Improving the targeted delivery of conservation management to halt biodiversity loss

最近的一项全球评估表明，生物多样性丧失的速度并未减缓，因此，《生物多样性公约》关于到2010年大幅减少生物多样性丧失的目标不太可能实现。令人担忧的是，尽管旨在阻止生物多样性下降的政策和管理对策的规模和力度有所增加，但生物多样性仍在继续下降。这表明，这些保护措施的性质、结构和规模不足以抵消现有的衰退驱动因素，而且可能完全不足以抵消现有压力进一步增加或新驱动因素出现的不利影响。现在的关键挑战是理解为什么生物多样性持续下降，为什么保护管理没有实现其目标。生物多样性丧失的主要驱动因素之一是土地利用的变化，特别是为了满足人类对粮食、燃料和纤维日益增长的需求。这些变化改变了生物多样性关键资源的数量、质量和分布，如食物和繁殖地，这决定了物种在景观中的生态位空间。生态位可用性的减少可能对繁殖和存活率产生不利影响，从而导致种群下降。因此，大多数保护政策和管理战略的重点是将这些资源归还给景观。然而，支持这种保护行动的证据基础的关键差距之一是对支持稳定种群所需资源的数量和质量的理解。如果没有这些知识，就不可能评估目前哪些资源低于所需的阈值水平，从而有效地提供有针对性的保护管理行动，提供适当和足够的资源，以确保种群稳定。该项目将开发可用于确定资源可用性的这些关键阈值的工具，从而指导旨在阻止生物多样性丧失的保护管理的交付。我将使用农田和林地鸟类作为这项工作的模型系统。英国和欧洲政府已将鸟类确定为更广泛的生物多样性健康的代表，并将人口趋势指数作为可持续发展的主要指标。使用的数量和质量的关键资源作为一个共同的货币，我将重新分类土地利用，根据它们的贡献，一个物种的生态位空间，然后与生态位的可用性人口丰度和趋势。这些分析将基于从英国和欧洲的一些长期鸟类监测计划中收集的现有数据。通过在广阔的空间尺度和对比的土地使用情况下评估生态位可用性与种群动态之间的联系，将能够制定预测跨物种、空间尺度和生态系统的生态位需求的通用规则。

A recent global assessment shows that the rate of biodiversity loss is not slowing, making it unlikely that the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) target to achieve a significant reduction in biodiversity loss by 2010 will be met. Worryingly, biodiversity declines are continuing despite increases in the scale and intensity of policy and management responses designed to halt them. This suggests that the nature, structure and scale of these conservation measures are insufficient to counteract existing drivers of decline and are likely to be wholly inadequate in offsetting the detrimental effects of either further increases in existing pressures or the emergence of novel drivers. The key challenge now is to understand why biodiversity declines are continuing and why conservation management is not achieving its objectives. One of the principle drivers of biodiversity losses is land-use change, particularly to meet increasing human needs for food, fuel and fibre. These changes alter the quantity, quality and distribution of key resources for biodiversity, such as food and breeding sites, which determine a species' niche space in the landscape. Reductions in niche availability can have detrimental impacts on reproduction and survival rates which then drives population declines. As a consequence, most conservation policy and management strategies focus on returning these resources back into landscapes. However, one of the key gaps in the evidence-base underpinning such conservation action is an understanding of the quantity and quality of resources which are required to support stable populations. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to assess which resources are currently below the threshold levels required and therefore to effectively deliver targeted conservation management action which provides appropriate and sufficient resources to ensure population stability. This project will develop tools which can be used to identify these critical thresholds in resource availability and therefore to guide the delivery of conservation management designed to halt biodiversity loss. I will use farmland and woodland birds as model systems for this work. The UK and European governments have identified birds as proxies for wider biodiversity health and have adopted indices of population trends as headline indicators of sustainable development. Using the quantity and quality of key resources provided as a common currency, I will re-classify land-uses according to their contribution to a species' niche space and then relate niche availability to population abundance and trends. The analyses will be based on existing data collected from a number of long-term bird monitoring schemes across the UK and Europe. Assessing the links between niche availability and population dynamics across broad spatial scales and contrasting land-uses will allow the development of generic rules for predicting niche requirements across species, spatial scales and ecosystems.