are in IPLC lands, taking local contexts into account will be essential for designing policies with synergies for both biodiversity conservation and IPLCs”, says Andrea Pacheco.

The imperative need for policies that tackle undefined and private lands

Against the backdrop of the ongoing political debate in Brazil around land privatisation and protection in tropical landscapes, this study can be used to envisage policy aligned with sustainable development goals. The results show that, first and foremost, interventions in undesignated/untitled lands should be at the forefront of land-related policies in Brazil. In addition, coupling private lands with strict environmental policies has the potential to protect biodiversity in places like the Cerrado or Pantanal, where most of Brazil’s remaining forestlands are private.

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation as part of the iDiv research platform sPlot (DFG FZT 118, 202548816).

Kati Kietzmann

Original publication

(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Andrea Pacheco, Carsten Meyer (2022): Land tenure drives Brazil’s deforestation rates across socio-environmental contexts. Nature Communications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33398-3 

Contact:

Andrea Pacheco
Institute for Food and Resource Economics
University of Bonn
Email: andrea.pacheco@ilr.uni-bonn.de

Dr Carsten Meyer
Head of Junior Research Group Macroecology and Society
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 9733238
Email: carsten.meyer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/371.html

Kati Kietzmann
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9739222
Email: kati.kietzmann@idiv.de

Based on a media release of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain (CSIC)

Humans are both witnesses to and drivers of biodiversity loss on the planet. Populations of numerous species are dwindling and disappearing from many places. “The knowledge we have of these declines comes from comparing indices that describe the distribution and abundance of species over time,” explains Dr Miguel Clavero, researcher at the EBD-CSIC and lead author of the paper. “However, the data needed to calculate these indices have only very recently started to be collected, while the impacts of human activities have been occurring for centuries. For this reason, perceptions of recent declines and the supposed ‘expansion’ of some species may be a mere thumbnail of actual declines. 

The wolf was present in all provinces

The geographical dictionary edited by Pascual Madoz in the mid-19th century was a titanic collective effort, with more than 1,400 participants, who described every Spanish population centre and geographical feature. Wild animal species are among the elements often included in the descriptions, mainly those considered useful – those hunted or fished, or harmful - wolves and other carnivores. The team responsible for this study reviewed more than 11,000 pages of the dictionary to compile and locate on the map over 1,500 mentions of the wolf, distributed throughout all the provinces of mainland Spain. 

According to Dr Néstor Fernández, researcher at iDiv and MLU and co-author of the study, “this information is very interesting in itself, but the historical distribution of the wolf cannot be derived directly from it.” The reason is that historical species accounts are typically very incomplete, so for many places, the fact that the wolf is not mentioned cannot be taken for its absence. To solve this problem, the research team developed mathematical models that described the relationship between historical species records and human pressures such as agriculture and population density. They then estimated the distribution of the wolf in Spain in the mid-19th century. “These models allow us to estimate the probability that the wolf was present in all the Iberian Peninsula, including areas where there is a lack of historical data,” says Fernández. 

The results showed that wolves occupied more than 317,000 km2, that is, more than 65% of the surface area of mainland Spain. According to Dr Fernández, this figure puts the magnitude of the wolf decline in full perspective. “Comparing the current situation with the historical distribution, the area occupied today would represent just over 30% of the historical area reached in the middle of the 19th century.”

The current “expansion” of the wolf

The distribution of the wolf in Spain reached a minimum around 1980. Since then, the species has recolonised some areas, although the estimated number of groups has remained practically unchanged. These recent changes have sometimes been interpreted as an expansion of wolf numbers, and several voices have called for the need for population control through culling. In contrast, the recent inclusion of the wolf in the Spanish List of Protected Wild Species imposes strong limitations on such controls. “In such a confrontational situation, it is very important to have a historical perspective on the conservation status of wolves taking long-term extinctions into consideration, not only the partial recovery of the species in recent years,” says Fernández. This recently published work shows that the analysis of historical documents combined with modern surveys provides a more complete understanding of species conservation trends.

Urs Moesenfechtel


Original Publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation in bold)

Clavero, M., García-Reyes, A., Fernández-Gil, A., Revilla, E., Fernández, N. (2022): Where wolves were: setting historical baselines for wolf recovery in Spain. Animal Conservation. DOI: 10.1111/acv.12814

This media release is also available in Spanish.

Contact:

Dr Néstor Fernández (speaks English and Spanish)
Scientific Employee Biodiversity Conservation Group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 97 33229
Email: nestor.fernandez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/342.html

Dr Miguel Clavero (speaks English and Spanish)
Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, Seville, Spain
Email: miguelito.clavero@gmail.com
Web: http://www.ebd.csic.es/personal?p_p_id=187&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-3&p_p_col_count=1&_187_tabs1=users&_187_p_u_i_d=419096&_187_struts_action=%2F187%2Fview_user

Urs Moesenfechtel, M.A. (speaks English and German)
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733106
Email: urs.moesenfechtel@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1464.html

Based on a media release from Philipps-Universität Marburg.

This text is only available in German.

Contact:

Prof Dr Alexander Zizka (speaks English and German)
Biodiversity of plants lab
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Evolution and Adaptation
sDiv - Synthesis Centre
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 6421 28 24495
Email: alexander.zizka@biologie.uni-marburg.de

Urs Moesenfechtel, MA (speaks German, English)
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733106
Email: urs.moesenfechtel@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/media

Based on a media release by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

In their study, the team analysed a dataset of around 170,000 vegetation images from all of the Earth’s climate zones. The data included information on all of the plant species found at a location and the coordinates of the respective area under study. The data was taken from the globally unique vegetation database “sPlot”, which is located at iDiv.

“Most studies on global biodiversity are conducted on a relatively large scale, for example, at a state or provincial scale. We wanted to find out how much results differ when smaller areas are examined,” says Professor Helge Bruelheide from MLU and iDiv. The team used artificial intelligence to investigate, among other things, the relationship between the number of plant species and the size of the area under study. 

Their investigation showed that there are regions on Earth where focusing on large study areas only provides a limited understanding of the distribution of biodiversity: sometimes, small areas can have relatively high biodiversity, for example, in the steppes of Eastern Europe, in Siberia and in the Alpine countries of Europe. At fine spatial scales, the large difference in biodiversity between the tropics, like the Amazon, and the temperate climate zones nearly disappears. 

The same applies to the African tropics, which were previously considered an exception in the tropical plant world. “The tropics have always been among the most biodiverse areas in the world. We wondered why this shouldn’t also apply to Western Africa,” explains Dr Francesco Maria Sabatini, who led the study at MLU and iDiv and is now an assistant professor at the University of Bologna. In fact, the distribution of plant species varies greatly in the African tropics, says Sabatini. These species are distributed over very large distances so that they are not always recorded when a small sampling area is examined. “To correctly recognize the high biodiversity in Western Africa, many small areas are required,” adds Sabatini. 

The study also shows that the spatial scale at which other very biodiverse areas are examined, such as the Cerrado savanna region in Brazil or regions in Southeast Asia, is irrelevant. These results are also important when it comes to protecting species. “Ecosystems whose high biodiversity is spread out over a large area cannot be protected through the traditional patchwork of nature reserves. In contrast, ecosystems that have high biodiversity within a small area could benefit well from several distinct protected zones,” concludes Bruelheide.
 

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation as part of the iDiv research platform sPlot (DFG FZT 118, 202548816).

Original Publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Sabatini, F. M., Jiménez-Alfaro, B., Jandt, U., … Haider, S., … Kambach, S., … Wesche, K., Bruelheide, H. (2022): Global patterns of vascular plant alpha diversity. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32063-z

Contact:

Dr Francesco Maria Sabatini
Coordinator of sPlot – The Global Vegetation Database
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
(formerly affiliated with German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig)
Phone: +49 345 5526199
Email: francesco.sabatini@botanik.uni-halle.de
Web: https://www.botanik.uni-halle.de/geobotanik/francesco_sabatini/

Prof Helge Bruelheide
Professor for Geobotany
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49-345 5526222
Email: helge.bruelheide@botanik.uni-halle.de
Web: http://www.botanik.uni-halle.de/geobotanik/helge_bruelheide/

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig/Jena/Bonn. How effective is biodiversity conservation of European and African national parks? This seems to be strongly associated with societal and economic conditions. But even under the most favourable conditions, conservation efforts cannot completely halt emerging threats to biodiversity if conditions outside of the parks do not improve. This is the conclusion of a new study led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig University, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and many other institutions. The study published in the journal Nature Sustainability highlights the urgent need for a better design of national park networks.

Despite commendable conservation efforts and investments by governments, NGOs and international as well as national conservation agencies, biodiversity continues to decline across the globe. One of the key strategies to halt biodiversity decline is the establishment of protected areas like national parks, which are supposed to provide favourable conditions for biodiversity to remain stable.

Species declines are strongly associated with Human Development Index

An international research team led by iDiv, MPI-EVA, and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the UFZ, Leipzig University, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and many other institutions has now investigated the biodiversity conservation effectiveness of 114 national parks in 25 countries in Africa and Europe on the basis of changes in abundances of 464 mammal and bird species. Within the surveyed ten-year period from 2007 to 2017, they found that the effectiveness of the 66 African and 48 European parks strongly depended on the respective local and national economic and societal conditions - which are reflected in the Human Development Index (HDI). A likely explanation is that resource demand from national parks is higher and less regulated when the HDI is low, making the parks less effective. The parks located in countries with highest HDI values showed average declines in species abundance of about 10% compared to more than 25% in parks located in countries with lowest HDI.

 National parks do not guarantee 100% protection

“But we also found that seemingly effective national parks embedded in favourable socioeconomic context (such as high HDI) are not necessarily a generic solution for ideal national park management”, says lead author Dr Tsegaye Gatiso, researcher at the University of Bonn and iDiv. “Finally, no socioeconomic conditions and no set of currently implemented conservation measures can guarantee the elimination of threats to biodiversity. Species may still decline in the same national park under less favourable conditions because protected areas are an inseparable part of a dynamic, complex social-ecological system.”

Better design of national parks network needed

The researchers, therefore, conclude that a marginal gap to fully effective national parks remains. A critical need is an improved design of the national park network and associated management to reduce threats and make it ecologically functional. Concerted actions that include expanding the national park network, establishing corridors between protected areas to facilitate the dispersal of species between them, and, very importantly, improving conditions for biodiversity outside national parks are the most critical elements to halt biodiversity loss.

"Many national parks have become 'islands in a desert of industrial agriculture, forestry and infrastructure'. The poor ecological conditions outside national parks reduce the species' abundance. After all, they do not orient their distribution areas to national park boundaries set by humans. If they are then exposed to a variety of negative living conditions outside the parks, this also affects their abundance inside the parks," adds the study's senior author, Dr Hjalmar Kühl, a scientist at iDiv and MPI-EVA. "It is therefore important that the ecological conditions outside the parks are significantly improved. Protected areas, and especially national parks, are sensors for the state of our planet's biodiversity. The lack of effectiveness of observed parks must be taken very seriously, and we must make great efforts to significantly improve the network of protected areas in terms of its ecological functionality."

Urs Moesenfechtel

The study was funded by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) (DFG FZT 118, 202548816; T.T.G. and H.S.K.) and the Robert Bosch Foundation (grant number 32.5.8043.0016.0; H.S.K.).

Original Publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Gatiso, T. T., Kulik, L., Bachmann, M., Bonn, A., Bösch, L., Eirdosh, D., Freytag, A., Hanisch, S., Heurich, M., Sop, T., Wesche, K., Winter, M., Kühl, H. S. (2022). Effectiveness of protected areas influenced by socio-economic context. Nature Sustainability. DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-00932-6

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00932-6#citeas

Contact:

Dr Tsegaye Tagesse Gatiso (speaks English)
University of Bonn – ILR research group Economics of Sustainable Land Use and Bioeconomy
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 228 732325
Email: tsegaye.gatiso@ilr.uni-bonn.de
Web: https://www.ilr.uni-bonn.de/eslu/staff/gatiso/gatiso_e.htm

Dr Hjalmar Kühl
Head of Junior Research Group ‘Evolutionary and Anthropocene Ecology’
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA)
Phone: +49 (0) 341 973 9 160
Email: hjalmar.kuehl@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/21.html

Urs Moesenfechtel, M.A. (speaks English and German)
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733106
Email: urs.moesenfechtel@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1464.html

If you want to find out which places are close to Quito, you search on Google Maps. If, on the other hand, you want to find out which animals are taxonomically close to the meerkat, you can search on LifeGate. LifeGate is a new interactive map, but it is a taxonomic rather than a geographic map: when you zoom in, you see photos of a species’ closest relative, whether it is the meerkat or any of the other 2.6 million known species. When you zoom out, you see which group (taxon) the species you are looking at belongs to, and which other groups it is related to. The meerkat, for example, belongs to the mongoose family, which is closely related to civets and genets, among other things. 

The diversity of life in one map 

The online platform LifeGate displays the full diversity of life in a single interactive map. With 420,000 photos already available, the underlying database contains 12 million; from the microscopic paramecium to the giant panda. There are a lot of photos of some species, but none, as yet, of others. 6,000 citizens from all over the world have made their photos available, free of charge, to this non-commercial project, and new images are being added every day. 

The creator of LifeGate is Dr Martin Freiberg, curator of the botanical garden at Leipzig University and member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). “I wanted to construct LifeGate in such a way that all species are of equal value, and that the incredible diversity of species can really be experienced and understood,” says Freiberg. 

A novel representation

During its creation, he based it on the ‘family trees’ of nature: Biologists describe the phylogenetic evolution and relationships of living organisms in so-called phylogenies. Only modern phylogenies already based on DNA analyses have found a place in LifeGate. Such representations are usually limited to individual groups of species and show only birds or frogs, only begonias, orchids or only butterflies, for example. Freiberg has brought the phylogenies together, in painstaking detail for the first time, so that the relationship positions of all species can actually be shown at the same time. “Because LifeGate is not restricted to any one group, this is the first time that relationships between species can be represented,” he says.

Fourteen years of work, finally available to the public  

Freiberg has been working on the LifeGate map since 2008 - a feat that also included the technical programming of the platform. Now it will finally be revealed to the public. “LifeGate began as a scientific clarification project for my students,” says Freiberg. “Pictures are more memorable than mere numbers and make the topic of biodiversity more accessible. This is why the map also fascinates amateurs and laypeople. Not only biologists go to the zoo.” 

Freiberg still has a lot more planned for the future. For example, you will be able to choose from different photo views for each species. For the meerkat, for example, the eyes or the ears, the head from the front or from the side, the droppings, the footprints and so on. Virtual trips are also planned: Who eats whom? Who pollinates what? 

Freiberg’s vision is a ‘Google Maps of Biodiversity’ 

In order to fulfil his plans, Freiberg and his team now need supporters, especially in the areas of programming and project management, and in continued financing. “It’s just no longer manageable,” he says. The public announcement is intended as a first step towards achieving Freiberg’s vision: “In the future, every online search for animals, plants or bacteria will start with LifeGate. It should become the ‘Google Maps of biodiversity’.” 

By the way, Homo sapiens, of course, can also be found in Lifegate. Whoever searches for him finds a photo of Martin Freiberg and his daughter. It’s one of 2.6 million squares on the gigantic map of life - at the top, on the left.

Discover LifeGate at lifegate.idiv.de
(Use the square button on the left to change from German to English.)

Videos:

• LifeGate introduction (2 min): https://www.idiv.de/youtube-lg1en
• LifeGate user tutorial (5 min): https://www.idiv.de/youtube-lg2en

Citation:

Freiberg, M., Reichert, M. (2021). LifeGate. An interactive phylogenetic map.

Contact:

Dr Martin Freiberg
(speaks English and German)
Curator of the Botanical Garden of
Leipzig University
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 36869
Email: freiberg@uni-leipzig.de
Web: https://www.lw.uni-leipzig.de/en/institut-fuer-biologie/abteilungen/systematic-botany-and-functional-biodiversity/team

Dr Volker Hahn
(speaks English and German)
Head of Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33154
Email: volker.hahn@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Joint press release by iDiv and NatureServe

To effectively conserve ecosystems, scientists document and monitor their extent (mapped areas where they occur) and conservation status over time. Combining trends in extent with degree of protection helps to accurately assess the effectiveness of conservation actions. This is what an international research team led by NatureServe and iDiv has illustrated for conservation planning in the most biologically diverse area on the planet, the Tropical Andes. Using pre-industrial and recent maps for ecosystems in the Tropical Andes, the team measured long-term ecosystem loss to intensive land uses. They then quantified representation of ecosystem types in the region within current protected areas and additional representation offered by protecting Key Biodiversity Areas.

Findings revealed that only five of 95 ecosystem types within the Tropical Andes hotspot have at least 30% of their area protected – the target per cent of land and waters that all countries should conserve by 2030, as advised by the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, the number of ecosystem types adequately protected could increase to 39 when considering ecosystems across Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru if governments and civil society act to protect Key Biodiversity Areas – places that meet the internationally recognised standard for sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity.

The researchers arrived at this conclusion by applying the concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs), which assist in measuring different aspects of biodiversity relevant to conservation assessment, planning and policy. Analyses based on EBVs help to create a baseline for assessing change in terrestrial ecosystems to measure the impact of national policies and gauge progress of commitments toward conservation goals.

“From this study, we can see where some ecosystems have been disproportionately lost to intensive land uses,” says Pat Comer, lead author of the study and Chief Ecologist at NatureServe. “We can also see where some of our investments in land conservation have done well at securing some ecosystems while doing less well with others. By recognising and conserving the full diversity of ecosystems, we conserve the natural setting for all species to survive and evolve.”

Development of the EBVs involved hundreds of people over many years, including local collaborators from the Tropical Andes, and included many scientists and community members who participated in regional and national workshops in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

“This EBV indicator links conservation goals at the global, national and local levels. More importantly, the EBV responds directly to the needs expressed by people in these countries,” says second author Dr Jose W. Valdez, a postdoctoral researcher at MLU and researcher at iDiv. “Using an EBV framework can help bridge the gap between scientists and local communities and be a valuable tool to protect ecosystems and species diversity around the world.”

“While this study focused on the Tropical Andes, the data used to map and analyse ecosystem indicators can inform continental or even global conservation decisions,” emphasises Dr Sean T. O'Brien, President and CEO of NatureServe. “This study shows that while we have not yet adequately protected all natural ecosystems, we are able to improve the representation of ecosystem diversity if we protect our natural areas.”

Original Publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Comer, P. J., Valdez, J. W., Pereira, H. M., Acosta-Muñoz, C., Campos, F., Bonet García, F. J., Claros, X., Castro, L., Dallmeier, F., Domic Rivadeneira, E. Y, Gill, M., Josse, C., Lafuente Cartagena, I., Langstroth, R., Larrea-Alcázar, D., Masur, A., Morejon Jaramillo, G., Navarro, L., Novoa, S., Prieto-Albuja, F., Rey Ortíz, G., Teran, M. F., Zambrana-Torrelio, C., Fernandez Trigoso, M. A. (2022): Conserving Ecosystem Diversity in the Tropical Andes. Remote Sensing. DOI: 10.3390/rs14122847

A Spanish version of this press release can be found here.

Contact:

Dr Jose W. Valdez (speaks English and Spanish)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Research group Biodiversity Conservation
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9739168
Email: jose.valdez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1290.html

Dr Miguel Alejandro Fernandez Trigoso (speaks Englisch and Spanish)
Postdoctoral researcher
Research group Biodiversity Conservation
Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (MLU)
Phone: +49 341 9733192
Email: miguel.fernandez@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1553.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Based on a media release by the University of Minnesota

„Our aim was to enrich existing biodiversity assessments with scientifically understudied but highly relevant species groups and world regions,” says lead author Prof Forest Isbell of the University of Minnesota. The scientific literature on biodiversity mainly focuses only on some well-studied regions or species groups. For example, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which is one of the main sources of data for global biodiversity assessments, has recorded only about one per cent of the estimated number of species threatened with extinction. Only 0.2 per cent of all insects, which make up 75 per cent of all animal and plant species, are considered by the IUCN. 

Using this knowledge base, the 2018 Global Report of the World Biodiversity Council (IPBES), for example, estimated that about 10 per cent of insect species could be at risk of extinction, largely based on estimates from Europe. In contrast, the new survey, which involves hundreds of insect experts from around the world, arrives at an average figure of 30 per cent. “This is a substantial difference in estimates for the most hyperdiverse and understudied types of species,” says Isbell. However, the estimates of the experts surveyed vary widely. The 30 per cent of threatened species are an average of estimates between 16 and 50 per cent. “Even though it is not yet clear, given the limited information available, which figures are closer to the true value, it is becoming clear that for a complete picture of the situation we need to seek the opinion of experts for all species groups in every region of the world,” says Isbell. 

“This paper includes the perspectives of a very wide range of experts and allows us to assess less known taxa as well as give a voice to underrepresented experts in the global literature. Experts who identify as women and who are from the Global South have provided significantly higher estimates for past biodiversity loss and its impacts,” says co-author Patricia Balvanera at the University of Mexico. “Also, experts who identify as women disproportionately study the taxa that experts estimate are most threatened.” The study also identified important demographic and geographic differences in experts’ perspectives and estimates.

The researchers encourage biodiversity experts to use these results to learn how their own perspectives differ from those of other experts. This makes sure, that a diversity of perspectives is included when conducting global biodiversity assessment setting global biodiversity goals and targets and making new policies and other transformative changes needed to conserve biodiversity.

“Since biodiversity is highly regional in nature, the attempt of our study to bring together the opinions of regional experts from around the world is unprecedented,” says co-author Akira Mori of the University of Tokyo. “From the perspective of social and cultural diversity and inclusiveness, even if they are not necessarily complete, I believe we have presented certain suggestions for future international policy discussions.”

The experts believe that greatly increasing conservation investments and efforts now could remove the threat of extinction for one in three species that may otherwise be threatened or extinct by 2100. “However, appropriate conservation approaches need to be developed to target a wider range of organisms to combat the biodiversity crisis,” says co-author Nico Eisenhauer, professor at iDiv and Leipzig University. “For example, recent studies suggest that several current nature conservation programs may have no positive consequences for soil biodiversity – representing roughly one quarter of all species on Earth. We urgently need to make scientific progress to propose more effective protection measures”.

Original publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation bold)

Isbell, F., …, Eisenhauer, N., …, Palmer, M. S. et al. (2022): Expert perspectives on global biodiversity loss and its drivers and impacts on people. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. DOI: 10.1002/fee.2536

Video with experts involved

Contact:

Prof Forest Isbell
College of biological sciences
University of Minnesota
Phone: 001-612-624-6731
Email: isbell@umn.edu

Prof Dr Nico Eisenhauer
Head of the research group Experimental Interaction Ecology
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig University
Phone: +49 341 97 33167
Email: nico.eisenhauer@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/eisenhauer_nico.html

Sebastian Tilch
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 97 33197
Email: sebastian.tilch@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/media

Leipzig/Halle/Seville. Some species of birds in North America have not fully adjusted their distributions in response to ongoing climate change. The places these birds live have become more decoupled from their optimal climate conditions, while other features of the environment become more constraining. This trend of climate decoupling is more pronounced for habitat specialists and for species declining in abundance. These are the results of a study by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University, the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Doñana Biological Station, now published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Climate decoupling as a result of ongoing climate change may lead to additional stresses on many species of birds, and exacerbate population declines.

Climate change poses a number of challenges to plants and animals. For example, as the climate changes, appropriate climatic conditions for many species are changing, and some may disappear altogether. This can become even more severe as the climate is changing together with other human-caused changes, such as land use for agriculture or other uses. When there is increasing divergence between the climatic conditions suitable for a particular species and its abundance and distribution through time, this is known as climate decoupling. For example, the grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) lives in grasslands across North America and was once quite common in these habitats. However, because grasslands continue to be degraded or lost, this has hindered this grassland specialist species from fully adjusting to changing climatic conditions. Climate decoupling, together with habitat loss, may explain the observed high rates of grasshopper sparrow abundance declines and local extinctions.

It is not only the grasshopper sparrow that is decoupling from its optimal climate conditions. A team of researchers led by iDiv, Leipzig University and MLU used the best available evidence on bird population changes through time from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and found that at least 30 out of 114 species (26%) of North American birds have become less well adjusted to their climate over the last 30 years. This means that their distributions and abundances were increasingly decoupled from climate over time. For each species, the reasons may be different. Some species might be inclined to remain in areas where they historically lived. Some species might be limited by climate-independent resources and habitats. And some species might be declining due to global changes, and thus unable to adjust to changing climate. Approximately 10% of the species studied had positive temporal trends in climate matching – they became more coupled to climate through time. For the remaining species, there was less support for significant temporal trends in climate matching – i.e., the adjustment of their abundances and distributions to climate remained more stable through time. 

“One of the most surprising results of our analysis was that the overall trend of climate decoupling showed no signs of slowing down,” says lead author Dr Duarte Viana, who did most of this study while working at iDiv and Leipzig University and is now based at the Doñana Biological Station in Seville. “This suggests a possible feedback between climate decoupling and declining populations that might emerge in the face of a multitude of current global changes,” he adds.

The researchers were able to show that climate decoupling was more prevalent among habitat specialists than among generalists. These specialists may have greater difficulty finding the right combinations of suitable habitat and climate conditions in increasingly modified landscapes.

“We also found that climate decoupling was more prominent among species that were considered threatened and that were declining in population sizes,” says senior author Prof Dr Jonathan Chase, head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group at iDiv and MLU. “There are many known factors that are contributing to the population declines of many species of birds, but our study adds a new facet to our understanding of the potential causes of some of these changes – that species are less likely to be living in their optimal climate conditions as the world changes around them. This, like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, might be something we humans should pay attention to as we will likely soon find ourselves similarly living in places outside of our optimal climate ranges.”

Urs Moesenfechtel

Original Publication:
(Researchers with iDiv affiliation and alumni in bold)

Viana, S. D., Chase, J. (2022): Increasing climatic decoupling of bird abundances and distributions. Nature Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01814-y

Contact:

Dr Duarte S. Viana (speaks English, Portugese and Spanish)
Postdoctoral researcher
Doñana Biological Station
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Formerly:
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Leipzig
 University
Phone: +34 955 149 389
Email: dviana@ebd.csic.es
Web: https://sites.google.com/view/duarte-s-viana/home

Prof Dr Jonathan Chase
Head of the Biodiversity Synthesis research group
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Phone: +49 341 9733120

Email: jonathan.chase@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/groups-and-people/core-groups/synthesis.html

Urs Moesenfechtel, M.A. (speaks English and German)
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 9733106
Email: urs.moesenfechtel@idiv.de
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/profile/1464.html

Based on a media release by Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)

The full text is only available in German.