GEDAi and Vultures!

Dr A. Santangeli from the GEDA comments on a new study about the consequences of the decline of vultures in India and its cost in terms of human lifes and monetary damages. Here   

Bernard Castelein/NPL/Minden Pictures

"To calculate monetary damages, the team relied on previous research that calculated the economic value of what Indian society is willing to spend to save one life at roughly $665,000 a person. That put the total economic damages from the loss of vulture populations at $69.4 billion a year from 2000 to 2005.

The numbers themselves aren’t surprising, says Andrea Santangeli, a conservation scientist at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies who wasn’t involved with the research. He and others have sounded the alarm on biodiversity loss for decades. But the new, dramatic stats could help convince lawmakers to act, he says. “If you give them flashy figures, it’s probably easier to push forward policy and conservation measures." by Vivian La (Science News 15/07/2024)

 

New Publication on ecosystem service mapping!

Ceausu, S., Apaza-Quevedo, A., Schmid,M., Martín-López, B., Cortés-Avizanda,A., Maes, J., Brotons, L., Queiroz, C., Pereira, H.M., 2021 Ecosystem service mapping needs to capture more effectively the biodiversity important for service supply. Ecosystem services 101259

Abstract:Large scale mapping of ecosystem services and functions (ES) is an important tool for researchers and policy makers to inform nature management and policies but it relies mainly on ES modelled with biophysical data such as land cover, henceforth biophysical ES. Other ES, henceforth species-based ES, are modelled at small scales based on species providers. 

As species-based ES are rarely included in multi-service, large-scale spatial assessments, we do not know if these assessments provide accurate information for managing the biodiversity important for species-based ES. We calculate and map weighted provider richness (WPR) for 9 species-based ES by weighting species data in Europe by their functional efficiency derived from functional trait databases. We compare WPR spatial patterns with those of 9 biophysical ES at continental and national scales in Europe. We find positive correlations at continental scale, and weaker positive correlations or neutral relationships at national scale between biophysical ES and WPR. Patterns of synergies and trade-offs for WPR are different from those of biophysical ES and change from continental to national scale. WPR for most species-based ES are synergistic with each other but WPR for existence value has the weakest synergies with other WPRs. Biodiversity data is still insufficient to truly map species-based ES at large scales but WPR can represent the next step forward for spatial ES assessments. A lack of spatial information on species-based ES in large-scale assessments leads to inaccurate information on ES distribution, and their synergies and trade-offs, which can lead to misguided management and conservation decisions.