Petr Keil et al
This ERC-funded consolidator project (2023-2027) will estimate how has biodiversity changed across continents and over the last decades. There are concerns that humanity has triggered the sixth mass extinction. However, some studies show that change at the local level is much more nuanced. In other words, species are disappearing from the planet, but it seems that not much has been happening on an average patch behind your house. Furthermore, we know very little about how these small and large-scale processes are connected, and where exactly on Earth are they happening. At the same time, estimates of biodiversity change are needed and explicitly required (see e.g. Aichi targets) for informed decisions and conservation policy. Despite this, we still lack reliable estimates of how fast, where, and in which environments biodiversity changes.
BEAST will assess these changes and the contrast between the local, regional, and global scale. We expect that the local changes in biodiversity that happen in our immediate surroundings are different from the changes that take place at the level of regions, states, and continents. This can be tested using large databases such as the American Breeding Bird Survey, eBird, and similar datasets based on citizen science.
Petr’s publications on the topic
Keil & Chase (2021) Global patterns and drivers of tree diversity integrated across a continuum of spatial grains. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 3: 390-399.
Keil et al. (2017) Spatial scaling of extinction rates: Theory and data reveal nonlinearity and a major upscaling and downscaling challenge. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27: 2-13.
Keil et al. (2015) On the decline of biodiversity due to area loss. Nature Communications, 6: 8837.
Storch, Keil & Jetz (2012) Universal species-area and endemics-area relationships at continental scales. Nature, 488: 78-81.
Keil et al. (2011) Biodiversity change is scale-dependent: an example from Dutch and UK hoverflies. Ecography, 34: 392-401.