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.
Many lowland rainforests in Southeast Asia are severely altered by selective logging and there is a need for rapid assessment methods to identify characteristic communities of old growth forests and to monitor restoration success in regenerating forests. We have studied the effect of logging on the diversity and composition of lichen communities on trunks of trees in lowland rainforests of northeast Borneo dominated by Dipterocarpaceae. Using data from field observations and vouchers collected from plots in disturbed and undisturbed forests, we compared a taxonomy-based and a taxon-free method. Vouchers were identified to genus or genus group and assigned to functional groups based on sets of functional traits. Both datasets allowed the detection of significant differences in lichen communities between disturbed and undisturbed forest plots. Bark type diversity and the proportion of large trees, particularly those belonging to the family Dipterocarpaceae, were the main drivers of lichen community structure. Our results confirm the usefulness of a functional groups approach for the rapid assessment of tropical lowland rainforests in Southeast Asia. A high proportion of Dipterocarpaceae trees is revealed as an essential element for the restoration of near natural lichen communities in lowland rainforests of Southeast Asia.
Extrapolative nonparametric estimators of species density are commonly used in community ecology. However, they are dependent on either (1) their use on non-dispersive taxa, or (2) the ability to separate tourists from residents in dispersive taxa. We undertook ten years of leaf litter sampling in an ancient woodland in the New Forest, Southern England. We identified all the beetles from those samples and assigned them a residency status (residents, stratum tourists, and habitat tourists). Extrapolations, using the Chao 2, first- and second-order jackknife, and bootstrap approaches, of all sampled beetles all showed large overestimates of species richness when compared with extrapolations based on just residents. We recommend that the estimators should be used with caution as estimates of actual species density for dispersive taxa unless the natural history of most species in a community is well known. This applies especially to tropical ecosystems where many species have not been described. This reinforces the need for more descriptive natural history.
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