Biodiversity Facets

Global assessments of bird and mammal diversity along three facets: species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, and functional diversity layers. Layers from Pollock et al. (2017).

Taxonomic Scope: Birds, Mammals

Spatial Extent: Global

Resolution: 110km

Number of Species: 14,780 (total), 9,993 (birds), 4,787 (mammals)

Source

Pollock, L., Thuiller, W. & Jetz, W. Large conservation gains possible for global biodiversity facets. Nature 546, 141–144 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22368

Abstract

Different facets of biodiversity other than species numbers are increasingly appreciated as critical for maintaining the function of ecosystems and their services to humans. While new international policy and assessment processes such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) recognize the importance of an increasingly global, quantitative and comprehensive approach to biodiversity protection, most insights are still focused on a single facet of biodiversity—species.

Here we broaden the focus and provide an evaluation of how much of the world’s species, functional and phylogenetic diversity of birds and mammals is currently protected and the scope for improvement. We show that the large existing gaps in the coverage for each facet of diversity could be remedied by a slight expansion of protected areas: an additional 5% of the land has the potential to more than triple the protected range of species or phylogenetic or functional units. Further, the same areas are often priorities for multiple diversity facets and for both taxa. However, we find that the choice of conservation strategy has a fundamental effect on outcomes. It is more difficult (that is, requires more land) to maximize basic representation of the global biodiversity pool than to maximize local diversity.

Overall, species and phylogenetic priorities are more similar to each other than they are to functional priorities, and priorities for the different bird biodiversity facets are more similar than those of mammals. Our work shows that large gains in biodiversity protection are possible, while also highlighting the need to explicitly link desired conservation objectives and biodiversity metrics. We provide a framework and quantitative tools to advance these goals for multi-faceted biodiversity conservation.

Further Resources:

Barbet-Massin, M., and W. Jetz. 2015. The effect of range changes on the functional turnover, structure and diversity of bird assemblages under future climate scenarios. Global Change Biology 21:2917–2928. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12905/abstract

Jarzyna, M. A., and W. Jetz. 2016. Detecting the Multiple Facets of Biodiversity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 31: 527-538. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534716300222

Jetz, W., G. H. Thomas, J. B. Joy, K. Hartmann, D. Redding, and A. O. Mooers. 2014. Distribution and conservation of global evolutionary distinctness in birds. Current Biology 24:919-930. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00270-X

Pollock, L. J., D. F. Rosauer, A. H. Thornhill, H. Kujala, M. D. Crisp, J. T. Miller, and M. A. McCarthy. 2015. Phylogenetic diversity meets conservation policy: small areas are key to preserving eucalypt lineages. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 370:20140007. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1662/20140007

Jetz, W., J. M. McPherson, and R. P. Guralnick. 2012. Integrating biodiversity distribution knowledge: toward a global map of life. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 27:151-159. http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/pdf/S0169-5347(11)00267-9.pdf

Hurlbert, A. H., and W. Jetz. 2007. Species richness, hotspots, and the scale dependence of range maps in ecology and conservation. PNAS 104:13384-13389. http://www.pnas.org/content/104/33/13384.full

Rosauer, D. F., and W. Jetz. 2015. Phylogenetic endemism in terrestrial mammals. Global Ecology and Biogeography 24:168-179. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/geb.12237/abstract