Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – http://www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.

No abstract

No abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Ecological Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ecology. Abstract. Foraging decisions by large herbivores in a heterogenous environment with several available plant species are a scale problem. If, for example, the foraging decisions primarily occur at the stand level, then stands of trees might be regarded as patches within a habitat of several stands over which intake rate is to be maximized. The food consumption within a stand should be in proportion to the availability of different food types. If, on the other hand, food selection occurs at the tree level within a stand, then the individual trees are regarded as "patches"; total stand exploitation should then be the result of foraging decisions made within the stand. We tested these two hypotheses in field experiments in winter with free-ranging moose (Alces alces) having access to artificial stands of trees. In these stands Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) was mixed with either aspen (Populus tremula) or alder (Alnus incana). In experiment A, where the total available pine biomass per stand was much greater than any of the additional species, total stand consumption did not differ between stand types. In experiment B, where pine biomass did not dominate to the same extent, pine+aspen stands were more heavily used than pine+pine and pine+ alder stands. The within-stand consumption of different species appeared to be nonrandom, i.e., the tree biomass was not consumed in proportion to availability. The mean pine biomass consumption per tree did not differ between stand types in either experiment. We conclude that the food selection appears to occur primarily at the tree level within stands. The level of decision might also be important for the performance of the plant species exploited. The results from this study question the general validity of recent hypotheses regarding "associational protection" in plant communities. We suggest that the optimal patch use approach taken in this study might give better insight in these kinds of plant-animal interaction problems.