What criteria should be used to select biodiversity indicators?

Heink, Ulrich; Kowarik, Ingo

doi:10.1007/s10531-010-9926-6

Cited by 89 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Also, within the context of environmental policy, the use of standardized indices is needed to facilitate international comparisons. As requirements are often inconsistent, selection criteria should be decided first (Heink, Kowarik 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the potential policy use of some selected biodiversity indicators: limitations and recommendations for improvements

Benedek

2014

J. For. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:In order to facilitate the use of biodiversity indicators in policy making at the country level, a few and well-established indices should be suggested. Promising candidates include biodiversity-related indices of the Convention on Biological Diversity; their current use and performance are evaluated through a Hungarian case study. Especially indices of the ecosystem level have already been in use, but they are not necessarily useful measures of the state of biodiversity in their current form. For example, ecosystems suggested globally for monitoring (forests and marine habitats) are not present in all the countries, thus the way of ecosystem selection should be standardized, not the actual ecosystem types. Besides the information on the extent of some selected habitats, the original cover should also be considered to evaluate the present situation. Recommendations are demonstrated in the case study. With the use of existing data, the applicability of certain indices can be improved, but in the long run, ecosystem-based indices of the natural capital should be favoured.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the potential policy use of some selected biodiversity indicators: limitations and recommendations for improvements

Benedek

2014

J. For. Sci.

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“…This is especially important in the American West, where large amounts of conservation funding are spent on restoring riparian areas for improving wildlife values, often in the absence of a single species that can encapsulate the needs of other species (Lambeck, 1997). However, formal evaluations of which community indices are most useful for which purpose have been largely lacking (Heink and Kowarik, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of bird community indices for riparian restoration planning and monitoring

Young

Ammon

Dilts

et al. 2013

Ecological Indicators

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Young, Jock S.; Ammon, Elisabeth M.; Weisberg, Peter J.; Dilts, Thomas E.; Newton, Wesley E.; Wong-Kone, Diane C.; and Heki, Lisa G., "Comparison of bird community indices for riparian restoration planning and monitoring" (2013 a b s t r a c tThe use of a bird community index that characterizes ecosystem integrity is very attractive to conservation planners and habitat managers, particularly in the absence of any single focal species. In riparian areas of the western USA, several attempts at arriving at a community index signifying a functioning riparian bird community have been made previously, mostly resorting to expert opinions or national conservation rankings for species weights. Because extensive local and regional bird monitoring data were available for Nevada, we were able to develop three different indices that were derived empirically, rather than from expert opinion. We formally examined the use of three species weighting schemes in comparison with simple species richness, using different definitions of riparian species assemblage size, for the purpose of predicting community response to changes in vegetation structure from riparian restoration. For the three indices, species were weighted according to the following criteria: (1) the degree of riparian habitat specialization based on regional data, (2) the relative conservation ranking of landbird species, and (3) the degree to which a species is under-represented compared to the regional species pool for riparian areas. To evaluate the usefulness of these indices for habitat restoration planning and monitoring, we modeled them using habitat variables that are expected to respond to riparian restoration efforts, using data from 64 sampling sites in the Walker River Basin in Nevada and California. We found that none of the species-weighting schemes performed any better as an index for evaluating overall habitat condition than using species richness alone as a community index. Based on our findings, the use of a fairly complete list of 30-35 riparian specialists appears to be the best indicator group for predicting the response of bird communities to the restoration of riparian vegetation.

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“…The reported conditions and trends relating to biodiversity were not very positive (MA 2005). The authors of the assessment admitted, however, that biodiversity still is an ambiguous concept that is difficult to operationalize and measure (Jessel 2012, Heink andKowarik 2010). They posed that the knowledge on biodiversity shows a strong bias towards the species level -notably large mammals -, temperate systems, and biodiversity components used by people.…”

Section: Assessing Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Never theless, presently, there is consensus that biodiversity is of crucial importance to ecosystems and the services and goods they pro vide (MA 2005, Feld et al 2010, Perrings et al 2011, even though not all linkages are equally well-understood and sometimes difficult to quantify. Research is going on, focusing also on improved ways of assessing biodiversity (see, e.g., Feld et al 2010, Heink andKowarik 2010). …”

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confidence: 99%

Getting the Message Across Biodiversity Science and Policy Interfaces – A Review

Spierenburg¹

2012

GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society

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125espite the involvement of scientists in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the organization of a number of high-profile scientific biodiversity assessments such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), there is still a dominant narrative positing a huge gap between science and policy. Scientists complain that their warnings and urgent calls for action to conserve biodiversity do not seem to be taken seriously, and that scientific knowledge is ignored in the debates about agreements or policies, or "replaced by rhetoric" (Dietz and Stern 1998, p. 441). Some policy-makers indeed may ignore scientific knowledge that does not support their preferred policy options, while others complain they do not know what action to take given the uncertainty of some scientific conclusions. Yet, science is not undisputed either, as last year's public debates on Climategate showed, when scientists participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were accused of manipulating data to suit their own policy preferences.Some of the problems with the biodiversity science-policy nexus may stem very well, according to Dietz and Stern (1998) as well as Koetz et al. (2009Koetz et al. ( , 2008, from unreasonable expectations about how and how much science can contribute to wise decision-making. Often a technocratic approach is expected, both by researchers and policy-makers, in which science provides knowledge and information about the impacts of certain choices, and policy-makers use this information to design policies.However, in practice, the policy-making process is far from straightforward. Poli cy-makers have to weigh different socio-economic benefits and costs which are based on the values of biodiversity to society (Dietz and Stern 1998). To complicate matters, some of these valuations are subjective and emotional interpretations -both by policy-makers and their constituents (Bhattacharya et al. 2005). At the international level, trust -or a lack thereof -between states, especially in relation to capacities and the distribu tion of costs and benefits, also plays an important role in decision-making (Jessel 2012, Koetz et al. 2009. Each decision affects biodiversity, and effects take place at and across different scales, rendering both scientific predictions and decision-making complicated. > Getting the Message Across AbstractThis contribution analyses the difficulties of biodiversity policy-making and the role of science. It addresses biodiversity scientists' struggles to communicate the value of biodiversity to policy-makers, and the tensions between producing policyrelevant research and being perceived as too prescriptive.The author argues that it is important for biodiversity scientists to acknowledge and engage with the political aspects of biodiversity policies. A first step is to recognize the diversity of valuations and preferences among various stakeholders of different trade-offs, and the power relations between the stakeholders. A transparent presentation of a broad range of polic...

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What criteria should be used to select biodiversity indicators?

Cited by 89 publications

References 94 publications

On the potential policy use of some selected biodiversity indicators: limitations and recommendations for improvements

On the potential policy use of some selected biodiversity indicators: limitations and recommendations for improvements

Comparison of bird community indices for riparian restoration planning and monitoring

Getting the Message Across Biodiversity Science and Policy Interfaces – A Review

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