Biodiversity Information Science and Standards : Conference Abstract
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Corresponding author: Katherine Hébert (katherine.ahebert@gmail.com)
Received: 24 May 2019 | Published: 21 Jun 2019
© 2019 Katherine Hébert
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Hébert K (2019) A More Precise Living Planet Index (LPI). Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 3: e36517. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.3.36517
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Reliably measuring biodiversity change is of major interest both ecologically and politically. Thoroughly testing the reliability of biodiversity metrics, meaning their ability to present a precise, accurate, and unbiased measurement of biodiversity trends, is vital to avoid misinforming decision makers when selecting management strategies, and misleading the public’s view of biodiversity issues.
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Despite the LPI’s influence on the global stage of biodiversity management, the index’s reliability as a measure of biodiversity loss has not been rigorously tested for limitations. The LPI’s capacity to accurately estimate global population trends depends in part on undetected errors in its supporting data, including process errors (i.e. random population fluctuations), and observation errors (i.e. poor detectability of certain species) (
Here, we suggest a methodological approach to address this growing uncertainty, in order to improve the reliability of the LPI. We propose a methodology for integrating the covariation between population trends into the computation of the LPI, in order to bolster confidence in related trends and ultimately decrease imprecision. Rather than assuming all population trends are varying in isolation, we explicitly identify covariation between population trends, and weight populations according to this covariation. We then compare the confidence intervals of the reported LPI trend to the trend obtained using our proposed methodology, and consider the potential political, ecological, and communicational implications of this approach on the interpretation of biodiversity metrics.
Living Planet Index, precision, biodiversity change, biodiversity metric
Katherine Hébert
Biodiversity_Next 2019
Université de Sherbrooke