Drivers of the changing abundance of European birds at two spatial scales.

Detecting biodiversity change and identifying its causes is challenging because biodiversity is multifaceted and temporal data often contain bias. Here, we model temporal change in species' abundance and biomass by using extensive data describing the population sizes and trends of native breeding birds in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU). In addition, we explore how species' population trends vary with species' traits. We demonstrate significant change in the bird assemblages of the UK and EU, with substantial reductions in overall bird abundance and losses concentrated in a relatively small number of abundant and smaller sized species. By contrast, rarer and larger birds had generally fared better. Simultaneously, overall avian biomass had increased very slightly in the UK and was stable in the EU, indicating a change in community structure. Abundance trends across species were positively correlated with species' body mass and with trends in climate suitability, and varied with species' abundance, migration strategy and niche associations linked to diet. Our work highlights how changes in biodiversity cannot be captured easily by a single number; care is required when measuring and interpreting biodiversity change given that different metrics can provide very different insights. This article is part of the theme issue 'Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions'.

Impact of woodland agri-environment management on woodland structure and target bird species.

Agri-environment incentives form a central mechanism supporting changes to land management to provide public benefits. This study assesses the medium-term effects of woodland management on 13 target, specialist woodland bird species, as well as other woodland birds in a single region of the UK. The abundance of breeding birds (using two methods: point counts and territory mapping) and metrics of woodland structure were recorded on sites with Woodland Improvement Grants (improvement sites) and nearby comparison sites (control sites). Initial measurements were made prior to management and repeated 7-9 years later. A separate comparison of changes in bird abundance was made between the managed woodland sites and woodland from similar landscapes surveyed as part of the national Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). There was an increase in abundance of target species on improvement sites compared to a decrease on both control sites and BBS sites, although this was only evident from point count data. The effects on target species were stronger than for other woodland specialists and there was no apparent effect on woodland generalists, suggesting that the management interventions were appropriate for the target species. Changes in woodland structure were generally consistent with the expected effect of management, with lower tree density and greater Bramble (Rubus sp.) cover. However, contrary to the aim of increasing understorey cover, a reduction was recorded within the 2-10 m height category in improvement sites. This contrast is due to the removal of young trees during thinning affecting this height band and the short time period since management to allow regrowth. Our findings show that bespoke management supported through government agri-environment incentives can have a positive impact on target woodland birds. For managed forests, identifying species requirements and how management can be adapted to improve their habitats can be an effective way of delivering biodiversity gains when financial incentives are provided to achieve policy goals.

A quantitative global review of species population monitoring.

Species monitoring, defined here as the repeated, systematic collection of data to detect long-term changes in the populations of wild species, is a vital component of conservation practice and policy. We created a database of nearly 1200 schemes, ranging in start date from 1800 to 2018, to review spatial, temporal, taxonomic, and methodological patterns in global species monitoring. We identified monitoring schemes through standardized web searches, an online survey of stakeholders, in-depth national searches in a sample of countries, and a review of global biodiversity databases. We estimated the total global number of monitoring schemes operating at 3300-15,000. Since 2000, there has been a sharp increase in the number of new schemes being initiated in lower- and middle-income countries and in megadiverse countries, but a decrease in high-income countries. The total number of monitoring schemes in a country and its per capita gross domestic product were strongly, positively correlated. Schemes that were active in 2018 had been running for an average of 21 years in high-income countries, compared with 13 years in middle-income countries and 10 years in low-income countries. In high-income countries, over one-half of monitoring schemes received government funding, but this was less than one-quarter in low-income countries. Data collection was undertaken partly or wholly by volunteers in 37% of schemes, and such schemes covered significantly more sites and species than those undertaken by professionals alone. Birds were by far the most widely monitored taxonomic group, accounting for around half of all schemes, but this bias declined over time. Monitoring in most taxonomic groups remains sparse and uncoordinated, and most of the data generated are elusive and unlikely to feed into wider biodiversity conservation processes. These shortcomings could be addressed by, for example, creating an open global meta-database of biodiversity monitoring schemes and enhancing capacity for species monitoring in countries with high biodiversity. Article impact statement: Species population monitoring for conservation purposes remains strongly biased toward a few vertebrate taxa in wealthier countries.

Una Revisión Global Cuantitativa del Monitoreo Poblacional de Especies Resumen El monitoreo de especies, definido aquí como la recolección sistemática y repetida de datos para detectar cambios a largo plazo en las poblaciones de las especies silvestres, es un componente vital de la práctica y las políticas de la conservación. Generamos una base de datos de casi 1,200 esquemas, con un rango de fecha de inicio desde 1800 hasta 2018, para revisar los patrones espaciales, temporales, taxonómicos y metodológicos en el monitoreo global de especies. Identificamos los esquemas de monitoreo por medio de búsquedas estandarizadas en línea, una encuesta digital realizada a los actores, búsquedas a profundidad en una muestra de países y en una revisión global de las bases de datos sobre la biodiversidad. Estimamos el número total mundial de esquemas funcionales de monitoreo entre 3,300 y 15,000. Desde el 2000, ha habido un fuerte aumento en el número de esquemas nuevos que han iniciado en países de bajo o mediano ingreso y en países megadiversos, pero una disminución en los países de alto ingreso. El número total de esquemas de monitoreo en un país y su producto interno bruto per cápita tuvieron una correlación sólida y positiva. Los esquemas que estaban activos en 2018 lo habían estado en un promedio de 21 años en los países de alto ingreso, comparado con un promedio de 13 años en los países de mediano ingreso y de 10 años en los países de bajo ingreso. En los países de alto ingreso, más de la mitad de los esquemas de monitoreo recibieron financiamiento del gobierno, comparado con menos de un cuarto de los esquemas en los países de bajo ingreso. La recolección de datos se realizó parcial o totalmente por voluntarios en 37% de los esquemas, y dichos esquemas cubrieron significativamente más sitios y especies que aquellos realizados sólo por profesionales. Las aves fueron por mucho el grupo taxonómico más monitoreado, comprendiendo casi la mitad de todos los esquemas, pero este sesgo declinó con el tiempo. El monitoreo en la mayoría de los grupos taxonómicos todavía es disperso y descoordinado, y la mayoría de los datos generados son vagos y tienen poca probabilidad de alimentar procesos más amplios de conservación de biodiversidad. Estas deficiencias podrían abordarse, por ejemplo, creando una meta-base de datos globales abiertos de los esquemas de monitoreo de la biodiversidad y mejorando la capacidad para el monitoreo de especies en los países con alta biodiversidad.

Abundance decline in the avifauna of the European Union reveals cross-continental similarities in biodiversity change.

Although global assessments provide evidence of biodiversity decline, some have questioned the strength of the evidence, with local assemblage studies often showing a more balanced picture of biodiversity change. The multifaceted nature of biodiversity and imperfect monitoring datasets may partially explain these findings. Here, using an extensive dataset, we find significant biodiversity loss in the native avifauna of the European Union (EU). We estimate a decline of 17-19% in the overall breeding bird abundance since 1980: a loss of 560-620 million individual birds. Both total and proportional declines in bird numbers are high among species associated with agricultural land. The distribution of species' population growth rates (ln) is centered close to zero, with numerical decline driven by substantial losses in abundant species. Our work supports previous assessments indicating substantial recent biodiversity loss and calls to reduce the threat of extinctions and restore species' abundances, for the sake of nature and people.

Global effects of land-use intensity on local pollinator biodiversity.

Pollinating species are in decline globally, with land use an important driver. However, most of the evidence on which these claims are made is patchy, based on studies with low taxonomic and geographic representativeness. Here, we model the effect of land-use type and intensity on global pollinator biodiversity, using a local-scale database covering 303 studies, 12,170 sites, and 4502 pollinating species. Relative to a primary vegetation baseline, we show that low levels of intensity can have beneficial effects on pollinator biodiversity. Within most anthropogenic land-use types however, increasing intensity is associated with significant reductions, particularly in urban (43% richness and 62% abundance reduction compared to the least intensive urban sites), and pasture (75% abundance reduction) areas. We further show that on cropland, the strongly negative response to intensity is restricted to tropical areas, and that the direction and magnitude of response differs among taxonomic groups. Our findings confirm widespread effects of land-use intensity on pollinators, most significantly in the tropics, where land use is predicted to change rapidly.

A metric for spatially explicit contributions to science-based species targets.

The Convention on Biological Diversity's post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will probably include a goal to stabilize and restore the status of species. Its delivery would be facilitated by making the actions required to halt and reverse species loss spatially explicit. Here, we develop a species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric that is scalable across species, threats and geographies. STAR quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats in specific places offer towards reducing extinction risk. While every nation can contribute towards halting biodiversity loss, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, Madagascar and Brazil combined have stewardship over 31% of total STAR values for terrestrial amphibians, birds and mammals. Among actions, sustainable crop production and forestry dominate, contributing 41% of total STAR values for these taxonomic groups. Key Biodiversity Areas cover 9% of the terrestrial surface but capture 47% of STAR values. STAR could support governmental and non-state actors in quantifying their contributions to meeting science-based species targets within the framework.

Long-term and large-scale multispecies dataset tracking population changes of common European breeding birds.

Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 28 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 species. Here, we present the database and provide a detailed summary of the methodology used for fieldwork and calculation of the relative population size change estimates. We also provide a brief overview of how the data are used in research, conservation and policy. We believe this unique database, based on decades of bird monitoring alongside the comprehensive summary of its methodology, will facilitate and encourage further use of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme results.

The species awareness index as a conservation culturomics metric for public biodiversity awareness.

Although threats to global biodiversity are well known, slowing current rates of biodiversity loss remains a challenge. The Aichi targets set out 20 goals on which the international community should act to alleviate biodiversity decline, 1 of which (Target 1) aims to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity. Although conventional indicators for Target 1 are of low spatial and temporal coverage, conservation culturomics metrics show how biodiversity awareness can be quantified at the global scale. Following methods used for the Living Planet Index, we devised a species awareness index (SAI) to measure change in species awareness based on Wikipedia views. We calculated this index at the page level for 41,197 species listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) across 10 Wikipedia languages and >2 billion views from 1 July 2015 to 30 March 2020. Bootstrapped indices for the page-level SAI showed that overall awareness of biodiversity increased marginally over time, although there were differences among taxonomic classes and languages. Among taxonomic classes, overall awareness increased fastest for reptiles and slowest for amphibians. Among languages, overall species awareness increased fastest for Japanese and slowest for Chinese and German users. Although awareness of species as a whole increased and was significantly higher for traded species, from January 2016 through January 2020, change in awareness appeared not to be strongly related to whether the species is traded or is a pollinator. As a data source for public biodiversity awareness, the SAI could be integrated into the Conservation International Biodiversity Engagement Indicator.

El Índice de Sensibilización de Especie como Medida de Culturomia de la Conservación para la Sensibilización Pública por la Biodiversidad Resumen Aunque las amenazas a la biodiversidad mundial son bien conocidas, reducir las tasas actuales de pérdida de la biodiversidad todavía es un desafío. Los objetivos de Aichi establecieron 20 metas para las cuales debe actuar la comunidad internacional para aliviar la declinación de la biodiversidad. Una de estas metas (Objetivo 1) busca sensibilizar al público sobre la importancia de la biodiversidad. Aunque los indicadores convencionales del Objetivo 1 tienen una baja cobertura espacial y temporal, las medidas de culturomia para la conservación muestran cómo la sensibilización por la biodiversidad puede cuantificarse a escala global. Seguimos los métodos utilizados para el Índice del Planeta Viviente para diseñar un índice de sensibilización de especie (ISE) para medir el cambio en la sensibilización por una especie con base en las vistas en Wikipedia. Calculamos este índice a nivel de página para 41,197 especies incluidas en las listas de la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN) en diez diferentes idiomas en Wikipedia y más de 2 mil millones de vistas entre el 1 de julio de 2015 y el 30 de marzo de 2020. Los índices de arranque para el ISE a nivel de página mostraron que la sensibilización general por la biodiversidad incrementó ligeramente con el tiempo, aunque hubo diferencia entre las clasificaciones taxonómicas y los idiomas. Entre las clasificaciones taxonómicas, la sensibilización general incrementó más rápido para los reptiles y más lento para los anfibios. Entre los idiomas, la sensibilización general por especie incrementó más rápido para los usuarios del japonés y más lento para los usuarios del chino y el alemán. Aunque la sensibilización por las especies en su totalidad incrementó y fue significativamente más alta para las especies comercializadas, entre enero de 2016 y enero de 2020 el cambio en la sensibilización pareció no estar relacionado fuertemente con si la especie es un polinizador o es comercializada. Como fuente de información para la sensibilización pública por la biodiversidad, el ISE podría ser integrado dentro del Indicador de Participación Internacional para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad.

Covariation in population trends and demography reveals targets for conservation action.

Wildlife conservation policies directed at common and widespread, but declining, species are difficult to design and implement effectively, as multiple environmental changes are likely to contribute to population declines. Conservation actions ultimately aim to influence demographic rates, but targeting actions towards feasible improvements in these is challenging in widespread species with ranges that encompass a wide range of environmental conditions. Across Europe, sharp declines in the abundance of migratory landbirds have driven international calls for action, but actions that could feasibly contribute to population recovery have yet to be identified. Targeted actions to improve conditions on poor-quality sites could be an effective approach, but only if local conditions consistently influence local demography and hence population trends. Using long-term measures of abundance and demography of breeding birds at survey sites across Europe, we show that co-occurring species with differing migration behaviours have similar directions of local population trends and magnitudes of productivity, but not survival rates. Targeted actions to boost local productivity within Europe, alongside large-scale (non-targeted) environmental protection across non-breeding ranges, could therefore help address the urgent need to halt migrant landbird declines. Such demographic routes to recovery are likely to be increasingly needed to address global wildlife declines.

A counterfactual approach to measure the impact of wet grassland conservation on U.K. breeding bird populations.

Wet grassland populations of wading birds in the United Kingdom have declined severely since 1990. To help mitigate these declines, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has restored and managed lowland wet grassland nature reserves to benefit these and other species. However, the impact of these reserves on bird population trends has not been evaluated experimentally due to a lack of control populations. We compared population trends from 1994 to 2018 among 5 bird species of conservation concern that breed on these nature reserves with counterfactual trends created from matched breeding bird survey observations. We compared reserve trends with 3 different counterfactuals based on different scenarios of how reserve populations could have developed in the absence of conservation. Effects of conservation interventions were positive for all 4 targeted wading bird species: Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus), Redshank (Tringa totanus), Curlew (Numenius arquata), and Snipe (Gallinago gallinago). There was no positive effect of conservation interventions on reserves for the passerine, Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava). Our approach using monitoring data to produce valid counterfactual controls is a broadly applicable method allowing large-scale evaluation of conservation impact.

Un Enfoque Hipotético para Medir el Impacto de la Conservación de Pastizales Húmedos sobre Poblaciones Reproductoras de Aves en el Reino Unido Resumen Las poblaciones de aves zancudas en los pastizales húmedos del Reino Unido han declinado gravemente desde 1990. Para ayudar con la mitigación de estas declinaciones, la Real Sociedad para la Protección de las Aves ha restaurado y manejado las reservas naturales en pastizales húmedos de tierras bajas para beneficiar a estas y otras especies. Sin embargo, el impacto de estas reservas sobre las tendencias poblacionales de las aves no ha sido evaluado experimentalmente debido a la falta de poblaciones control. Comparamos las tendencias poblacionales entre 1994 y 2018 de cinco especies de aves de importancia para la conservación, que se reproducen dentro de estas reservas naturales, mediante tendencias hipotéticas creadas a partir de los censos de observación de aves reproductoras emparejadas. Comparamos las tendencias de las reservas con tres casos hipotéticos diferentes basados en diferentes escenarios de cómo las poblaciones de la reserva podrían haberse desarrollado en ausencia de la conservación. Los efectos de las intervenciones de conservación fueron positivos para las cuatro especies focales de aves zancudas: Vanellus vanellus, Tringa totanus, Numenius arquata y Gallinago gallinago. No hubo un efecto positivo de las intervenciones de conservación para la especie paserina Motacilla flava. Nuestra estrategia utilizando datos de monitoreos para producir controles hipotéticos válidos es un método ampliamente aplicable que permite ka evaluación del impacto de la conservación a gran escala.

Complex long-term biodiversity change among invertebrates, bryophytes and lichens.

Large-scale biodiversity changes are measured mainly through the responses of a few taxonomic groups. Much less is known about the trends affecting most invertebrates and other neglected taxa, and it is unclear whether well-studied taxa, such as vertebrates, reflect changes in wider biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse trends in the UK distributions of over 5,000 species of invertebrates, bryophytes and lichens, measured as changes in occupancy. Our results reveal substantial variation in the magnitude, direction and timing of changes over the last 45 years. Just one of the four major groups analysed, terrestrial non-insect invertebrates, exhibits the declining trend reported among vertebrates and butterflies. Both terrestrial insects and the bryophytes and lichens group increased in average occupancy. A striking pattern is found among freshwater species, which have undergone a strong recovery since the mid-1990s after two decades of decline. We show that, while average occupancy among most groups appears to have been stable or increasing, there has been substantial change in the relative commonness and rarity of individual species, indicating considerable turnover in community composition. Additionally, large numbers of species have experienced substantial declines. Our results suggest a more complex pattern of biodiversity change in the United Kingdom than previously reported.

Relating characteristics of global biodiversity targets to reported progress.

To inform governmental discussions on the nature of a revised Strategic Plan for Biodiversity of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we reviewed the relevant literature and assessed the framing of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets in the current strategic plan. We asked international experts from nongovernmental organizations, academia, government agencies, international organizations, research institutes, and the CBD to score the Aichi Targets and their constituent elements against a set of specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, unambiguous, scalable, and comprehensive criteria (SMART based, excluding time bound because all targets are bound to 2015 or 2020). We then investigated the relationship between these expert scores and reported progress toward the target elements by using the findings from 2 global progress assessments (Global Biodiversity Outlook and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). We analyzed the data with ordinal logistic regressions. We found significant positive relationships (p < 0.05) between progress and the extent to which the target elements were perceived to be measurable, realistic, unambiguous, and scalable. There was some evidence of a relationship between progress and specificity of the target elements, but no relationship between progress and ambition. We are the first to show associations between progress and the extent to which the Aichi Targets meet certain SMART criteria. As negotiations around the post-2020 biodiversity framework proceed, decision makers should strive to ensure that new or revised targets are effectively structured and clearly worded to allow the translation of targets into actionable policies that can be successfully implemented nationally, regionally, and globally.

Relación de las Características de los Objetivos Mundiales de Biodiversidad con el Progreso Reportado Resumen Para informar las discusiones gubernamentales sobre la naturaleza de una revisión del Plan Estratégico para la Biodiversidad del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CBD, en inglés), revisamos la literatura relevante y evaluamos el marco de 20 Objetivos de Biodiversidad de Aichi en el plan estratégico actual. Le pedimos a expertos internacionales de organizaciones no gubernamentales, de la academia, de agencias gubernamentales, organizaciones internacionales, de institutos de investigación y de la CBD que puntuaran los Objetivos de Aichi y sus elementos constituyentes frente a un conjunto de criterios específicos, medibles, ambiciosos, realistas (basados en SMART [las iniciales en inglés] y excluyendo aquellos limitados por el tiempo, pues todos los objetivos están limitados al 2015 o al 2020), inequívocos, expansibles y completos (excluyendo aquellos limitados por el tiempo). Después investigamos la relación entre los puntajes de estos expertos y el progreso reportado hacia los elementos objetivo usando los resultados de dos valoraciones mundiales del progreso (el Pronóstico Mundial de la Biodiversidad y la Plataforma Intergubernamental de Ciencia y Política sobre la Biodiversidad y los Servicios Ambientales). Analizamos los datos con regresiones logísticas ordinales. Encontramos relaciones positivas significativas (p < 0.05) entre el progreso y el alcance al que fueron percibidos como medibles, realistas, inequívocos y expansibles los elementos objetivo. Hubo algo de evidencia de la relación entre el progreso y la ambición. Somos los primeros en mostrar las asociaciones entre el progreso y la extensión hasta la que los Objetivos de Aichi cumplen con ciertos criterios SMART. Conforme proceden las negociaciones en torno al marco de trabajo de biodiversidad post-2020, quienes toman las decisiones deberían esforzarse por asegurar que los objetivos nuevos o revisados estén estructurados efectivamente y redactados claramente para permitir la traducción de los objetivos hacia políticas factibles que puedan implementarse exitosamente a nivel nacional, regional y mundial.

Off-Pump Double Coronary Artery Bypass in a 14-Year-Old With Kawasaki Disease.

A 14-year-old male patient with a history of atypical Kawasaki disease at age 2 presents with triple vessel giant coronary aneurysms. Over the last several years, he began experiencing angina and dyspnea on exertion, which was a result of fully occluded right coronary and left circumflex arteries and 90% stenosis in the left anterior descending artery. He underwent off-pump coronary artery bypass using the left and right internal mammary arteries. At 18-month follow-up, there is no evidence of ischemia. Off-pump bypass is a feasible option for surgical management of the stenotic and occlusive complications of Kawasaki disease.

Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents.

Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. We used long-term monitoring of the abundance of breeding birds across Europe and the United States to produce, for both regions, composite population indices for two groups of species: those for which climate suitability has been either improving or declining since 1980. The ratio of these composite indices, the climate impact indicator (CII), reflects the divergent fates of species favored or disadvantaged by climate change. The trend in CII is positive and similar in the two regions. On both continents, interspecific and spatial variation in population abundance trends are well predicted by climate suitability trends.

Agricultural Management and Climatic Change Are the Major Drivers of Biodiversity Change in the UK.

Action to reduce anthropogenic impact on the environment and species within it will be most effective when targeted towards activities that have the greatest impact on biodiversity. To do this effectively we need to better understand the relative importance of different activities and how they drive changes in species' populations. Here, we present a novel, flexible framework that reviews evidence for the relative importance of these drivers of change and uses it to explain recent alterations in species' populations. We review drivers of change across four hundred species sampled from a broad range of taxonomic groups in the UK. We found that species' population change (~1970-2012) has been most strongly impacted by intensive management of agricultural land and by climatic change. The impact of the former was primarily deleterious, whereas the impact of climatic change to date has been more mixed. Findings were similar across the three major taxonomic groups assessed (insects, vascular plants and vertebrates). In general, the way a habitat was managed had a greater impact than changes in its extent, which accords with the relatively small changes in the areas occupied by different habitats during our study period, compared to substantial changes in habitat management. Of the drivers classified as conservation measures, low-intensity management of agricultural land and habitat creation had the greatest impact. Our framework could be used to assess the relative importance of drivers at a range of scales to better inform our policy and management decisions. Furthermore, by scoring the quality of evidence, this framework helps us identify research gaps and needs.

Continent-scale global change attribution in European birds - combining annual and decadal time scales.

Species attributes are commonly used to infer impacts of environmental change on multiyear species trends, e.g. decadal changes in population size. However, by themselves attributes are of limited value in global change attribution since they do not measure the changing environment. A broader foundation for attributing species responses to global change may be achieved by complementing an attributes-based approach by one estimating the relationship between repeated measures of organismal and environmental changes over short time scales. To assess the benefit of this multiscale perspective, we investigate the recent impact of multiple environmental changes on European farmland birds, here focusing on climate change and land use change. We analyze more than 800 time series from 18 countries spanning the past two decades. Analysis of long-term population growth rates documents simultaneous responses that can be attributed to both climate change and land-use change, including long-term increases in populations of hot-dwelling species and declines in long-distance migrants and farmland specialists. In contrast, analysis of annual growth rates yield novel insights into the potential mechanisms driving long-term climate induced change. In particular, we find that birds are affected by winter, spring, and summer conditions depending on the distinct breeding phenology that corresponds to their migratory strategy. Birds in general benefit from higher temperatures or higher primary productivity early on or in the peak of the breeding season with the largest effect sizes observed in cooler parts of species' climatic ranges. Our results document the potential of combining time scales and integrating both species attributes and environmental variables for global change attribution. We suggest such an approach will be of general use when high-resolution time series are available in large-scale biodiversity surveys.

A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets.

In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related "Aichi Targets" to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of individual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the biodiversity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of biodiversity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress.

A niche-based framework to assess current monitoring of European forest birds and guide indicator species' selection.

Concern that European forest biodiversity is depleted and declining has provoked widespread efforts to improve management practices. To gauge the success of these actions, appropriate monitoring of forest ecosystems is paramount. Multi-species indicators are frequently used to assess the state of biodiversity and its response to implemented management, but generally applicable and objective methodologies for species' selection are lacking. Here we use a niche-based approach, underpinned by coarse quantification of species' resource use, to objectively select species for inclusion in a pan-European forest bird indicator. We identify both the minimum number of species required to deliver full resource coverage and the most sensitive species' combination, and explore the trade-off between two key characteristics, sensitivity and redundancy, associated with indicators comprising different numbers of species. We compare our indicator to an existing forest bird indicator selected on the basis of expert opinion and show it is more representative of the wider community. We also present alternative indicators for regional and forest type specific monitoring and show that species' choice can have a significant impact on the indicator and consequent projections about the state of the biodiversity it represents. Furthermore, by comparing indicator sets drawn from currently monitored species and the full forest bird community, we identify gaps in the coverage of the current monitoring scheme. We believe that adopting this niche-based framework for species' selection supports the objective development of multi-species indicators and that it has good potential to be extended to a range of habitats and taxa.