Data gaps and opportunities for comparative and conservation biology

Abstract

Biodiversity loss is a major challenge. Over the past century, the average rate of vertebrate extinction has been about 100-fold higher than the estimated background rate and population declines continue to increase globally. Birth and death rates determine the pace of population increase or decline, thus driving the expansion or extinction of a species. Design of species conservation policies hence depends on demographic data (e.g., for extinction risk assessments or estimation of harvesting quotas). However, an overview of the accessible data, even for better known taxa, is lacking. Here, we present the Demographic Species Knowledge Index, which classifies the available information for 32,144 (97%) of extant described mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. We show that only 1.3% of the tetrapod species have comprehensive information on birth and death rates. We found no demographic measures, not even crude ones such as maximum life span or typical litter/clutch size, for 65% of threatened tetrapods. More field studies are needed; however, some progress can be made by digitalizing existing knowledge, by imputing data from related species with similar life histories, and by using information from captive populations. We show that data from zoos and aquariums in the Species360 network can significantly improve knowledge for an almost eightfold gain. Assessing the landscape of limited demographic knowledge is essential to prioritize ways to fill data gaps. Such information is urgently needed to implement management strategies to conserve at-risk taxa and to discover new unifying concepts and evolutionary relationships across thousands of tetrapod species.

Population position along the fast–slow life‐history continuum predicts intraspecific variation in actuarial senescence

“…To date, senescence remains poorly studied in most ectothermic vertebrates due to the scarcity of demographic data with age records for these taxa (Conde et al, ). Amphibians are often absent from most publications investigating ageing across the tree of life (Lemaître et al, ; Ricklefs, ; Salguero‐Gómez & Jones, ).…”

Global analysis reveals complex demographic responses of mammals to climate change

“…Thus, to quantify which species and places on Earth are most vulnerable to climate-driven extinction, a global understanding of how demographic rates respond to climate is needed 3 . We synthesise information on such responses in terrestrial mammals, where extensive demographic data are available 4 . Given the importance of assessing the full spectrum of responses, we focus on studies that quantitatively link climate to multiple demographic rates.…”

“…Important efforts have been made in the last decade to increase the amount of comparative data to understand the variation in demographic rates across mammals 4,15 . These data have resulted in the broader availability of open-access demographic data on mammal populations 15,16 and have produced synthetic demographic knowledge, for instance on lifespan and mortality schedules 4,17 . However, we still lack a holistic understanding of how climate drivers simultaneously affect survival, development, and reproduction in mammals worldwide.…”

Assessing ageing patterns for comparative analyses of mortality curves: Going beyond the use of maximum longevity

“…Tidière et al, 2015Tidière et al, , 2016. However, to use widely the 90% longevity metric or average longevity, there is still a major drawback associated with the lack of demographic data required to compute this metric for many species (Condé et al, 2019). We argue here that longevity 90% or average longevity should be used as far as possible as pace metrics in comparative analyses of mortality depending on the data available but also on the research question to address.…”