The concept of potential natural vegetation: an epitaph?

Chiarucci, Alessandro; Araújo, Miguel B.; Decocq, Guillaume; Beierkuhnlein, Carl; Fernández‐Palacios, José María

doi:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01218.x

Cited by 166 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…Disturbance histories are also recognized as key to understanding vegetation patterns worldwide (Johns 1986, Clark 1996, Chiarucci et al 2010, Gennaretti et al 2014). Furthermore, theory shows that disturbance can determine whether or not species coexist in ecological communities or are eliminated.…”

Section: Implications For Distribution Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Sheil¹

2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. I highlight how disturbance determines species distributions and the implications for conservation practice. In particular, I describe opportunities to mitigate some of the threats to species resulting from climate change. Ecological theory shows that disturbance processes can often slow or prevent the exclusion of species by competitors and that different disturbance regimes result in different realized niches. There is much evidence of disturbance influencing where species occur. For example, disturbance can lower the high elevation treeline, thus expanding the area for high elevation vegetation that cannot otherwise persist under tree cover. The role of disturbance in influencing interspecific competition and resulting species persistence and distributions appears unjustly neglected. I identify various implications, including opportunities to achieve in situ conservation by expanding plant species ranges and reducing species vulnerability to competitive exclusion. Suitable frequencies, scales, intensities, spatial configurations, and timings of the right forms of disturbance can improve the persistence of targeted species in a wide range of contexts. Such options could reduce the extinctions likely to be associated with climate change. More generally, these mechanisms and the resulting realizable niche also offer novel insights to understanding and manipulating species distributions.

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Section: Implications For Distribution Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Sheil¹

2016

E&S

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“…(Chiarucci et al 2010). & Option 2 is to take as the reference states the (quasi-) natural land cover in each biome/ecoregion, i.e.…”

Section: Reference Situationmentioning

confidence: 99%

UNEP-SETAC guideline on global land use impact assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem services in LCA

Koellner

Baan

Beck

et al. 2013

Int J Life Cycle Assess

282

288

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Purpose As a consequence of the multi-functionality of land, the impact assessment of land use in Life Cycle Impact Assessment requires the modelling of several impact pathways covering biodiversity and ecosystem services. To provide consistency amongst these separate impact pathways, general principles for their modelling are provided in this paper. These are refinements to the principles that have already been proposed in publications by the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. In particular, this paper addresses the calculation of land use interventions and land use impacts, the issue of impact reversibility, the spatial and temporal distribution of such impacts and the assessment of absolute or relative ecosystem quality changes. Based on this, we propose a guideline to build methods for land use impact assessment in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Results Recommendations are given for the development of new characterization models and for which a series of key elements should explicitly be stated, such as the modelled land use impact pathways, the land use/cover typology covered, the level of biogeographical differentiation used for the characterization factors, the reference land use situation used and if relative or absolute quality changes are used to calculate land use impacts. Moreover, for an application of the characterisation factors (CFs) in an LCA study, data collection should be transparent with respect to the data input required from the land use inventory and the regeneration times. Indications on how generic CFs can be used for the background system as well as how spatial-based CFs can be calculated for the foreground system in a specific LCA study and how land use change is to be allocated should be detailed. Finally, it becomes necessary to justify the modelling period for which land use impacts of land transformation and occupation are calculated and how uncertainty is accounted for. Discussion The presented guideline is based on a number of assumptions: Discrete land use types are sufficient for an assessment of land use impacts; ecosystem quality remains constant over time of occupation; time and area of occupation are substitutable; transformation time is negligible; regeneration is linear and independent from land use history and landscape configuration; biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services are independent; the ecological impact is linearly increasing with the intervention; and there is no interaction between land use and other drivers such as climate change. These assumptions might influence the results of land use Life Cycle Impact Assessment and need to be critically reflected. Conclusions and recommendations In this and the other papers of the special issue, we presented the principles and recommendations for the calculation of land use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services on a global scale. In the framework of LCA, they are mainly used for the assessment of land use impacts in the background system. The main areas for further development are the link to regional...

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“…This is an obvious question for further research and should be addressed if changes in species diversity are used as an indicator. It should also be mentioned that Chiarucci et al [139] characterize potential natural vegetation (PNV) as a concept that is hard to define and with limited predictive power; still, PNV is often recommended as a reference situation. See also Souza [26] for a thorough discussion of the reference state.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Include Impacts on Biodiversity from Land Use in LCIA and How to Select Useful Indicators?

Michelsen

Lindner

2015

Sustainability

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Abstract:Loss of biodiversity is one of the most severe threats to sustainability, and land use and land use changes are still the single most important factor. Still, there is no sign of any consensus on how to include impacts on biodiversity from land use and land use changes in LCIA. In this paper, different characteristics of biodiversity are discussed and related to proposals on how to include land use and land use changes in LCIA. We identify the question of why we should care about biodiversity as a key question, since different motivations will result in different choices for the indicators, and we call for more openness in the motivation for indicator selection. We find a promising trend in combining pressure indicators with geographic weighting and regard this as a promising way ahead. More knowledge on the consequences of different choices, such as the selection of a reference state, is still needed.

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The concept of potential natural vegetation: an epitaph?

Cited by 166 publications

References 47 publications

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

UNEP-SETAC guideline on global land use impact assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem services in LCA

Why Include Impacts on Biodiversity from Land Use in LCIA and How to Select Useful Indicators?

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