Biodiversity information and taxonomy are considered in light of the established and emerging approaches to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services after the International Year of Biodiversity. Knapp and Boxshall (2010) 'Biodiversity and systematics: how have we fared in the International Year of Biodiversity?', Systematics and Biodiversity, 8: 419—422 DOI: 10.1080/14772000.2010.543008.
The UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology has produced a useful briefing on biodiversity offsetting. Biodiversity offsetting is a policy tool used when loss of or impact on biodiversity is compensated by deliberate improvement elsewhere.
The UK government Foresight programme has just published a horizon-scanning and policy advice report on Global Food and Farming Futures. A good overview of the issues and challenges, including the interface of food production and biodiversity, in particular the potential impact of food production on ecosystem services. A knowledge gap on the ecological basis for ecosystem services is identified. Essential reading in strategic planning.
The UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just published the latest assessment of the 26 national biodiversity indicators for England on their website. Not good news for farmland birds, some butterflies, grassland plants and invasive species impacts. /...more
.../Worth looking at this in some detail. On the natural history side, there is reasonable news for some groups of organisms with either improvements or stability since 2000 and often back to the 1980s. Gradual and sustained improvements in areas where there has been concerted regulatory effort since the 1970s - so freshwater quality, marine pollution and some fisheries.
Climate change impacts on biodiversity are looked at through the spring responses of certain sensitive species - lot of noise in the data, as you might expect, but a conclusion of temperature-sensitive events becoming gradually earlier in the year - since 1999 around 9 days earlier than the mean for the 20th Century.
Public attitudes are interesting - not a lot of development in awareness of the relatively technical term "biodiversity" but a sustained increase in visiting nature reserves over the years.
Biodiversity action plans show a slight decrease in the number of species and habitats where things are getting worse, and an increase in stability.
Interesting paper in Science in December comparing a range of models and scenarios for biodiversity in the 21st Century. General conclusion is of continuing loss, but the degree of potential loss is uncertain, with very different projections from different models. Pereira et al. 2010 Scenarios for Global Biodiversity in the 21st Century. Science 330 1496-1501. doi: 10.1126/science.1196624
Useul exploration of the ABS protocol, including history and implications: Kamau, E C, Fedder, B and Winter, G (2010) The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing: What is New and what are the
Implications for Provider and User Countries and the Scientific Community? 6/3 Law, Environment and Development Journal (2010), p. 246
A PNAS paper explores the way in which new species of plants are described from specimens that may already have been in herbarium collections for many years, and underlines the importance of collections for discovering diversity. Also on NHM science news blog.
Bebber, DP, Carine, MA, Wood, JRI, Wortley, AH, Harris, DJ, Prance, GT, Davids, G, Paige, J, Pennington, TD, Robson, NKB and Scotland, RW (2010) Herbaria are a major frontier for species discovery. PNAS. Published online before print, December 6, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011841108
The official text of the Access and Benefit Sharing Protocol agreed at the CBD COP10 has now been published and is open for signature by parties for the next year.
Cameron et al. in PNAS Early Edition - widespread decline of some bumblebee species in the US was shown by the comparison of current ranges from a three-year observation on 16,000 specimens with ranges inferred from 73,759 museum specimens. Higher Nosema and lower current genetic diversity in declining species than in stable species. Would be good to look at genetics of museum specimens, but not covered in this paper.
The orchids responded to temperature in the same way in the two periods, indicating the potential value of collections for investigating ecological responses to climate and as research resources for new scientific interests.
