Leading mountain biodiversity experts have proposed a set of Essential Mountain Biodiversity Variables, detailed in a newly published article in BioScience. This work is expected to help establish effective mountain monitoring programs / observatories and reduce current disparities in monitoring between mountains and more accessible regions.
Navigating Challenges in Mountain Biodiversity Monitoring
The rich biodiversity of the world’s mountains is under multiple and growing threats. To conserve this biodiversity and the services mountain ecosystems provide to societies more generally, changes to mountain biodiversity must be effectively monitored and communicated to decision-makers. As mountains are characterised by a high heterogeneity of vegetation, microclimates, and the distribution of species, detailed in situ data are urgently needed to track mountain biodiversity loss and degradation. In addition, monitoring should be detailed and frequent enough to enable the identification of early signs of irreversible degradation or collapse of mountain ecosystems, their ecosystem services, and biodiversity.
However, mountain biodiversity monitoring efforts remain rather sporadic and fragmented, largely due to logistical challenges. Some successful in situ monitoring initiatives like GLORIA and MIREN have been established to deliver intercomparable data, but the sites in such networks can be sparsely and / or unevenly distributed. Meanwile, to date, satellite remote sensing has generally provided only indirect information on mountain biodiversity, such as the spatial distribution of vegetation zones.
Over a decade ago, the concept of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) was proposed to focus global biodiversity monitoring, with a view to informing policy responses tacking rapid biodiversity loss. However, the utility of the concept in mountain environments – including the question of whether any modifications are required to enhance the framework’s applicability in such settings – has not yet been considered.
Introducing the Seven Key Variables for Mountain Monitoring
Today, in a new paper in BioScience, Schmeller and colleagues propose a set of EBVs which should be considered priorities for monitoring across the world’s mountains. The paper was developed following a workshop in 2020 which was co-convened by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) and the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) as a contribution to GEO Mountains. Contributions were made by colleagues from ETH Zürich, the Swiss National Park, the USGS, Yale University, and the University of Lausanne, amongst other institutions.
First, the authors conducted a thorough review of key mountain biodiversity processes and their abiotic controls. Then, starting with a list of potential mountain EBVs, the informativeness of each variable with respect to all key processes was evaluated using an approach based on discussion and consensus. The seven most informative variables, which became the mountain-relevant EBVs, are:
- Species composition
- Species abundance
- Species distribution
- Ecosystem fragmentation
- Ecosystem extent
- Ecosystem heterogeneity
- Ecosystem functional type
Figure above: The conceptual framework of the present study, linking the different levels of biodiversity to key mountain processes.
“The work we provide here is essential to overcome delays in monitoring mountain biodiversity by lining up current and future monitoring efforts in a mountain context. Such efforts are important advances to a better understanding of threats to mountains and illustrating the responsibility regional and national authorities have in preserving these fragile and highly important ecosystems.”
Lead author Dr. Dirk Schmeller, Directeur de Recherche at CNRS and Axa Chair for Functional Mountain Ecology at the Research Center for Biodiversity and the Environment (CBRE)
Future Opportunities: Implementing and Improving Mountain EBVs
Future work towards applying the proposed mountain EBVs is still required. This should include specification of the minimum observation requirements for each variable, associated methods/protocols, costs, and other practical considerations. Attention should also be paid to how the mountain EBVs data will be collected, analysed, managed, shared, and communicated. In this respect, novel technologies and infrastructure such as hyperspectral remote sensing (including using drones), BON in a Box, and the proposed Global Biodiversity Observing System (GbiOS) hold great promise.
“This contribution represents progress towards our vision of identifying an integrated set of Essential Mountain Variables, which incorporate climatic, biodiversity, and societal aspects. Interestingly, vegetation species abundances and extents were identified in our previous work exploring priority variables for tracking mountain climate change and its impacts – the climate and biodiversity communities should come together wherever possible to exploit such synergies.”
Dr. James Thornton, Senior Scientific Project Officer at the Mountain Research Initiative and GEO Mountains Coordinator
The more consistent and targeted monitoring of mountain biodiversity our proposal advocates will support urgently required policy and action on various levels, including via the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, helping to channel financial support to mountain observation networks, and raising awareness about both the pressures and drivers affecting mountain biodiversity, as well the consequences of change for mountain ecosystems and human well-being.
The authors acknowledge and thank the Mountain Research Initiative and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for their contributions, including support via the Adaptation at Altitude program, which made this publication possible.
Citation
Schmeller, D. S., Thornton, J. M., Urbach, D., Alexander, J., Jetz, W., Kulonen, A., Mills, R. T. E., Notornicola, C., Palazzi, E., Pauli, H., Randin, C., Rosbakh, S., Sayre, R., Tehrani, N. A., Verbiest, W. W. M., Walker, T. W. N., Wipf, S., & Adler, C. (2024). Toward a set of essential biodiversity variables for assessing change in mountains globally. BioScience, biae052. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae052
In case you are unable to access the paper on the journal’s website, an authors’ preprint (post peer-review but pre-journal formatting) is available here.
Cover image by Ryan Milrad.
