Abstract
The concept of essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) was proposed in 2013 to improve harmonization of biodiversity data into meaningful metrics. EBVs were conceived as a small set of variables which collectively capture biodiversity change at multiple spatial scales and within time intervals that are of scientific and management interest. Despite the apparent simplicity of the concept, a plethora of variables that describes not only biodiversity but also any environmental features have been proposed as potential EBV (i.e. candidate EBV). The proliferation of candidates reflects a lack of clarity on what may constitute a variable that is essential to track biodiversity change, which hampers the operationalization of EBVs and therefore needs to be urgently addressed. Here, we propose that an EBV should be defined as a biological state variable in three key dimensions (time, space, and biological organization) that is critical to accurately document biodiversity change.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank A. Loyau for an insightful outsider’s view.
Funding
DSS, ER, CA, and JBM were financed by the EU BON project that is a 7th Framework Programme funded by the European Union under Contract No. 308454. CA additionally received funding from the LifeWatch Greece infrastructure (MIS 384676), funded by the Greek Government under the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT), ESFRI Projects, and National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF). MF was funded by the GEO-BON Secretariat. AB’s participation is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. WDK acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (No. 654003) for the GLOBIS-B project (www.globis-b.eu).
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All authors have intensively discussed the refinement of the EBV concept and have contributed to writing the manuscript under the lead of the first and senior author.
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Communicated by David Hawksworth.
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Schmeller, D.S., Mihoub, JB., Bowser, A. et al. An operational definition of essential biodiversity variables. Biodivers Conserv 26, 2967–2972 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-017-1386-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-017-1386-9