Shifting the baseline and assessing its impact on the status and trends of biodiversity and its implication for decision-making in conservation

Project Information

BaseShift

Grant agreement ID: 101106872

DOI

10.3030/101106872

Project terminated on 31 August 2024

EC signature date 13 April 2023

Start date 1 July 2023

End date 30 June 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 181 152,96

Coordinated by

AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BaseShift (Shifting the baseline and assessing its impact on the status and trends of biodiversity and its implication for decision-making in conservation)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Centuries-old fur trade and whaling logbooks revealed that the native ranges of beavers in Canada and humpback whales in the Atlantic are likely quite larger than current data led to believe. In contrast, 16th century material showed that rather than being native to Spain and endangered, the white-clawed crayfish was in reality only relatively recently introduced. These examples illustrate the critical role that the choice of a baseline will have when assessing the status and trends of biodiversity, and determining the ambition (or lack thereof) of the corresponding conservation and restoration targets. Yet in practice, most of the knowledge that underlies large-scale historical descriptions of biodiversity and on which decision-making is based is either (1) modeled, at coarse resolution and/or with little to no calibration with historical data (e.g. land-uses), (2) based on relatively recent time-series (e.g. Living Planet Index starting in the 1970s), or (3) relies on space-for-time substitutions. Similarly, the trends in the capacity of nature to contribute to human wellbeing was assessed with 1970 as a reference point. To date there have only been limited attempts at quantifying the implication that these data constrains and the choice of a baseline will have on the assessed status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and how this may, in turn, influence the process for setting conservation targets and actions themselves.

In this context, the main objective of the BaseShift project is to advance knowledge on baselines for biodiversity conservation by quantifying the impact of using different benchmarks to assess the trends and status of biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as its implication on the resulting conservation priorities and actions. More specifically, the project aims to quantify the baseline’s impact on (1) changes in species ranges and the resulting change in their conservation status; (2) the spatial distribution of species and the supply of ecosystem services and their impact on prioritization for area-based conservation measures; (3) the behaviour of metrics (derived from data on biodiversity and ecosystem services) and their ability to detect change (e.g. change in species richness); and (4) the determinants of specie’s fundamental niches and the niches themselves as a key component of their expected response to future change.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We cleaned and standardized a dataset of species occurrences in the 19th century in Spain, containing information on 480 species and 135 genus of plants and animals in over 23,000 localities across the country. The species data was already available and formatted for the 16th and 21st century. In parallel, we extracted the historical data that was to be used to model the species distributions, that is historical bioclimatic variables and historical human density for the 16th and 19th century, as well as a static Digital Elevation Model. We then built an algorithm to run Environmental Niche Models with this data for a sample of 27 mammal species for which the number of occurrences was sufficient and were indeed successful in modelling the historical distribution of those species.

To quantify the impact of the baseline used for the calibration of Environmental Niche Models and the resulting habitat suitability mapping, we then build several models with differing time used for calibration. Here we modelled the habitat suitability of species (1) in the past (19th centuries) calibrated with historical environmental variables and species occurrences; (2) in the past calibrated with present environmental variables and species occurrences; and (3) in the present calibrated with present environmental variables and species occurrences. Albeit preliminary and for a limited number of species, the results show some marked differences in the modelled habitat affinity of species when using historical or contemporary data for calibration, even though those data are "only" a century apart.

In parallel to running the models, we also built a database of historical ecosystem services supply by integrating the historical species lists with available national assessment of traditional knowledge. This database uses the framework of Nature’s Contribution to People (NCPs) to increase its usability beyond the project. In total, we were able to map 18 types of NCPs to 110 and 172 species for which we have occurrence data available in the 16th and 19th century respectively.

Lastly, we reviewed the diversity of historical sources of biodiversity relevant information, from written material to paleo-archives and artwork, and discuss across all sources types the data that can be mobilized from them, focusing on species, ecosystems, and socio-ecological systems. While doing this, we also documented examples of historical data integration as well as emerging tools and technologies that could improve ongoing historical data mobilization efforts. This work also allowed us to design a 7-point strategy to improve the availability and use of historical data for biodiversity research and conservation.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results of the project are promising although still limited due to the early termination of the Grant Agreement.

The review of the type of historical biodiversity related information (e.g. population abundance, ecosystem distribution) that can be derived from various historical sources opens the way for further historical data mobilization and integration, beyond the temporal and geographical scope of the BaseShift project.

The creation of an historical species-derived ecosystem services database is also an achievement that will form the basis of an assessment of historical ecosystem services supply and their change through time.

The standardized 19th century species occurrences dataset will also contribute to research in historical ecology and conservation baselines beyond the BaseShift project.

Lastly, although they are still preliminary and limited to a sample of species, the first results emerging from the Environmental Niche Modelling show that there is indeed sensitivity to the age of the data used for calibration, even if they are only a century apart. This illustrates the critical role of the conservation baseline for research in biodiversity and beyond the scientific impact, also has implications for decision-making in conservation.

BaseShift conceptual figure - Implications of the baseline to assess trends