Project description
Assessing different conservation biology approaches’ impact on biodiversity conservation
Many conservation decisions currently rely on recent or modelled data, overlooking the potential insights from centuries-old data that challenge assumptions about biodiversity distribution and conservation status. The MSCA-funded BaseShift project aims to assess the impact of using various baselines for evaluating biodiversity and ecosystem services. This will involve analysing data from Spain dating back to the 16th, 19th and 21st centuries to compare different approaches in conservation biology. The project will concentrate on the conservation status of species, prioritisation for area-based conservation, detection of changes and the environmental niches of species. Project outcomes will play a role in enhancing biodiversity assessments, setting targets, and improving policies and decision-making in the field of biodiversity conservation.
Objective
Centuries-old data have challenged assumptions on the distribution and conservation status of biodiversity and yet, most of the decision-making in conservation relies on space-for-time substitutions or relatively recent, or modelled, data. With BaseShift, my goal is to quantify the impact of using different baselines to assess the trends and status of biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as its implication on the resulting conservation priorities and actions. To do so, I will compare the outputs of commonly used approaches and tools in conservation biology when using different reference points in time, using data from Spain in the 16th, 19th, and 21st centuries. Specifically, I will focus on four key components of conservation practice, that is (1) species conservation status, (2) prioritization for area-based conservation, (3) detection of change, and (4) species environmental niches. When appropriate, the valuation of historical species-derived ecosystem services will be integrated in the analysis. Beyond new fundamental knowledge in historical ecology and conservation biology, the outputs of BaseShift will contribute to improve biodiversity assessments, target setting and progress monitoring and ultimately better policy and decision-making in biodiversity conservation.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
28006 Madrid
Spain