Ecosystem services, targets, and indicators for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity

After the collective failure to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD's) 2010 target to substantially reduce biodiversity losses, the CBD adopted a plan composed of five strategic goals and 20 “SMART” (Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time-bound) targets, to be achieved by 2020. Here, an interdisciplinary group of scientists from DIVERSITAS – an international program that focuses on biodiversity science – evaluates these targets and considers the implications of an ecosystem-services-based approach for their implementation. We describe the functional differences between the targets corresponding to distinct strategic goals and identify the interdependency between targets. We then discuss the implications for supporting research and target indicators, and make several specific suggestions for target implementation.

[1]  G. Daily,et al.  Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity , 2012, Nature.

[2]  R. Dickinson,et al.  Couplings between changes in the climate system and biogeochemistry , 2007 .

[3]  H. Birks.  Ecological palaeoecology and conservation biology: controversies, challenges, and compromises , 2012 .

[4]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  An Anatomy of Adaptation to Climate Change and Variability , 2000 .

[5]  Eric R. Buhle,et al.  A hotspot of non-native marine fishes: evidence for the aquarium trade as an invasion pathway , 2004 .

[6]  E. Barbier,et al.  Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services , 2006, Science.

[7]  J. Martínez-Alier,et al.  Series Editor: , 2007 .

[8]  X. L. Liu,et al.  Isolation and Characterization of Viruses Related to the SARS Coronavirus from Animals in Southern China , 2003, Science.

[9]  Scott Barrett,et al.  The biodiversity supergame , 1994 .

[10]  S. Higgins,et al.  TRY – a global database of plant traits , 2011, Global Change Biology.

[11]  G. Berks.  Nature''s Numbers: Expanding the National Economic Accounts to Include the Environment , 1999 .

[12]  Ben Collen,et al.  Biodiversity Conservation and the Millennium Development Goals , 2009, Science.

[13]  G. Halkos,et al.  Who Cares about Biodiversity? Optimal Conservation and Transboundary Biodiversity Externalities , 2012 .

[14]  C. Perrings,et al.  Conserving Biodiversity: Reconciling Local and Global Public Benefits , 2003 .

[15]  M. Vanni,et al.  Fish extinctions alter nutrient recycling in tropical freshwaters , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[16]  Kate E. Jones,et al.  Global trends in emerging infectious diseases , 2008, Nature.

[17]  J. Lamarque,et al.  Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines , 2010, Science.

[18]  R. Hill,et al.  The maturation of biodiversity as a global social–ecological issue and implications for future biodiversity science and policy , 2013 .

[19]  James E. M. Watson,et al.  Biodiversity targets after 2010 , 2010 .

[20]  G. Mace,et al.  The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators: Challenges for Science and Policy , 2007, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[21]  J. S. Singh.  Biodiversity: An Overview , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, India Section B: Biological Sciences.

[22]  J. Epstein,et al.  Collaborative Research Approaches to the Role of Wildlife in Zoonotic Disease Emergence , 2007, Current topics in microbiology and immunology.

[23]  H. Whitehead,et al.  Past and Distant Whaling and the Rapid Decline of Sperm Whales off the Galápagos Islands , 1997 .

[24]  Karen L. McLeod,et al.  Sea sick? Setting targets to assess ocean health and ecosystem services , 2012 .

[25]  H. Lotze,et al.  Changes in Marine Biodiversity as an Indicator of Climate Change , 2009 .

[26]  H. Silvis.  The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in National and International Policymaking , 2012 .

[27]  Ivana Chlapcová.  Environment and Statecraft: The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-making , 2006 .

[28]  H. D. Cooper,et al.  Scenarios for Global Biodiversity in the 21st Century , 2010, Science.

[29]  S. McGuire,et al.  Seed exchange networks for agrobiodiversity conservation. A review , 2012, Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

[30]  Harold Mooney,et al.  Biodiversity Policy Challenges , 2009, Science.

[31]  Jarrett E. K. Byrnes,et al.  A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change , 2012, Nature.

[32]  K. Bjorndal,et al.  Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems , 2001, Science.

[33]  Anne Larigauderie,et al.  The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Science-Policy Interface , 2011, Science.

[34]  T. Systems.  Managing wastewater in coastal urban areas , 2013 .

[35]  S. Naeem,et al.  The Functions of Biological Diversity in an Age of Extinction , 2012, Science.

[36]  S. Naeem,et al.  Disentangling biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: deriving solutions to a seemingly insurmountable problem , 2003 .

[37]  P. C. Reid,et al.  Plankton Biodiversity of the North Atlantic: Changing Patterns Revealed by the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey , 2010 .

[38]  Martin Solan,et al.  Extinction and Ecosystem Function in the Marine Benthos , 2004, Science.

[39]  J. Epstein,et al.  The emergence of Nipah and Hendra virus: pathogen dynamics across a wildlife-livestock-human continuum. , 2006 .

[40]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[41]  H. Mooney,et al.  International cooperation in the solution to trade‐related invasive species risks a , 2010, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[42]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Response diversity, ecosystem change, and resilience , 2003 .

[43]  Robert K. Colwell,et al.  Species Loss and Aboveground Carbon Storage in a Tropical Forest , 2005, Science.

[44]  E. Maas,et al.  CROP SALT TOLERANCE–CURRENT ASSESSMENT , 1977 .

[45]  Kate E. Jones,et al.  Influences on the transport and establishment of exotic bird species: an analysis of the parrots (Psittaciformes) of the world , 2004 .

[46]  Michel Loreau,et al.  Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective , 2009 .

[47]  C. Field,et al.  Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming , 2007, Environmental Research Letters.

[48]  Lindsay A. Turnbull,et al.  Coexistence, niches and biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning. , 2013, Ecology letters.

[49]  Susan L. Williams,et al.  Functional consequences of realistic biodiversity changes in a marine ecosystem , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[50]  W. Nordhaus.  Principles of National Accounting For Nonmarket Accounts , 2006 .

[51]  W. Nordhaus,et al.  Nature's numbers : expanding the national economic accounts to include the environment , 1999 .

[52]  Takehiro Sasaki,et al.  Response diversity determines the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change , 2013, Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

[53]  P. Burkill,et al.  Ecosystem Services for 2020 , 2010, Science.

[54]  L. Davis,et al.  In Pursuit of Leviathan: Technology, Institutions, Productivity, and Profits in American Whaling, 1816-1906 , 1998 .

[55]  David A. Siegel,et al.  Climate-driven trends in contemporary ocean productivity , 2006, Nature.

[56]  D. Srivastava,et al.  Biodiversity-Ecosystem Function Research: Is It Relevant to Conservation? , 2005 .

[57]  Andrew R. Solow,et al.  Unintended biological invasions: Does risk vary by trading partner? , 2007 .

[58]  N. Tyler.  Climate, snow, ice, crashes, and declines in populations of reindeer and caribou (Rangifer tarandus L.) , 2010 .

[59]  Unai Pascual,et al.  Developing incentives and economic mechanisms for in situ biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes , 2007 .

[60]  P. Daszak,et al.  Predicting Pathogen Introduction: West Nile Virus Spread to Galápagos , 2006, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.