Carvalheiro, LG, Kunin, WE orcid.org/0000-0002-9812-2326, Keil, P et al. (17 more authors) (2013) Species richness declines and biotic homogenisation have slowed down for NW‐European pollinators and plants. Ecology Letters, 16 (7). pp. 870-878. ISSN 1461-023X
Abstract
Concern about biodiversity loss has led to increased public investment in conservation. Whereas there is a widespread perception that such initiatives have been unsuccessful, there are few quantitative tests of this perception. Here, we evaluate whether rates of biodiversity change have altered in recent decades in three European countries (Great Britain, Netherlands and Belgium) for plants and flower visiting insects. We compared four 20-year periods, comparing periods of rapid land-use intensification and natural habitat loss (1930–1990) with a period of increased conservation investment (post-1990). We found that extensive species richness loss and biotic homogenisation occurred before 1990, whereas these negative trends became substantially less accentuated during recent decades, being partially reversed for certain taxa (e.g. bees in Great Britain and Netherlands). These results highlight the potential to maintain or even restore current species assemblages (which despite past extinctions are still of great conservation value), at least in regions where large-scale land-use intensification and natural habitat loss has ceased.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2013 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and CNRS. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Accumulation curves; Biodiversity loss; Community ecology; Plant–flower visitor communities; Pollination; Similarity; Spatial homogenisation; Species richness estimations; Temporal and spatial patterns |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 13 May 2015 13:21 |
Last Modified: | 17 Jan 2021 14:39 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12121 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/ele.12121 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84380 |