Trends in diversity of British Breeding Birds
Speaker: Angelika Studeny (CREEM)
Abstract
“The 2010/2020 biodiversity target, set by the Convention of Biological Diversity and adopted by the EU’s Environmental Council, seeks to “halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services” at a global, national and regional level. To assess progress or failure in achieving this goal, long-term trends have to be monitored and analysed.
Due to their wide range of habitat and position in the food chain, birds are widely used as indicator species for the state of ecosystems. Here, we look at data from the UK Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Collected yearly on a national level since 1994, these data offer a sufficiently long time series to investigate trends in bird diversity across different habitat groups. Traditional and more recent diversity indices are examined. By evaluating 2nd derivatives of these trends we are able to identify points where the rate of change in diversity has been significantly accelerated or slowed down.”