The establishment of China's core biodiversity metadata standard

Biodiversity metadata provide service to query, management and use of actual data sets. The progress of the development of metadata standards in China was analyzed, and metadata required and/or produced based on the Convention on Biological Diversity were reviewed. A biodiversity metadata standard was developed based on the characteristics of biodiversity data and in line with the framework of international metadata standards. The content of biodiversity metadata is divided into two levels. The first level consists of metadata entities and elements that are necessary to exclusively identify a biodiversity data set, and is named as Core Metadata. The second level comprises metadata entities and elements that are necessary to describe all aspects of a biodiversity data set. The standard for core biodiversity metadata is presented in this paper, which is composed of 51 elements belonging to 6 categories (entities), i.e. inventory information, collection information, information on the content of the data set, management information, access information, and metadata management information. The name, definition, condition, data type, and field length of metadata elements in these six categories (entities) are also described.     

A quality control protocol for terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity assessment

A procedure for the implementation of quality control for laboratorysorting and identification of invertebrate specimens collected in biodiversityresearch is described. The procedure is based on process control sampling, aconcept of statistical process control (SPC) used widely in the manufacturingand information technology industries, and adapted to suit the tasks andproducts of biodiversity sorting procedures. The major advantages of processcontrol over other quality control mechanisms are that it is more stringent, andcontinuous. Hence, errors are detected and corrected as they occur, avoidingproliferation in the data set. The procedure is also highly interactive,offering the technicians the opportunity to learn as they work. Protocols havebeen developed while sorting material collected as part of a study into theimpacts associated with invasion of a habitat (coastal heath) by an exotic weed(bitou bush – Chrysanthemoides monilifera) on thecentral coast of New South Wales, Australia. Major findings from the analysis ofmaterial processed include: that errors may have a variety of causes andsubsequent implications for data quality, levels of identification errors can besignificant even at higher taxonomic levels (e.g. sorting insects to order),initial training periods on their own are insufficient to ensure errorminimisation, and even with stringent protocols the ratio of technician tospecialist effort can be maintained at a level of around 5:1. The need forincorporating effective quality control procedures into invertebratebiodiversity data compilations is emphasised.     

Nitrogen deposition and the reduction of butterfly biodiversity quality in the Netherlands

Butterfly decline in Northern Europe is a cause of concern and it has been hypothesised that this is due to nitrogen deposition inducing excess early growth of plants. It has also been changing the quality of the food available to larvae. We tested these hypotheses by linking butterfly biodiversity quality indices (species richness, population, biomass, conservation value, evenness (Simpson's Index) and modelled species richness (Chao 1 and 2)) with nitrogen Critical Load Exceedence (nCLE) data. An index of butterfly sensitivity to nitrogen was also created (Species Nitrogen Value Index (SNVI)). Using PCA, datasets were tested for associations and relationships.The results included multiple biodiversity quality indices based on 17 years of data (aggregated into three periods of six, six and five years to give 287 datasets) in four habitat types (grassland, heathland, woodland and farmland). With the exception of heathland the analysis showed that nitrogen deposition and all other indices (except SNVI) were in decline.For heathland the last 11 years did not show any significant decline. Heathland also showed an anomalous biodiversity quality profile for these last 11 years, suggesting that the sensitivity of heathland to nitrogen deposition will require further considerable efforts to achieve a nitrogen deposition that is not in exceedence of the critical load.Habitat restoration will take time due to the multiple hindrances to colonisation, which in the case of heathland might prevent successful butterfly colonisation for the foreseeable future. These results indicate the efficacy of butterfly biodiversity quality and nCLE as indicators for the SEBI 2020 process (Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators) by showing the relationship between them.     

以绢蝶为代表的甘肃南部蝶类多样性

在甘肃南部地区的蝶类调查中,共记录到蝴蝶339种,分属于12科,157属,区系组成以广布种为主,占总种数的56.6%;古北种次之,占26.9%;东洋种最少,占16.5%;共采集到绢蝶15种,占分布于中国绢蝶总种数41种的36.6%。样线调查结果显示绢蝶在甘肃南部地区有比较明显的垂直性分布,高山亚冰雪稀疏植被带、亚高山灌丛草甸带、山地森林草原带及山地草原带均有绢蝶分布。各生境中绢蝶多样性与蝶类群落多样性进行比对得出变化趋势不一致,随着海拔升高,绢蝶物种丰富度S及Shannon-Wiener多样性指数呈逐渐上升趋势,而蝶类群落物种丰富度S及Shannon-Wiener多样性指数总体呈下降趋势。绢蝶是高原地区的特有珍稀物种,君主绢蝶(P.imperator)、依帕绢蝶(P.epaphus)、小红珠绢蝶(P.nomion)等3种绢蝶为甘肃南部地区常见种,元首绢蝶(P.cephalus)等8种绢蝶为甘肃南部地区偶见种,数量极少,其种群及生存状态需予以关注。     

Biodiversity quality: A paradigm for biodiversity

This paper addresses the need for an internationally accepted definition of biodiversity the lack of which creates difficulty in measuring biodiversity difference and change. The authors suggest that well-sampled data can be used to generate a range of numerical indices reflecting species group characteristics/functionality that can be viewed in combination to create a picture of Biodiversity Quality. Examples of this approach demonstrate how to expand the currently accepted Convention on Biological Diversity definition, based on the “variability” of genes, species and ecosystems, since the numerical expression of the indices allows the probability of difference between biodiversity quality trends and values over time, and between sites or taxonomic groups, to be assessed for statistical inference of difference or similarity.     

Incorporating metadata in HIV transmission network reconstruction: A machine learning feasibility assessment

HIV molecular epidemiology estimates the transmission patterns from clustering genetically similar viruses. The process involves connecting genetically similar genotyped viral sequences in the network implying epidemiological transmissions. This technique relies on genotype data which is collected only from HIV diagnosed and in-care populations and leaves many persons with HIV (PWH) who have no access to consistent care out of the tracking process. We use machine learning algorithms to learn the non-linear correlation patterns between patient metadata and transmissions between HIV-positive cases. This enables us to expand the transmission network reconstruction beyond the molecular network. We employed multiple commonly used supervised classification algorithms to analyze the San Diego Primary Infection Resource Consortium (PIRC) cohort dataset, consisting of genotypes and nearly 80 additional non-genetic features. First, we trained classification models to determine genetically unrelated individuals from related ones. Our results show that random forest and decision tree achieved over 80% in accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score by only using a subset of meta-features including age, birth sex, sexual orientation, race, transmission category, estimated date of infection, and first viral load date besides genetic data. Additionally, both algorithms achieved approximately 80% sensitivity and specificity. The Area Under Curve (AUC) is reported 97% and 94% for random forest and decision tree classifiers respectively. Next, we extended the models to identify clusters of similar viral sequences. Support vector machine demonstrated one order of magnitude improvement in accuracy of assigning the sequences to the correct cluster compared to dummy uniform random classifier. These results confirm that metadata carries important information about the dynamics of HIV transmission as embedded in transmission clusters. Hence, novel computational approaches are needed to apply the non-trivial knowledge collected from inter-individual genetic information to metadata from PWH in order to expand the estimated transmissions. We note that feature extraction alone will not be effective in identifying patterns of transmission and will result in random clustering of the data, but its utilization in conjunction with genetic data and the right algorithm can contribute to the expansion of the reconstructed network beyond individuals with genetic data.     

替代指标在生物多样性快速评价中的应用

生物多样性评价工作是生物多样性保护的基础,而替代指标的应用是在环境影响评价中实现生物多样性快速评价的重要方法之一.本文介绍了生物多样性替代指标的概念,分析了不同生物类群之间广泛存在的相关性,总结了大尺度上兽类、鸟类、维管束植物物种数的经验比例(1:5:50).对目前可供使用的生物多样性替代指标进行了系统整理和分类,将其划分为生物类替代指标(包括指示类群、功能类群和珍稀濒危类群)和生境类替代指标(包括环境因子、景观格局和自然圣境).对不同指标的替代机理、有效性、使用方法和适用范围等进行了归纳,探讨了增强生物多样性替代指标应用有效性和评价精度的主要途径.研究可为保护地规划、生物多样性监测和环境影响评价等领域开展生物多样性快速评价,以及环境评价制度中生物多样性影响评价的完善提供参考.     

Preservation of biodiversity in small rainforest patches: rapid evaluations using butterfly trapping

Determining the capacity of small forest remnants to support biodiversity is of critical importance, especially in the tropics where high rates of land conversion coincide with extraordinarily high species richness and endemism. Using fruit-baited traps, we conducted rapid evaluations in 1993 and 1994 of the forest butterfly diversity of seven small patches (3–30 ha) and a single remaining large patch (227 ha) of Costa Rican mid-elevation moist forest. Our results suggest that even recently isolated 20–30 ha fragments of primary forest retain surprisingly depauperate butterfly faunas relative to that supported by the 227 ha patch only 0.5–1.0 km away. If forest butterflies are an index of the diversity of small-bodied organisms in general, preservation of the latter may require unexpectedly large patches. In 1994 we also surveyed a 16 ha botanical garden, situated between and contiguous to both the 227 ha patch and an exceptionally species-rich 25 ha patch. In the garden, we discovered adults of many butterfly species associated with forest interior, suggesting that even heavily managed systems of largely exotic plants (such as agricultural systems) could be designed to serve as corridors for butterflies and perhaps some other groups of organisms. We discuss some implications for a planned restoration of biotic connections between lowland and montane forests in southern Costa Rica.     

The integration of biodiversity and climate change: A contextual assessment of the carbon farming initiative

Summary The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) allows the creation of tradable Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) derived from across the ecosystem sector via project‐level baseline and credit activities: it is the first national offset scheme in the world to broadly include farming and forestry projects. Because these activities have the potential to produce both biodiversity and climate change benefits, a crucial outcome is for widespread uptake of the policy. However, the design, complexity and cost of the CFI project development process, and low prices as a result of ACCUs trading in the voluntary market, will all likely militate against this. This article shows how international politics and policy surrounding the Kyoto Protocol have influenced the design of the CFI, with its potential to proliferate complex and narrow methodologies and counter‐productive approaches to integrity standards such as permanence. The article shows that despite the pressing need to integrate biodiversity and climate change considerations as equally important challenges, their global integration remains poorly articulated. Biodiversity considerations are also not integrated into the CFI but, rather, are dealt with indirectly through safeguard measures that avoid perverse incentives and unintended harm, and as an optional co‐benefit via the development of an index. This article suggests that we need to move past the shackles of Kyoto towards streamlined and standardized approaches such as risk‐based assessments and the use of regional baselines. Using regionally specific baselines such as for avoided deforestation would allow landholders to opt‐in to regional‐scale mitigation opportunities. Activities that Australia accounts for, such as reforestation and deforestation, should also be able to opt‐in for coverage under the Clean Energy Act (and out of the voluntary carbon market) to obtain a secure price.     

Habitat ecological integrity and environmental impact assessment of anthropic activities: A GIS-based fuzzy logic model for sites of high biodiversity conservation interest

In literature, an effective method enabling the classification, based on a single indicator, of habitats that need a priority protection intervention has not been identified yet. Moreover, the excessive number of landscape metrics, used to quantify integrity of habitats, can cause confusion, often providing redundant and inconsistent results.The aim of this work is to develop a method for evaluating the ecological vulnerability of the habitats in sites of high biodiversity conservation interest. In the first phase, we selected and analyzed, by using principal component analysis (PCA) and fuzzy logic, the landscape metrics, in order to obtain the map of the intrinsic ecological vulnerability index. In the second step, the result of this intrinsic vulnerability was connected, through another fuzzy model, to anthropogenic impacts, obtaining the integrated ecological vulnerability index. We developed specific spatial indicators (landscape metrics), which can examine the mutual position and morphology of the habitats present, along with indicators of human pressure, related to the type and intensity of use of the anthropic territory, with reference to the habitat itself as well as to the areas immediately adjacent. The developed fuzzy models are innovative, compared to the current ecological studies, and examine landscape metrics as well as the impact of human activities.The case study is the “Val Basento-Ferrandina Scalo” Site of Community Importance, Ferrandina-SCI (Basilicata Region, Southern Italy). The results allowed us to build a rank of the habitats based on their intrinsic and integrated ecological vulnerability. Moreover, the results show that, in the Ferrandina-SCI, the most important source of concern is not human activities, but rather the inherent risk of ecological fragility caused by geographical and landscape features of the different patches of habitats themselves.This model aims to be a tool for decision support in sustainable landscape management. It is easy to use and to apply on other regions, although it should always be accompanied by a sensitivity analysis to reduce the subjectivity.     

Towards indicators of butterfly biodiversity based on a multiscale landscape description

The conservation of biodiversity has gained prominence in ecological research for the last decades. Conservation actions require a measure of biodiversity such as species richness, but its assessment is very difficult, even for small areas and therefore the search for surrogates (i.e. indicators) of biodiversity has emerged as an active research topic. We investigated the relationships between butterfly species richness and landscape structure and composition in two pine plantation sites in Southwest France. We assessed the correlation between butterfly species richness and a set of 15 landscape metrics computed for 18 land-uses at 10 different spatial scales. Spatial scales were accounted for by computing landscape metrics for circular buffers with radius ranging from 100 to 1000 m. The joint use of the Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) and a stepwise regression procedure revealed strong correlations between butterfly species richness and various landscape metrics in both study sites. The selected landscape metrics differed from one site to another and mostly involved measures of landscape fragmentation. We found a very strong effect of the spatial scale of investigation upon the perception of the landscape–butterfly richness relationship. Our main conclusions are that (i) certain landscape attributes can potentially serve as indicators for butterfly species richness at the landscape scale; (ii) future indicators of biodiversity based on landscape features should consider various spatial scales.     

生物多样性综合评价方法研究

2002年召开的《生物多样性公约》第六次缔约方大会确定了“到2010年在全球范围内大幅度降低生物多样性丧失的速度”的目标, 并要求各国制定生物多样性评价指标, 开展生物多样性评估。本文作者根据科学性、代表性和实用性的原则, 提出了生物多样性综合评价的5个指标, 即物种丰富度、生态系统类型多样性、植被垂直层谱的完整性、物种特有性、外来物种入侵度, 确立了生物多样性综合评价方法; 并以全国31省(市、区)为单元, 开展了全国生物多样性综合评价, 将各省(市、区)生物多样性分为四个等级。云南、四川、广西的生物多样性属“优”, 贵州、湖北、广东、湖南、重庆、福建、西藏、江西、浙江、海南、甘肃、新疆、陕西的生物多样性属“良”, 河南、安徽、山东、山西、河北、北京的生物多样性属“一般”, 吉林、内蒙古、上海、辽宁、宁夏、青海、江苏、黑龙江、天津的生物多样性为“较差”。     

Discovering and developing primary biodiversity data from social networking sites: A novel approach

Detailed, authoritative Digital Accessible Knowledge (DAK) about biodiversity is crucial to any biodiversity informatics or conservation project. In most developing nations, significant DAK gaps exist both geographically and taxonomically. This paper explores a novel source of photo-vouchered biodiversity occurrence data, in the form of records associated with photos posted on social networking sites (SNSs). SNSs like Flickr, Facebook, and Picasaweb allow naturalists to share images and associated metadata with other users. I explore the idea of discovering and organizing massive numbers of biodiversity occurrence records now available on SNSs. I present a proof-of-concept with Flickr as the SNS and the Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) and the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) as target species, but methods presented here can easily be used for any other SNS, region, or species group, particularly for developing, mega-diverse countries where the need for biodiversity DAK is particularly acute. These approaches are broadly applicable to animal and plant groups that are photographed and that can be identified from photographs with some degree of confidence (e.g., birds, butterflies, cetaceans, orchids, dragonflies, amphibians, plants), and thus offer a rich new source of biodiversity data.     

森林生态系统生物多样性的遥感评估

目前的评估由于方法的原因,常常会遗留下一些含糊不清的地方。遥感则可以作一种观察生态系统多样性和单个生态系统中各种结构侧面的重要工具。它提供了一种能够跨越几个不同空间尺度实施评估的手段,并且对于评估生态系统格局随时间的变化也是必不可少。现在许多不同的遥感技术已经被应用在生态学研究中。大多数工作所用的数据主要是来自机载和星载平台提供的摄影和数字光学图像,目前则越来越强调激光扫描和合成孔径雷达数据的应用。这些技术手段为从景观到林分规模的不同现象的评估提供了机会。遥感提供了可用于确定森林生态系统中生物多样性景观尺度的元素最有效的工具。例如基质和斑块的相对百分比以及它们的配置。在中间尺度,遥感为评价廊道的存在和边界的特性提供了理想的工具。在林分尺度,遥感技术可用来获取关于森林分结构属性的信息,例如冠层表面的特性,是否存在冠内分层等等。随着的发展,遥感将更广泛地应用于生态学研究。     

Sacred natural sites and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review

Biodiversity and Conservation - Sacred natural sites (SNS) have gained recognition from conservationists, and are regarded as the oldest form of habitat protection in human history. Many case...     

Biological assessment of water quality and biodiversity in Rwandan rivers draining into Lake Kivu

Aquatic Ecology - This study aimed at assessing the biological water quality and biodiversity of Rwandan rivers draining into Lake Kivu using benthic macroinvertebrates as indicator organisms. We...     

A new system for understanding the biodiversity in different nature reserves:capacity,connectivity and quality of biodiversity

In this paper,we propose a new system for understanding the biodiversity in different conservation areas.It includes three aspects:the capacity,the connectivity and the quality.The capacity refers to the numbers of biodiversity,including absolute and relative richness of the vegetation types Nv and Dv = (Nv-1)/lnA,species numbers S and richness of species dGI = (S- 1)/lnA,and germ plasm resources within a nature reserve,and also the potential biological living space offered by the natural resource.It comprises the total biological resources in a nature reserve.The connectivity refers to the flux of biodiversity,including similarity and connected status of the vegetation types SILi = 2z/(x + y) and species numbers SIc = 2z/(x + y) among different nature reserves.The quality refers to the stability of biodiversity,including relative species richness index RSLi = d/dmax,relative vegetation richness index RVLi =Dv/Dmaxv,fastness to invasion species fLi = 1-Si/St,weighted values,representativeness and vulnerability of special vegetations,special species,CITES species and rare species as the protected targets.     

A new system for understanding the biodiversity in different nature reserves: capacity, connectivity and quality of biodiversity

In this paper, we propose a new system for understanding the biodiversity in different conservation areas. It includes three aspects: the capacity, the connectivity and the quality. The capacity refers to the numbers of biodiversity, including absolute and relative richness of the vegetation types N _v and D _v =(N _v −1)/lnA, species numbers S and richness of species d _Gl =(S − 1)/lnA, and germ plasm resources within a nature reserve, and also the potential biological living space offered by the natural resource. It comprises the total biological resources in a nature reserve. The connectivity refers to the flux of biodiversity, including similarity and connected status of the vegetation types SI _Li =2z/(x + y) and species numbers SI _C =2z/(x + y) among different nature reserves. The quality refers to the stability of biodiversity, including relative species richness index RS _Li =d/d _max, relative vegetation richness index RV _Li =D _v /D _maxv , fastness to invasion species ƒ _Li =1−S _i /S _t , weighted values, representativeness and vulnerability of special vegetations, special species, CITES species and rare species as the protected targets.     

A proposal for accounting for biodiversity in life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts associated with products throughout their lifecycle. Many impacts are accounted for within the LCA framework, but to date biodiversity impacts have received little attention. There are a number of existing direct and indirect measures of biodiversity within the ecological field, some of which have the potential to be developed into a useable method for LCA. However, our assessment is that considerable development would be required and their implementation for LCA is not likely in the foreseeable future. Here an alternative approach is proposed for rapidly incorporating biodiversity impacts into LCA. The approach relies on expert opinions through a series of questions which aim to encapsulate the main issues relating to biodiversity within a disturbance impact framework. While the technique is in its infancy we outline a foundation for the approach and identify the steps required to develop this method for implementation into LCA.