Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Robotic monitoring of forests: a dataset from the EU habitat 9210* in the Tuscan Apennines (central Italy)

Effective monitoring of habitats is crucial for their preservation. As the impact of anthropic activities on natural habitats increases, accurate and up-to-date information on the state of ecosystems has become imperative. This paper presents a new dataset collected from the forests located in the Tuscan Apennines (Italy) using the ANYmal robot. The dataset provides information regarding the structure and composition of the EU priority habitat 9210*. The dataset, which is publicly available through a Zenodo repository, includes photos, videos, and point clouds of the environment. This dataset is a valuable resource for the scientific community working in the field of forest ecology and conservation and has the potential to inform future research and conservation efforts on habitat 9210*. The collaboration between robotic engineers and plant scientists provides a unique perspective on the forest ecosystem and underscores the potential for interdisciplinary work in this field. This dataset constitutes an important contribution to the ongoing effort to monitor and conserve habitats globally, particularly in light of the challenges posed by global changes.

The influence of macrophyte ecological groups on food web components of temperate freshwater lakes

Aquatic macrophyte taxonomic composition, species abundance and cover determine the physical structure, complexity and heterogeneity of aquatic habitats - the structuring role of macrophytes. These traits influence richness, distribution, feeding and strength of the relationships between food web communities in lakes. The aim of this study was to determine how lakes with different dominating macrophyte ecological groups affect planktonic food web components, emphasising the influence on young of year (YOY) fish and large (≥1 +) fish community. We hypothesised that different dominating macrophyte ecological groups have different structural effects on food web components and YOY fish growth, abundance and feeding. Studied lakes categorised into three different macrophyte ecological groups - lakes dominated by emergent, floating+floating-leaved or submerged vegetation. We found that all dominating ecological groups had a strong influence on plankton communities (except heterotrophic bacterioplankton and nanoflagellates), YOY fish and large fish. Floating-leaved plant dominance was positively related to planktonic food web structure and YOY fish weight, length, abundance and the consumption of zooplankton as a prey of all major species of YOY fishes. Larger fish tended to favour the presence of emergent vegetation. This conclusion has important implications for local managers and conservationists in respect to the maintenance and protection of littoral habitats and fish resources.

Revised criteria system for a national assessment of threatened habitats in Germany

The Red List of threatened habitat types in Germany was first published in 1994 and it is updated approximately every ten years. In 2017 the third version was published by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. In the course of the revision, the criteria system was also extended. In doing so, an attempt was made to find a compromise between the consideration of international developments that had taken place and existing national requirements. In particular, short-term developments should become visible through the German Red List status. In addition to ‘National long-term Threat’, the valuation now also includes ‘Current Trend’ and ‘Rarity’. Following the IUCN’s approach, the collapse risk is now represented on the basis of several criteria. However, in contrast to the IUCN procedure, where the worst evaluated criterion is determinative for Red List status, in our procedure all criteria are included in the evaluation. To counteract misleading signal-effects for management decisions, all significant criteria have an influence on the resulting German Red List status (RLG). They are combined in an assessment scheme. In order to map the overall risk of loss, both the long-term threat as a historical reference value and furthermore the current trend must have an influence on RLG. As a result, 65% of habitat types have differing risk of loss.

Identifying Habitat Type Conservation Priorities under the Habitats Directive: Application to Two Italian Biogeographical Regions

The ongoing biodiversity crisis necessitates greater efforts to ensure the adequate conservation of critical habitat types. Even though the identification of protected areas is still required in Europe, conservation efforts are now focusing on management requirements for protected areas and habitat types. Establishing effective management approaches is important for the conservation of the natural and semi-natural habitat types that are identified under the Habitats Directive framework. In this study, we propose a methodology for determining priorities in the conservation management of habitat types based on readily available data. This method relies on four simple criteria to rank habitat types, which includes: conservation condition, biodiversity value, pressure factor, and the cover relevance of habitat types (indicating regional responsibility in terms of area covered). After ranking the habitat types based on the sum of the scores given to all of the criteria, the 25% top-ranking habitat types were prioritized. The pressure factors are analyzed using cluster analysis to better convey information regarding the management needs of groups of habitat types. This prioritization method was tested in habitat types occurring within the Italian Alpine and Continental biogeographical regions. From this analysis, forests, bogs and fens, and dry grasslands were identified as conservation priorities for the Alpine region; meanwhile, a wider variety of habitat types were identified for the Continental region. Important pressure factors were identified (e.g., roads and motorways) for these two biogeographical regions of Italy, which could be used to suggest specific conservation measures. The proposed approach represents a transparent and reliable method for outlining habitat-type priorities based on conservation, biodiversity, pressure, and cover factors, which can be applied to identifying conservation measures that can help achieve biodiversity targets.

Scaling range sizes to threats for robust predictions of risks to biodiversity

Assessments of risk to biodiversity often rely on spatial distributions of species and ecosystems. Range-size metrics used extensively in these assessments, such as area of occupancy (AOO), are sensitive to measurement scale, prompting proposals to measure them at finer scales or at different scales based on the shape of the distribution or ecological characteristics of the biota. Despite its dominant role in red-list assessments for decades, appropriate spatial scales of AOO for predicting risks of species' extinction or ecosystem collapse remain untested and contentious. There are no quantitative evaluations of the scale-sensitivity of AOO as a predictor of risks, the relationship between optimal AOO scale and threat scale, or the effect of grid uncertainty. We used stochastic simulation models to explore risks to ecosystems and species with clustered, dispersed, and linear distribution patterns subject to regimes of threat events with different frequency and spatial extent. Area of occupancy was an accurate predictor of risk (0.81<|r|<0.98) and performed optimally when measured with grid cells 0.1-1.0 times the largest plausible area threatened by an event. Contrary to previous assertions, estimates of AOO at these relatively coarse scales were better predictors of risk than finer-scale estimates of AOO (e.g., when measurement cells are <1% of the area of the largest threat). The optimal scale depended on the spatial scales of threats more than the shape or size of biotic distributions. Although we found appreciable potential for grid-measurement errors, current IUCN guidelines for estimating AOO neutralize geometric uncertainty and incorporate effective scaling procedures for assessing risks posed by landscape-scale threats to species and ecosystems.