Comprehensiveness of conservation of socioeconomically as well as culturally valuable species

Figure 1: Proportion of species in each conservation priority category at the global scale, measured with regard to ex situ conservation, in situ conservation, and as a combined final metric. The global indicator is the measurement of the proportion of species sufficiently conserved or of low priority for further conservation action, i.e. the area in green.

Figure 2: (A) Potential distribution model for an example species, Coffea liberica W. Bull ex Hiern, based on reference/ occurrence locations; (B) ex situ collection locations surrounded by a ca. 50 km buffer, over the potential distribution model. The buffered areas are considered to be sufficiently collected in the geographic sense, whereas the non-buffered (i.e., green-colored) areas of the potential distribution are considered to be geographic gaps in ex situ conservation; (C) Potential distribution occurring within and outside of designated protected areas. Areas of potential distribution of the species located outside of protected areas are considered to be geographic gaps in in situ conservation.

The global indicator of the comprehensiveness of conservation of socioeconomically and culturally valuable wild plants was calculated at 3.3 with regard to the state of ex situ conservation and 41.8 with regard to protection in situ, with a combined conservation indicator of 2.8 on the scale from 0 to 100. Note that the combined global indicator is calculated from the already combined (averaged between ex situ and in situ) conservation scores per species, and therefore is not the simple mean of the global ex situ and in situ scores. With regard to the combined indicator, 3090 (44.6%) species were assessed as high priority for conservation action, 3646 (52.6%) as medium priority, 188 (2.7%) as low priority, and 9 (0.1%) as sufficiently conserved.

National and regional level results, which combine the results for all species native to the country/region, are reported, and can be disaggregated to provide details on comprehensiveness of conservation ex situ and in situ (separately), as well as by socioeconomic and cultural value use type categories of the species, and by conservation level categories (number or proportion of species determined as high priority, medium priority, low priority, and sufficiently conserved).

Coverage: Species level data is aggregated in the indicator methodology for every country and world region, as well as globally. It is also aggregated by socioeconomic and cultural use type. The current indicator, which measures the comprehensiveness of conservation of almost 7,000 wild plant species worldwide, enables results for 225 countries and territories and all world regions, with the global indicator being the combination of results for all species around the world.

Scale: Species level data, aggregated to national, regional, and global scales

Time series available: November 1 2017 – January 1 2018 (with method improvements (WDPA 2019 update) incorporated in April 2019

Next planned update: 2020

Possible disaggregations: By region, by country, by conservation type (ex situ and in situ), by socio-economic and cultural value use type, by plant species

Metadata used: Methods and code are fully documented and available from: https://github.com/CIAT-DAPA/aichi13

These two fully open access published papers provide access to methods, code, and results:

• Khoury CK, Amariles D, Soto JS, Diaz MV, Sotelo S, Sosa CC, Ramírez-Villegas J, Achicanoy HA, Velásquez-Tibatá J, Guarino L, León B, Navarro-Racines C, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, Dempewolf H, Wiersema JH, and Jarvis A (2019) Comprehensiveness of conservation of useful wild plants: an operational indicator for biodiversity and sustainable development targets. Ecological Indicators 98: 420-429. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.11.016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.11.016 Interactive website: https://ciat.cgiar.org/usefulplants-indicator/
• Khoury CK, Amariles D, Soto JS, Diaz MV, Sotelo S, Sosa CC, Ramírez-Villegas J, Achicanoy HA, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, León B, and Wiersema JH (2019) Data for the calculation of an indicator of the comprehensiveness of conservation of useful wild plants. Data in Brief 22: 90-97. doi:10.1016/j.dib.2018.11.125 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2018.11.125 Data: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/2jxj4k32m2.1

Methodology: The global list of socioeconomically as well as culturally valuable species is extracted from the World Economic Plants Database (link in table below), filtering for wild plants with selected socioeconomic as well as culturally valuable uses appropriate to the indicator. Occurrence data for these species are compiled from GBIF, GENESYS, and other curated and freely accessible databases, and are subjected to taxonomic standardization and geographic occurrence cleaning and validation processes. Species distribution models are calculated for each species based on species occurrence records’ distinct coordinates, using the Maxent algorithm at 2.5 arc minutes resolution, with eco-geographic data from Worldclim 2 and CGIAR elevation datasets (links below) as modeling inputs, and constraining the results to a native area reported in the World Economic Plants Database.

The comprehensiveness of ex situ conservation of each species is measured in three ways: a) via a general comparison of sufficiency of genebank samples, b) a geographic analysis of the distribution of these samples across the potential distribution model of the species, and c) an ecological analysis comparing the eco-regions represented by these samples versus the total diversity of eco-regions in which species potentially inhabits. These three metrics are averaged to calculate a final score for the state of conservation of each species ex situ.

The comprehensiveness of in situ conservation is measured in two ways: a) a geographic analysis of the proportion of the potential distribution model of each species present in designated protected areas (i.e., the World Database on Protected Areas), and b) an ecological analysis of the proportion of eco-regions present in protected areas within the potential distributions of species, versus the total diversity of eco-regions present in the potential distributions of species. These two metrics are averaged to calculate a final score for the state of conservation of each species in situ.

The ex situ and in situ scores are averaged for each species for a merged final conservation score on a scale from 0 to 100, and categorized for conservation priority at: high priority for further conservation for species where score < 25; medium priority where 25 ≤ score < 50; low priority where 50 ≤ score < 75; and sufficiently conserved for taxa whose score ≥75.

The indicator is finally calculated by deriving the proportion of species at the given scale whose score is ≥ 50 (i.e. low priority or sufficiently conserved) out of all species assessed. For the global indicator, this includes all species; for the national or regional level, it includes any species native to the country/region as reported in the World Economic Plants Database.

Challenges and constraints:

The indicator methodology relies on openly available curated data from taxonomic sources (World Economic Plants Database), biodiversity sources (e.g., GBIF) and genebank holdings databases (e.g., Genesys). The quality of the results is dependent on the curation of these databases and the degree to which they encompass all relevant data worldwide.

Our method includes the generation of geographical predictions of the ecological niche of species based on the statistical relationship between reference sightings and eco-geographic information. Although species may potentially inhabit these niches, environmental factors acting at finer scales (e.g. soil types), dispersal limitations, and direct impacts on species populations (e.g. habitat destruction or modification) also determine species’ ranges. The improvement of distribution models taking such factors into account is a considerable challenge due to the lack of comprehensive global datasets on these drivers as well as of methodologies enabling the efficient prediction of their impacts on different species.

At this time the indicator measures only wild plant species. Further development will focus on the inclusion of domesticated/cultivated plants, for which a modeling methodology is under development.

The indicator is automatically reported at the global, regional, and national levels, as well as by use type at the global level. Species level data is also available for the development and implementation of conservation strategies.

Use of the global method and data at the national level: The indicator is automatically reported at the global, regional, and national levels, as well as by use type at the global level.

Examples of global data for national use: The indicator is built for reporting periodically at the global, regional, and national levels. As it is a new indicator, it has not yet been used at the national level to inform conservation action. This said, the indicator was built with collaboration from national counterparts in Colombia (Humboldt Institute), which plan to inform conservation action based on the indicator results.

Availability of global data for national use: We plan to provide the global indicator on the BIP website (https://www.bipindicators.net/), and national and global results on the NatureServe Indicators Dashboard (http://dashboard.natureserve.org/). These as well as species and other level results are freely available at https://ciat.cgiar.org/usefulplants-indicator/ or by contacting CIAT (a.jarvis@cgiar.org) directly.

Underlying data, tools, and code are all freely available:

• Species list data at: https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomysearcheco.aspx
• Species occurrence data at: https://www.gbif.org/ and https://www.genesys-pgr.org/welcome and https://www.cwrdiversity.org/checklist/cwr-occurrences.php
• Eco-geographic data at: http://worldclim.org/version2 and http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/
• Protected area data at: https://www.protectedplanet.net/
• Tools and code available at: https://github.com/CIAT-DAPA/aichi13/

Method, code and data available at:

• Khoury CK, Amariles D, Soto JS, Diaz MV, Sotelo S, Sosa CC, Ramírez-Villegas J, Achicanoy HA, Velásquez-Tibatá J, Guarino L, León B, Navarro-Racines C, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, Dempewolf H, Wiersema JH, and Jarvis A (2019) Comprehensiveness of conservation of useful wild plants: an operational indicator for biodiversity and sustainable development targets. Ecological Indicators 98: 420-429. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.11.016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.11.016 Interactive website: https://ciat.cgiar.org/usefulplants-indicator/
• Khoury CK, Amariles D, Soto JS, Diaz MV, Sotelo S, Sosa CC, Ramírez-Villegas J, Achicanoy HA, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, León B, and Wiersema JH (2019) Data for the calculation of an indicator of the comprehensiveness of conservation of useful wild plants. Data in Brief 22: 90-97. doi:10.1016/j.dib.2018.11.125 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2018.11.125 Data: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/2jxj4k32m2.1

Contact person for supporting national use: Andy Jarvis, CIAT, a.jarvis@cgiar.org

No further resources are available