Some Examples of Applied ENM

Jorge Soberon

University of Kansas

(formerly from CONABIO)

I am going to tell the history of two invasive species in Mexico.

One pre and one post-GBIF

Photograph by: D. Habeck and F. Bennet, University of Florida

I. The Cactus Moth Cactoblastis cactorum. Pre GBIF

• Devours every single species of prickley-pear that has been tried.

• In the US and Mexico there are more than 90 species of Platyopuntia, many endangered, vital componente of arid ecosystems.

• In Mexico, Opuntia is the 10th product of agricultural importance

First problem: estimation of routes of invasibility

Cactoblastis cactorum

Data points obtained from the NMNH, USA

Climate surface obtained byFloramap (12 layers)

Platyopuntia localities MNHSD, IBUNAM, ENCB, MOBOT, NMNH, UAH

Predicted number of species of Platyopuntia

Opuntia lagunaeFotografías de la planta y el fruto de Jon Rebman

Fotografía de las flores de George Lindsay http://www.oceanoasis.org/fieldguide/opun-lag-sp.html

Red isolines:

High similarity to climate in the original Cactoblastis cactorum sites.

Blue regions: Richness of species of Platyopuntia.

Vulnerable areas to Cactoblastis (right climate and right food)

Costs and Benefits of the Analysis

• The C. cactorum analysis took more than one year. Visits were made to USA. Australia took almost four years to provide their data. San Diego, Missouri and Smithsonian queried their own databases quickly. Arizona was not computerized.

• The results were adopted by Mexico´s Minister of Agriculture. Base for colaboration with the USA

II. The Saltcedar (Tamarixramossisima) in arid ecosystems

• Ecosystem Threat .The monotypic stands of saltcedar aggressively replace willows, cottonwoods, seep willow/baccharis and other native riparian vegetation.  

• Water. A single large plant can absorb 200 gallons of water a day. (along the Colorado River it has been estimated that up to 568,000 acre feet of water are lost per year to channel vegetation, with saltcedar being a major component).  

• Animal Impact. It has been found that saltcedar stands supported only four species of birds per hundred acres, in comparison to 154 species per hundred acres of native vegetation.

Presences of Tamarix in originallocations

Niche of Tamarix in theWestern Hemisphere withobservations in the U.S.

Observations of Tamarix in México

Costs and Benefits of the Analysis

• This is a post-GBIF analysis. The data was obtained, literally, in 30 seconds.

• A map was presented to SEMARNAT, the Ministry of the Environment who started a program of erradication.

• The results are being refined to higher resolution.

Use of GBIF-mediated data to monitor compliance with the 2010

Target

Peterson & Soberón

Monitoring the 2010 Target

• In April 2002, at the VI CoP of the CBD, it was decided to: “achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level” (Decision VI/26)

• Compliance with the target can be done at various levels. There are already at least two global or regional-level indicators: the Red List Indicators (RLI) and the Living Planet Index (LPI)

Currently...

• LPI. Based on very low density time series, normalized and averaged. Raw data partially available

• RLI. Based on interpretations of “categories of threat”

Non-global focus

• However, the CBD in its decision VIII/15.11 urged parties and other governments to “develop national and/or regional goals and targets and related indicators”

• and also emphasized the “need for capacity building, access to and transfer of technology…in order to enable [countries] to develop knowledge, including taxonomic knowledge, (…) to monitor progress towards the goals and targets” (DecisionVIII/15.12)

How can GBIF help?• GBIF is in a privileged

position to help countries to develop indicators of compliance of the 2010 target.

• Many developing countries now have very significant amounts of primary biodiversity data available via GBIF, as the graph for the top 15 non-OECD countries with GBIF data shows .

Orange: Records with coordinatesGreen: Records without coordinates

Use of Primary Biodiversity Data• GBIF-mediated primary

biodiversity data can be used to calculate indices of biodiversity loss, specifically, indicators of selected species loss of area of distribution.

• There is extensive scientific literature on methods on how to do this.

Step I. Areas of distribution

• Presence data is used, together in Ecological Niche Modelling to estimate an area of distribution.

• The method requires presence data (served by GBIF as the largest provider in the world) and climatic and topographic variables available for most countries in the world

Step II. By Superimposing reductions in area due to human activities, loss is

estimated

Original Area of Distribution in 1940

Remnant Area of Distribution in 2000

1940443,000 km2 1976

306,000 km2

1994291,000 km2

2000246,000 km2

Example: Tamandua mexicana

Tamandua illustration: SEMARNAT, Mexico

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

450,000

500,000

1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Tamandua mexicana

Alouatta paliata

Ateles geoffroyi

Guaiacum sanctum

Sciurus aberti

Peromyscus spicilegus

Sciurus nayaritensis

Step III. Indices of biodiversity loss can then be calculated, for species of national interest (endangered, commercially-valuable…)

Illustrations from Conabio, Mexico and O. M. Chisano

Conclusions

• Primary, GBIF-served data can be used to provide indices of “trends in the abundance and distribution of selected species” (CBD VIII/15.12).

• Indices based on primary data can be calculated at global, regional or national levels by trained local experts and can be expressed as time-series.

• Training experts in developing countries, as GBIF has been doing in the last two years, represents a concrete example of capacity-building in the skills required for countries to develop indicators of achievement of the 2010 target.

• Indices based on primary data, developed for the sets of species that countries define, and by their own experts, are an indispensable complement to global, agency defined indices and fully in accord with CBD guidance and decisions.