Science Review
2017

An annual compilation ofresearch data uses enabled by

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Foreword
Use of GBIF-mediated data in scientific publications continues to grow, while data
is being mobilized in new ways and from new sources.
This year’s Science Review continues todocument the steady growth of research thatuses biodiversity data mobilized by the GBIF
community. Among the typically diverse topics
represented in this report, I’d like to highlightthe application of biodiversity data to humanhealth. The recognition of connections between
human health and the health of animals, both
domesticated and wild, is captured by theconcept of “One Health”. With its wealth ofprimary biodiversity data, GBIF is uniquely placed
to contribute data relevant to studying theanimal-human-ecosystem interface. However,
it is worth noting that GBIF’s coverage of somedisease vectors could be greatly improved,
even for well-known vectors such as Aedes
mosquitoes. As always, gaps in our knowledge
remain to be filled.
Identifying these gaps is a topic represented in
the collection of papers on data management,
as well as the focus of last year’s Ebbe Nielsen
Challenge. Gaps can have multiple causes.
Perhaps the data simply doesn’t exist, or the data
does exist but hasn’t yet made its way into GBIF.
In this year’s report the amount of GBIF-mobilized
data is recorded for each paper. This figure issometimes sobering. For example, the RAINBIO
compilation of data on tropical African plants
used 70,220 records made accessible by GBIF,
but the study itself had a raw dataset of 977,000
records (eventually cleaned to 614,000). This
raises the obvious question: why is this data notin GBIF? For this purpose, GBIF has introduced a
new mechanism to help identify, prioritize andmobilize potential datasets. I encourage readersof this publication to use this tool (available at

bit.ly/gbif-suggest-dataset) when encountering
data that should be available through GBIF, but
isn’t.
GBIF has made huge advances in mobilizing data,
and as I noted in last year’s report, making thatdata free and openly accessible. Still, a lot of data
is clearly not yet freely accessible. Much of thedata being generated by researchers is being
stored in various external data repositories,
but not in GBIF. These other repositories servea valuable function of keeping data safe fromloss and making it citable, but they do notnecessarily make it easy to discover and reuseby the biodiversity community. Furthermore, its
exclusion from GBIF means it hasn’t benefited
from the numerous data checks GBIF applies toincoming data (such as whether the taxonomic
name is recognized, and whether the statedlocation is consistent with the latitude andlongitude, to name just two).
The growing body of exciting research highlighted
in this report depends on free and open access tolarge quantities of high-quality data. Recognizing
this, the 2017 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge has thegoal of encouraging the development of tools to
make external data from various repositories
accessible to the GBIF network, a step that willfurther enhance GBIF’s role in supporting both
fundamental and applied biodiversity research.

ROD PAGE
Chair, GBIF Science Committee
June 2017
Vice Chairs : Greg Riccardi, Anders G. Finstad &Philippe Grandcolas
Members: Elizabeth Arnaud & Guy Cochrane

Cover photos: Gasteracantha spp. in natural and ultraviolet light (top: flic.kr/p/V8mvDd, bottom: flic.kr/p/Ur1h7s).
© 2017 Nicky Bay (www.nickybay.com). The Singapore-based photographer runs workshops that train others inmacrophotography techniques while focusing on insects, arachnids and fungi in his own work.

3

About the Science Review
The GBIF Science Review provides an annual survey
drawn from the Secretariat’s ongoing literature
tracking programme, which identifies researchuses and citations of biodiversity information
accessed through GBIF’s global infrastructure. The
peer-reviewed articles summarized in the following
pages offer a partial but instructive view of research
investigations enhanced and supported by free open
access data that the GBIF network of members andpublishers make available.
As introduced last year, we are labelling openaccess scientific articles using the symbol ꇷ. We
think this indicator is both valuable and practical for
those interested in reading the research at a time
when access often depends on institutional journal
subscriptions.
Also, the the comprehensive list of the year’s uses
remains decoupled from the printed version of the

Science Review in order to keep pace with the everexpanding bibliographic tables (and reduce printing
costs). The companion Science Review Sourcebook
is available online at gbif.org/science-reviewsourcebook-2017.
As in previous years, the categories used here areintended to help readers navigate the major subject
areas of GBIF-assisted research, despite the factthat some papers may cut across multiple topics.
For clarity’s sake, articles appear under only one
category in the Review. Countries assigned to authors
are based on the location of the institutions identified
in the author information, while funding information
included for the highlighted papers draws upon thepapers’ acknowledgements.
Those interested in sharing research uses thathave escaped our attention can write to us atcommunication@gbif.org.

CONTENTS
Uses and trends................................................................................................................. 4
Biodiversity and human health ....................................................................................... 6
Data management .......................................................................................................... 11
Evolution and biogeography .......................................................................................... 14
Food and farming ............................................................................................................20
Impacts of climate change ............................................................................................ 23
Invasive alien species ....................................................................................................28
Species conservation and protected areas ................................................................ 35
Advancing biodiversity science .................................................................................... 41

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Uses and trends
These visualizations of the use of GBIF-mediated data serve to show not just the growing number ofpeer-reviewed publications appearing each year, but also the increasing number of countries, islands
and territories whose institutions host authors who apply the data in their research articles. Eachtrend highlights the GBIF network’s widening sphere of influence and impact on scientific research
related to the biological domain.

ANNUAL NUMBER OF PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES USING GBIF-MEDIATED DATA
2016

438 4382015

407 4072014

347 3502013

249 2492012

229 2292011

169 1692010

148 148

2009

89 89

2008

52 52

5

NUMBER OF ARTICLES WITH AUTHORS BY COUNTRY/ISLAND/TERRITORY
157

United States

63

United Kingdom

54

Germany

53

Brazil

48

Australia

41

China • France

38

Mexico

34

Spain

27

Netherlands

25

Canada • South Africa

20

Italy

19

Sweden • Switzerland

18

Colombia

17

Belgium

12

India

11

Portugal

10

Denmark

9

Argentina

8

Japan • Russian Federation

7

Austria • Czech Republic • Iran • New Zealand • Norway • Singapore

6

Costa Rica • Israel • Kenya

4

Chile • Tanzania

3

Benin • Greece • Malaysia • Peru • Philippines • Poland

2

Cameroon • Egypt • Finland • Ghana • Hungary • Ireland • Nigeria • Panama

countries, islands &territories with authors who
used GBIF-mediated datain peer-reviewed papers
published in 201678

42+20+16106K
56

55

92

138

Proportion and numberof papers by authors 372
within GBIF regions

182

Romania • South Korea • Thailand • Tunisia • Turkey • Uruguay
1Brunei Darussalam • Bulgaria • Burkina Faso • Burundi • Cambodia • Ecuador
Guatemala • Guinea-Bissau • Indonesia • Ivory Coast • Lebanon • Luxembourg
Malawi • Malta • Nicaragua • Niger • Pakistan • Serbia • Slovakia Slovenia • Sudan
Taiwan • Vietnam • Zambia

GBIF Regions

Asia

AfricaEuropeLatin America

North America

Oceania

6

Biodiversity and human health

AEDES AEGYPTI BY CYDNO HTTP://WWW.INATURALIST.ORG/OBSERVATIONS/1573187 CC BY-NC 4.0

MODELLING THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SOUTHERN
HOUSE MOSQUITODATA USED: 1,402 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷSamy AM, Elaagip AH, Kenawy MA, Ayres CFJ, Peterson
AT and Soliman DE (2016) Climate Change Influences on
the Global Potential Distribution of the Mosquito Culex
quinquefasciatus, Vector of West Nile Virus and Lymphatic
Filariasis. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science (PLoS) 11(10):e0163863.
Author countries: Sudan, Egypt, Brazil, United States
Research funding: Fulbright

Outbreaks of vector-borne diseases may be
associated with range expansion of vector
populations, and predicting the potential distributionof vectors can aid disease prevention. In this study,
researchers model the distribution of the southernhouse mosquito (Culex quinquefasciatus) known tocarry disease-causing agents such as West Nile virus
and St. Louis encephalitis virus, but also potentiallyZika virus and a number of viruses that cause diseasein livestock and other animals.
Under present-day conditions the potential
distribution of C. quinquefasciatus showed highsuitability in southern North America, most of SouthAmerica, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and mostof Australia and New Zealand. Projections using

future climate scenarios revealed similar distribution
patterns, however, with small, but significant
increases, particularly in southern Australia.
Combining the maps of potential present-day andfuture distributions can identify areas, in which
control and surveillance programs should beprioritized to help prevent disease outbreak.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0163863

ON THE ROAD TOWARDS ELIMINATION OF MALARIAIN SOUTH AMERICADATA USED: 2,500 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷAlimi TO, Fuller DO, Herrera SV, Arevalo-Herrera M,
Quinones ML, Stoler JB and Beier JC (2016) A multi-criteria
decision analysis approach to assessing malaria risk innorthern South America. BMC Public Health. Springer Nature.
Author countries: United States, Colombia
Research funding: The research was supported by NIH
ICEMR grant: Centro Latino Americano de Investigación en
Malaria (CLAIM) sponsored by NIAID/ICEMR (U19AI089702),
Colciencias (719–2013)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO),the world has seen a 37 per cent decrease in malaria
incidence over the last 15 years. However, the disease
still imposes a significant economic and health burden

7Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2902-7

mexicana is the causal agent of cutaneousleishmaniasis. Spread by sandflies, this ulcer-causing
disease represents a serious public health problem
in Mexico, especially in the Yucatan peninsula. In thisstudy, researchers conducted a field study trapping
sandflies in the state of Campeche and testing themfor parasite presence. They captured more than 3,000
specimens belonging primarily to four species of thePsychodidae family. By DNA analysis they find 0.3
per cent of the flies to be infected with the parasite.
Then, using ecological niche models based on GBIFmediated occurrences, they demonstrate how nearly
40 per cent of the state of Campeche is suitable
habitat for the flies, potentially exposing more than
100,000 people. The fly distributions overlap withthose of known rodent reservoir species, increasing
the evidence for the vectorial roles of the four fly
species trapped in the study.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/mve.12169

PREDICTING THE SPREAD OF CHIKUNGUNYA IN
THE AMERICASDATA USED: 10,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷEscobar LE, Qiao H and Peterson AT (2016) Forecasting
Chikungunya spread in the Americas via data-driven
empirical approaches. Parasites & Vectors. Springer Nature.
Author countries: United States, China
Research funding: Global EmergingInfectious Disease
Surveillance and Response System; Science and Technology
Service Project (STS); Chinese Academy of Science; National
Natural Science Foundation of China

EIDOLON HELVUM BY AMASABAALUIZAH BY CYDNOHTTP://WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1211969391 CC BY-NC 4.0

TRAPPING LEISHMANIASIS IN MEXICODATA USED: 26,618 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Pech-May A, Peraza-Herrera G, Moo-Llanes DA, EscobedoOrtegón J, Berzunza-Cruz M, Becker-Fauser I, Montes De
Oca-Aguilar AC and Rebollar-Téllez EA (2016) Assessing theimportance of four sandfly species (Diptera: Psychodidae)
as vectors of Leishmania mexicana in Campeche, Mexico.
Medical and Veterinary Entomology. Wiley-Blackwell 30(3):310–320.
Author countries: Argentina, Mexico
Research funding: CONACYTIn Latin America, the protozoan parasite Leishmania

Chikungunya (CHIKV) is a mosquito-borne viral
infection that causes rashes, fever and joint
symptoms. The virus is endemic to Africa and Asiaand its principal vectors are Aedes albopictus and A.
aegypti. In this study, researchers take a data-driven,
ecological approach to predicting spread of CHIKV
by focusing on the 2013 outbreak in the Americas.
By compiling daunting amounts of data on airports,
travel routes and aircraft passenger capacity, they
anticipate CHIKV cases with high confidence incountries dominated by imported cases. Using GBIFmediated occurrences, they model the ecologicalniches of the two vector species, and find that vector
hotspots matched with initial reports of CHIKV cases.
The approach presented in this study can be used to
predict future spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
CHIKV-positives travellers should be particularly
aware of mosquito exposure, if travelling to identified
areas of high ecological suitability.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-016-1403-y

human healthin regions where it is endemic. In 2013, South America
had 427,000 confirmed cases and 82 deaths. This
study uses a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
to produce risk maps of malaria in the northern partof South America. The authors validate the risk maps
using GBIF-mediated occurrences of three vector
species (Anopheles darling, An. Albimanus and An.
nuneztovari), and compared to previous studies, themaps give a continuous risk surface with high spatial
detail and clearly defined gradients. The maps canbe particularly useful for guiding targeted malariainterventions and potentially speeding up the processof eliminating malaria completely in South America.

human health8

PREDICTING RISK OF MALARIA IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
DATA USED: 11,866 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷMoyes CL, Shearer FM, Huang Z, Wiebe A, Gibson HS,
Nijman V, Mohd-Azlan J, Brodie JF, Malaivijitnond S, Linkie
M, Samejima H, O’Brien TG, Trainor CR, Hamada Y, Giordano
AJ, Kinnaird MF, Elyazar IRF, Sinka ME, Vythilingam I, Bangs
MJ, Pigott DM, Weiss DJ, Golding N and Hay SI (2016)
Predicting the geographical distributions of the macaquehosts and mosquito vectors of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria
in forested and non-forested areas. Parasites & Vectors.
Springer Nature 9(1).
Author countries: United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada,
Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Kenya, Australia, United States,
Indonesia
Research funding: none listed

In 2013, approximately 1 million cases of malaria werereported in the islands of southeast Asia, the mostcommon cause of which is the parasite, Plasmodium
knowlesi, with immense health, social and economic
consequences in the region. In this study, researchersattempted to predict the spread of the disease bybuilding distributions models of three reservoir
species (Macaca spp.) as well as two mosquito
vectors (Dirus Complex and Leucosphyrus Complex).
Using GBIF-mediated occurrences they generated
fine-scale maps of the species’ distributions andexplored overlaps and combined relationships withshrinking forest cover and use. The results suggest
a potential increase in co-habitation of reservoir
and vector species in areas with human activity,e.g. plantations and timber concessions. Overall, thestudy adds important knowledge to be used in future
analyses of P. knowlesi infection risk in Southeast
Asia.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-016-1527-0

PREDICTING AND PREVENTING FURTHEROUTBREAKS OF EBOLADATA USED: 2,254 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷPigott DM, Millear AI, Earl L, Morozoff C, Han BA, Shearer
FM, Weiss DJ, Brady OJ, Kraemer MU, Moyes CL, Bhatt S,
Gething PW, Golding N and Hay SI (2016) Updates to the
zoonotic niche map of Ebola virus disease in Africa. eLife.
eLife Sciences Organisation, Ltd. 5.
Author countries: United Kingdom, United States, Australia
Research funding: Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; National
Institutes of Health; Rhodes Trust; Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation; German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD);
UK Medical Research Council (MRC); UK Department forInternational Development (DFID); Wellcome Trust; Science &Technology Directorate

As the West African outbreak of Ebola is contained,focus shifts from control to prediction and preventionof the disease that caused more than 11,000 deaths.
In their 2014 paper, Pigott and colleagues modelled
the zoonotic niche of the virus through occurrencesof three bat reservoir species. In this paper, the sameteam of researchers provide an update following
an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of theCongo, and, through literature scrutiny and use of
improved immunological tests, add new confirmed
virus findings to the previously published database.
They find evidence of Ebola virus in three animal
species: Peter’s mouse (Mus setulosus), greater
forest shrew (Sylvisorex ollula) and straw-coloured
fruit bat (Eidolon helvum). By updating their model
based on GBIF-mediated occurrences, they reassess
the environmental suitability for the virus, increase
the number of at-risk countries to 23, and highlight
Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of the Congo andEquatorial Guinea as being even more suitable thenpreviously calculated.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16412

PREDICTING ZOONOTIC SPILLOVERS UNDER
FUTURE ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORSDATA USED: 88 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Redding DW, Moses LM, Cunningham AA, Wood J andJones KE (2016) Environmental-mechanistic modelling of
the impact of global change on human zoonotic disease
emergence: a case study of Lassa fever. Methods in Ecology
and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell 7(6): 646–655.

MASTOMYS NATALENSIS BY BATWRANGLER
https://flic.kr/p/47HgQX CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Author countries: United Kingdom, United States
Research funding: Ecosystem Services for Poverty
Alleviation Programme (ESPA); Department for International
Development (DFID); Economic and Social Research Council(ESRC); Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); Royal
Society Wolfson Research Merit Award

9

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12549

MAPPING THE RISK OF TICK-BORNE DISEASEDATA USED: 3.8 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Estrada-Peña A and de la Fuente J (2016) Species
interactions in occurrence data for a community of ticktransmitted pathogens. Scientific Data. Springer Nature 3:160056.
Author countries: Spain, United States
Research funding: European Commission

Using species distributions of pathogen vectors
is becoming increasingly important for predicting
human and livestock infection risks. With tickborne illnesses, such as Lyme disease and viralmeningoencephalitis, the equation is expanded from
vector and pathogen to include tick hosts. Based on
extensive literature searchers and GBIF-mediatedoccurrences, the authors of this data paper build a
network of interactions between ticks, hosts andpathogens. They use remotely-sensed environmental
data to calculate the niches of ticks and their hosts.
Finally, they combine the interaction network with
the niche models to create a novel framework forevaluating niche overlaps and predicting occurrencesof tick-transmitted pathogens. The resulting datasets

SCIURUS AUREOGASTER BY ALFONSO GUTIÉRREZ ALDANA HTTP://WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1262389352 CC BY-NC 4.0

human health

A zoonotic spillover is when an infectious disease
moves from its animal source or reservoir via a
vector, to humans. Examples include Ebola, SARS,AIDS, and, the focus of this study, hemorrhagic
fever caused by Lassa fever virus (LAS). Integrating
global environment stressors, researchers assessed
the impact of climate change, population growthand land use on future emergence and spreadof LAS. By use of confirmed disease cases and
GBIF mediated occurrences of the Lassa virus
reservoir, the natal multimammate rat (Mastomys
natalensis), the researchers created ecologicalniche models examining relationships with a varietyof environmental variables. The find significant
associations between LAS outbreak and reservoir
presence, annual precipitation, population density
and rice yields. The models predict a doublingof spillover events under future scenarios. The
methodology described in the study can beincorporated in epidemiological disease models tocreate a powerful framework for predicting spilloversof zoonotic diseases.

human health

10

were deposited with Dryad for use in future researchand risk assessments. The authors note that theirframework can be used to capture the impact ofparticular species and host-tick pairs in the circulationof pathogens.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.56

PREDICTING POTENTIAL ZOONOTIC HOSTSDATA USED: 37,297 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷStephens CR, González-Salazar C, Sánchez-Cordero V,
Becker I, Rebollar-Tellez E, Rodríguez-Moreno Á, BerzunzaCruz M, Domingo Balcells C, Gutiérrez-Granados G, HidalgoMihart M, Ibarra-Cerdeña CN, Ibarra López MP, Iñiguez
Dávalos LI and Ramírez Martínez MM (2016) Can You Judge a
Disease Host by the Company It Keeps? Predicting Disease
Hosts and Their Relative Importance: A Case Study for
Leishmaniasis. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Public
Library of Science (PLoS) 10(10): e0005004.
Author country: Mexico
Research funding: Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico; CONACyT

Zoonoses are diseases that can be transmitted fromanimals to humans, accounting for more than 60 per
cent of human infectious diseases. Host animal range
can be a crucial factor in predicting disease risk andpotential for interventions, but some zoonoses arecomplex with not one, but multiple potential hosts andsubsequent large ranges.
In this study, researchers from Mexico used Complex
Inference Networks to predict hosts of Leishmania
parasites, causal agent of Leishmaniasis, thattransmit from sand-flies to mammalian hosts, ofwhich only eight have been previously identified.
Using GBIF-mediated occurrences of sand-flies andmammals in Mexico they constructed a database ofco-occurrences and inferred potential vector-hostinteractions. Ranking potential hosts by probability,
they collected wildlife specimens, tested them forparasite infection, and found 22 positive species,
including thirteen species of bats and one squirrel
identified as hosts for the first time.

ORIGINS OF RENAISSANCE MEDICINEDATA USED: 150 SPECIESRivera D, Verde A, Obón C, Alcaraz F, Moreno C, Egea T,
Fajardo J, Palazón JA, Valdés A, Signorini MA and Bruschi P(2017) Is there nothing new under the sun? The influence of
herbals and pharmacopoeias on ethnobotanical traditions in
Albacete (Spain). Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Elsevier BV
195: 96–117.
Author countries: Spain, Italy
Research funding: none listedPlants and animals have been used to make drugs formillennia. 16th century pharmacists in Western Europe
preferred extremely complex herbal formulations
involving dozens of ingredients, many sourced in faraway regions.
This study presents a detailed analysis of a unique setof recently discovered 16th century pharmacologicalmanuscripts from Spain with the goal of determining
ingredients, and, using GBIF-mediated data to verify
species names and origin as well as influences onpresent medicinal knowledge.
The manuscripts describe 101 medicines of which the
majority contain more than two ingredients (some as
many as 35), and 85 per cent of the ingredients areof plant origin. The researchers identify more than 60
per cent of ingredients still in use today in medicine
production, however, the source of these has shiftedfrom exotic imports to cheaper, local resources.
The study confirms that despite local availabilityof medicine ingredients, physicians had a distinct
preference for exotic and expensive resources,
inevitably making drugs of the Renaissance a
precious affair.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2016.11.040

The study shows how innovative modelling of species
occurrences can provide useful information about
interactions and be applied to complex problems suchas multi-host diseases.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pntd.0005004
IVORY FROM ELEPHAS MAXIMUS SUBSP. INDICUS, A POPULAR INGREDIENT IN
RENAISSANCE MEDICINE. PHOTO BY TRISLANDER
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1098901646 CC BY-NC 4.0

See all Biodiversity and human health citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

11

Data management

ONE SINGLE OR SEVERAL SPECIES OF GIRAFFES (GIRAFFA CAMELOPARDALIS)? DEPENDS ON THE TAXONOMIC INTERPRETATION. PHOTO BY RYBER
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/891095267 CC BY-NC 4.0

TAXONAUT - COMPARING TAXONOMIESGRAPHICALLYDATA USED: CHECKLIST BANKꇷYtow N (2016) Taxonaut: an application software forcomparative display of multiple taxonomies with a use
case of GBIF Species API. Biodiversity Data Journal. Pensoft
Publishers 4: e9787.
Author country: Japan
Research funding: JSPS

The naming and classification of species is crucial forbiodiversity science and relies on consistent groupingof organisms in a hierarchical structure. Taxonomies
representing such hierarchies may come from avariety of sources and are not always consistent.
In this paper, winner of the inaugural Ebbe Nielsen
Prize in 2002, Nozomi Ytow, presents a new Javabased application, Taxonaut, that allows for easy
and user-friendly summarised comparisons of two
or more taxonomies. Relying on GBIF Checklist Bankfor taxonomic data, Taxonaut takes a scientific nameand returns the taxonomies in which that particulartaxon is included. From the results, users are able toselect specific taxonomies and compare name usage
in a hierarchical structure with matching taxa aligned
for user-friendly comparison. Searches can also be
expanded to include basionyms and synonyms, if
relevant.

Taxonaut is novel methodological approach tocomparative taxonomy analysis that allows nonexpert users to assess and compare nomenclatural
data in a fast and easy manner.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e9787

ACCESSING THE OPEN TREE OF LIFEDATA USED: 1,868 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷMichonneau F, Brown JW and Winter DJ (2016) rotl :an R package to interact with the Open Tree of Life data.
Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell 7(12):1476–1481.
Author country: United States
Research funding: NIH; iDigBio; National Science Foundation

Phylogenetic trees can be tricky to assemble, butadvances in genetic sequencing and informatics has
made the process significantly easier. Still, publishedphylogenies are often only available as image files
with no standard for storage and representation.
The Open Tree of Life (OTL) project aims to change
this, allowing researchers to assemble and maintainphylogenies in standardized environment. Using a
new software package, rotl, researchers can now
use the popular data processing suite, R, to directlyinteract programmatically with the OTL data. The
present paper describes how researchers can
extract relationships between taxa, but also access
phylogenies from specific studies of interest. Species

12data management

data accessed via rotl can easily be integrated with
GBIF-mediated occurrences to visualize occurrences
associated with a specific study. The rotl package fits
well into the range of R tools available to biodiversity
researchers.

BIG DATA IN BIODIVERSITYDATA USED: 9,397 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12593

Franklin J, Serra-Diaz JM, Syphard AD and Regan HM (2016)
Big data for forecasting the impacts of global change onplant communities. Global Ecology and Biogeography. WileyBlackwell 26(1): 6–17.

IDENTIFYING DATA GAPS THROUGH VISUALIZATION

Author country: United States
Research funding: National Science Foundation

DATA USED: 10,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBarve V and Otegui J (2016) bdvis: visualizing
biodiversity data in R. Bioinformatics. Oxford University
Press (OUP) 32(19): 3049–3050.
Author country: United States
Research funding: Google

Informatics is an integrated part of biodiversity
science, and tools are becoming essential for
researchers to download, process and visualise
biodiversity data. The R environment is rapidly
becoming the preferred platform for all kinds ofdata analysis, including biodiversity. This paper
introduces a new R package, bdvis, that enables
visualization of datasets to help identify temporal,
spatial and taxonomic gaps. The package accepts
downloads of occurrences from GBIF (via rgbif),
VertNet (via rvertnet) and iNaturalist (via rinat) and
can help data holders to improve quality of existingdatasets, and data users to understand strengths
and weaknesses in datasets. Through examples, theauthors demonstrate how a dataset from GBIF can be
downloaded, formatted and graphically visualized injust a few simple steps. The resulting graphs provide
insights into possible gaps that should be consideredby data users and potentially addressed by dataholders.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/
btw333

Researchers are using big data in studies of many
areas of ecology and biodiversity, and while
integrating big datasets allows for addressing
questions on a global scale, there are challenges facedwith different types of data.
This concept paper reviews four classes of data
relevant for forecasting the impacts of globalchange on vegetation: environmental data, species
occurrences, community plots and species traits. The
authors highlight how a growing number of regionaland global biodiversity research initiatives use GBIF
for species occurrence data, but also note that errors
in spatial coordinates and taxonomic identification
can lead to overestimations.
For researchers producing their own datasets, theauthors point to the importance of storing these indata repositories that allows for re-use and postpublication peer review, while also ensuring proper
attribution that, in turn will foster more enthusiastic
data sharing and data-driven discovery. The qualityof the data, however, must always be considered, as
the size of a dataset alone cannot overcome problems
caused by systematic errors.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12501

THE CASE FOR A RUSSIAN NATIONAL BIODIVERSITYPORTALDATA USED: 139,909 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Ivanova NV and Shashkov MP (2016) Biodiversity Databasesin Russia: Towards a National Portal. Arctic Science. Canadian
Science Publishing.
Author country: Russian Federation
Research funding: Russian Foundation of Basic Research

Despite being the largest country in the world andplaying a key role in Arctic ecosystem conservation,
Russia remains largely fragmented and digitally
inaccessible when it comes to biodiversity data.
More than 12,500 species of vascular plants, 1,500
vertebrates, and 100,000 invertebrates make up the
Russian biodiversity, yet GBIF counts less than 0.1
occurrence per square kilometre of Russian territory.
HOODED ORIOLE (ICTERUS CUCULLATUS) BY BOURIQUER
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1253316638 CC BY-NC 4.0

This paper reviews existing biodiversity information

13

Russian scientists have considerable experience inbiodiversity informatics, yet lack a national platform
for aggregating and sharing data. The authors
conclude that formal participation in GBIF with thecreation of a national node and portal is necessary
to increase data mobilization and contribution tonational and international biodiversity science.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1139/AS-2016-0050

RAINBIO – A COMPILATION OF TROPICAL AFRICAN
VASCULAR PLANTSDATA USED: 70,220 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷGilles D, Zaiss R, Blach-Overgaard A, Catarino L, Damen T,
Deblauwe V, Dessein S, Dransfield J, Droissart V, Duarte MC,Engledow H, Fadeur G, Figueira R, Gereau RE, Hardy OJ, HarrisDJ, de Heij J, Janssens S, Klomberg Y, Ley AC, MacKinder
BA, Meerts P, van de Poel JL, Sonké B, Sosef MSM, Stévart
T, Stoffelen P, Svenning J-C, Sepulchre P, van der Burgt X,
Wieringa JJ and Couvreur TLP (2016) RAINBIO: a megadatabase of tropical African vascular plants distributions.
PhytoKeys. Pensoft Publishers 74: 1–18.

The final dataset comprises 25,356 species ofvascular plants collected from 1782 to 2015 andincludes habitat data for nearly all species. The
authors have made the database available for online
download under a Creative Commons BY-NC license.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.74.9723

MAPPING DISTRIBUTION OF LICHEN TRAITSDATA USED: 3,879,389 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Rambold G, Zedda L, Coyle JR, Peršoh D, Köhler T and Triebel
D (2016) Geographic heat maps of lichen traits derived by
combining LIAS light description and GBIF occurrence data,
provided on a new platform. Biodiversity and Conservation.
Springer Nature 25(13): 2743–2751.
Author countries: Germany, United States
Research funding: None listed

Lichens are composite organisms arising fromsymbioses between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria,
respectively, with a wide range of traits, several ofwhich are linked to ecosystem services. To better
understand the role lichens play in ecosystems, thisstudy combines spatial occurrences of lichenized
fungi mediated by GBIF with trait data, to form LIAS
gtm, a new platform for geographical tracking of lichen
traits.

Author countries: France, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands,
Belgium, United Kingdom, United States, Germany
Research funding: French Foundation for Research on
Biodiversity (FRB)

Tropical Africa contains high levels of species
diversity, but data from the region is scarce and at
best, fragmented. Biodiversity data is crucial for wise
and sustainable conservation assessments, butalso for understanding the shifts imposed by climatechange and other human-mediated activities.
This study presents a unique compilation of 13
datasets of vascular plants in sub-Saharan tropical
Africa from a variety of sources, including two
GBIF-mediated datasets. Researchers carried out
extensive quality checking including geo-referencing
verification, taxonomic standardization, andduplication filtering, reducing the raw dataset from977,000 to 614,000 records. As the goal was tofocus on indigenous plants, the researchers used
GBIF-mediated occurrences of all species to check
distributions and remove 1,635 non-native species.

POWDERED WRINKLE LICHEN (TUCKERMANNOPSIS CHLOROPHYLLA)BY JK JOHNSON HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1052593012
CC BY-NC 4.0

Part of the LIAS light service, the resulting data matrix
which is updated semi-automatically every threemonths, can be queried through a web interface basedon traits and geographic area of interest. Visualized
as heat maps, the results are easily exported andallow for further interpretation and use in research.
Users can perform analyses based on both single andmultiple traits, and also potentially discover novel
trait-trait correlations.
The LIAS gtm tool offers unique insights into thegeographic distribution of lichen traits.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1199-2

See all Data managemant citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

data management

systems in Russia across species occurrences,taxonomy and digital collections. Although somesystems are in place, the authors point to several
problems, including a lack of willingness among
researchers to share data, database platforms
without functionality to allow internet access,spatial information presented as images rather
than coordinates, and, systems not being updated
and finally becoming unavailable as projects arecompleted.

14

Evolution and biogeography

A FALSE TREE CORAL (RHINOBOTHRYUM BOVALLII) BY GREG LASLEY HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1249286266 CC BY-NC 4.0

WHEN EVOLUTION GOES BANANASON THE ORIGIN OF BELLFLOWERSDATA USED: 3,600 SPECIES OCCURRENCESDATA USED: 100,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Janssens SB, Vandelook F, De Langhe E, Verstraete B, Smets
E, Vandenhouwe I and Swennen R (2016) Evolutionary
dynamics and biogeography of Musaceae reveal acorrelation between the diversification of the banana family
and the geological and climatic history of Southeast Asia.
New Phytologist. Wiley-Blackwell, 1453–1465.

ꇷCrowl AA, Miles NW, Visger CJ, Hansen K, Ayers T,
Haberle R and Cellinese N (2016) A global perspective
on Campanulaceae: Biogeographic, genomic, and floral
evolution. American Journal of Botany. Botanical Society ofAmerica, 233–245.

Author countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Tanzania
Research funding: Research Fund-Flanders (FWO)

The evolutionary patterns of plants and animals canbe shaped by climate and geology. In this study of
the Musaceae family, of which bananas and plantains(Musa acuminate, Musa balbinosa) are members,
researchers investigate the diversification andbiogeography the family’s three genera (Ensete,Musa, and Musella), and draw links to the geologicalhistory of Southeast Asia. The authors sampled
44 Musaceae species for DNA analysis and genealignment. Combined with GBIF-mediated occurrences
they construct a new phylogenetic tree showing theancestral ranges of the three genera and revealing
the origin of Musaceae in northern Indo-Burma
about 50 million years ago. They estimate that thedivergence of Musa into two distinct clades took placeabout 10 million years later, and these diversified
into numerous species 20 and 25 million years
ago, respectively. The authors conclude that thediversification patterns of the banana family foundin the study, mirror geological and climatic events inSoutheast Asia.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.13856

Author country: United States
Research funding: National Science Foundation

The bellflowers (Campanulaceae) are a diverse familyof flowering plants encompassing more than 2,300
species across five major lineages. In this study,
researchers use genetic sequence data and GBIFmediated occurrences to provide new insights into thephylogeny and biogeography of Campanulaceae.
Their analysis confirms the traditionally recognized
five subfamilies of the group, and provide evidence
suggesting an African origin of the entire family
diverging from a common ancestor about 76 million
years ago.
Based on genetic studies, the authors present
a hypothesis of a diploid ancestor with ninechromosome pairs. Genome duplication events
leading to an increase in copies of chromosomes
at the bases of clades facilitated specialization of
species including the evolution of woodiness. The
study is the largest to date on the Campanulaceae
family.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1500450

15

BIODIVERSITY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY OF
INTERTIDAL COMMUNITIES IN THE ANTARCTICDATA USED: 38,100 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷGriffiths HJ and Waller CL (2016) The first comprehensive
description of the biodiversity and biogeography of Antarctic
and Sub-Antarctic intertidal communities. Journal of
Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell, 1143–1155.
Author country: United Kingdom
Research funding: none listed

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.13921

ADAPTING TO THE EXTREMES OF LIVING IN THE
DESERTDATA USED: 17,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Nylinder S, Razafimandimbison SG and Anderberg AA (2016)
From the Namib around the world: biogeography of theInuleae-Plucheinae (Asteraceae). Journal of Biogeography.
Wiley-Blackwell 43(9): 1705–1716.
Author country: Sweden
Research funding: Swedish Research Council

Deserts are usually not biodiversity hotspots, but the
species adapted to the extreme and arid conditions
are usually highly specialized and endemic to thearea. Representing more than 250 species, theInuleae-Plucheinae tribe is a prominent example ofarid flora found globally, and this study presents
a historical biogeography of the group. Using two
different approaches (one based on GBIF-mediatedoccurrences), the researchers inferred the ancestral

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12708

ULTRAVIOLET FLOWER PATTERN DIVERSITYDATA USED: 335,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Koski MH and Ashman T-L (2016) Macroevolutionary
patterns of ultraviolet floral pigmentation explainedby geography and associated bioclimatic factors. New
Phytologist. Wiley-Blackwell, 708–718.
Author country: United States
Research funding: NSF; UPitt Mellon

While the colour of flowers affects interactions with
pollinators, other pigments confer invisible traits suchas protection against ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In thisstudy, researchers investigated the UV absorbanceof plants in the Potentilleae tribe of the rose family,
and tested whether UV floral patterns were associatedcertain geographic or climatic properties. Initially,
the researchers constructed a phylogeny of thetribe through alignment of DNA sequences from 130
species herbaria. They then assessed the absorptive
properties of 177 different species by photographingflowers under UV light and measuring proportion of
petals absorbing UV. They find that UV absorption
is mostly present in plants with yellow petals, andalthough unable to predict the presence or absence

INDIAN STRAWBERRY (POTENTILLA INDICA) BY LAURA CLARK
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1262374812 CC BY-NC 4.0

areas of the tribe to range from the Namib desert to
the western Kalahari. The temporal origin is estimatedto be 15.4 million years ago, coinciding with anincrease in strength of the Antarctic Circumpolar
Current and aridification of the Namib area, suggestingchanges in climatic conditions as a driver of
evolutionary radiation. The study shows how studying
large groups of organisms can help uncover patterns
difficult to reveal in single-species studies.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12764

evolution & biogeography

Marking the area between the high and low of thetide, the intertidal zone is a distinctive environment
with a unique biota, often seen as the ‘canary in thecoal mine’ for changes due to climate change in cool
regions. This study represents a comprehensive
analysis of the biodiversity and biogeography ofintertidal communities in the Antarctic and subAntarctic regions. Compiling data from expedition
records, published manuscripts, GBIF and otherdigital sources, the authors create a database of
3,900 occurrences across 1,416 species, notingthat a general lack of standardized data makes this achallenging area to study. They are, however, able todemonstrate that the intertidal zone of the Antarctic
region is far from being devoid of life. In fact, theintertidal communities of the Antarctic Peninsula
prove richer and more diverse than those of southern
South America.

of absorption by means of geography or climate, they
do find that among plants that absorb, those growing
in areas with high level of UV exposure have more
uniform patterns of absorption.

16

MIMICS AND MODELS OF NEW WORLD SNAKESDATA USED: 299,376 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷDavis Rabosky AR, Cox CL, Rabosky DL, Title PO, Holmes
IA, Feldman A and McGuire JA (2016) Coral snakes predict
the evolution of mimicry across New World snakes. Nature
Communications. Springer Nature 7: 11484.

evolution & biogeography

Author countries: United States, Israel
Research funding: National Science Foundation; Universityof Michigan

Not all snakes need venom to scare predators away.
A large group of harmless snakes simply mimics
the appearance of noxious species as a means ofdeterring their enemies through deceit. In this paper,
researchers studied distributional, phenotypic andphylogenetic data across all New World snakes, andinvestigated how shifts to mimetic coloration relate
to the evolution of venomous coral snakes. Using GBIFmediated occurrences, the researchers constructed
geographic ranges of more than 1,000 species,
and found that coral snakes are a strong predictorof the abundance of mimics. However, the numberof observed mimetic species is much higher than
expected. Phylogenetic analysis revealed at least
19 independent origins of mimetic coloration, andnot surprisingly these all appear after the arrival ofcoral snakes. Interestingly, the researchers also findevidence of widespread loss of mimetic coloration,
rejecting previous suggestions that mimicry is
evolutionarily irreversible.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11484

SOWING THE SEEDS OF ZINGIBERALESDATA USED: 55,309 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBenedict JC, Smith SY, Specht CD, Collinson ME, LeongŠkorniçková J, Parkinson DY and Marone F (2016) Species
diversity driven by morphological and ecological disparity:a case study of comparative seed morphology and anatomy
across a large monocot order. AoB Plants. Oxford University
Press (OUP) 8: plw063.
Author countries: United States, United Kingdom, Singapore,
Switzerland
Research funding: Heliconia Society International; National
Science Foundation; National Parks Board, Singapore; Czech
Science Foundation; Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3);
European Community

A myriad of factors contributes to the genotypicand phenotypic diversity found in organisms on
Earth, and understanding the underlying processes
is a fundamental question in biology. In this study,
researchers address this question by investigating
the morphologically diverse angiosperm order of
Zingiberales, members of which include bananas andgingers, mainly found in the tropical and subtropicalregions of the world.
Through a combination of seed analysis using X-ray
microscopy and ecological niche mapping based on
GBIF-mediated occurrences, the authors explore theproperties of 166 taxa from eight different families.
Morphologically, an extraordinary diversity exists
among Zingiberales seeds, but numerous traits unite
families. The ecological niches are similar across theorder as ninety per cent are distributed in the tropics
and subtropics with similar parameters in terms ofaltitude, precipitation and temperate. One family,
Zingiberaceae, however, stands out by also inhabiting
frostprone temperate regions.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plw063

GREEN ANOLE (ANOLIS CAROLINENSIS) BY NICK LINDNER
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1135353968 CC BY-NC 4.0

PREDICTING FUTURE DISCOVERIES OF LIZARDSDATA USED: 4,400 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Meiri S (2016) Small, rare and trendy: traits andbiogeography of lizards described in the 21st century.
Journal of Zoology. Wiley-Blackwell 299(4): 251–261.
Author country: Israel
Research funding: Israel Science Foundation

The rate at which researchers are describing new
species of lizards is increasing rapidly. In 2000,
taxonomists described 50 new species, and thisnumber increased to 140 in 2014.
In this study, a researcher from Tel Aviv University
compiled discovery dates and species traits for all
known lizard species (order Squamata excluding
snakes), and deduced range sizes using occurrence
data from GBIF and others. By applying statisticalanalysis, the researcher related traits of the
discovered species to the year of discovery. The
results showed that most recent discoveries (21stcentury) are more frequent in the tropics. The species

17discovered have smaller body and range sizes, andare more likely to nocturnal, but less likely to beburrowing. Finally, and most unfortunately, the study
indicates that recent discoveries are more likely tobe threatened with extinction than those describedearlier, hinting at the discouraging fact that somelizard species may be lost before they are discovered.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jzo.12356

NARROWING THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR
Spalink D, Drew BT, Pace MC, Zaborsky JG, Starr JR, Cameron
KM, Givnish TJ and Sytsma KJ (2016) Biogeography of thecosmopolitan sedges (Cyperaceae) and the area-richness
correlation in plants. Journal of Biogeography. WileyBlackwell 43(10): 1893–1904.
Author countries: United States, Canada
Research funding: NSF; NSERC; BSA; ASPT

Why are some taxonomic groups rich in species whileothers are poor? Evolutionarily speaking, richness
is limited by diversification rate and age, but reality
is more complex. This study focused on sedges(Cyperaceae family) and the observed correlation
between occupied area and its richness. Using
molecular data from four genes sequenced in 384
taxa combined with GBIF-mediated occurrences,
researchers modelled ancestral ranges and measured
diversification rates, and tested for correlation ofrichness with range size, overlap, niche clade age
and rate of diversification. Their results point toSouth America as the origin of Cyperaceae in the late
Cretaceuos. Increases in diversification took place
three times, two of which occurred in the temperateNorthern Hemisphere. Species-rich clades occupy
more space and exhibit patterns consistent with niche
differentiation correlating with diversification.

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2016.07.008

DEVIL’S GARDENS FOUND IN FRENCH GUIANADATA USED: 3,601 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Salas-Lopez A, Talaga S and Lalagüe H (2016) The discovery
of devil’s gardens: an ant–plant mutualism in the cloudforests of the Eastern Amazon. Journal of Tropical Ecology.
Cambridge University Press (CUP) 32(03): 264–268.
Author country: France
Research funding: French Agence Nationale de la Recherche;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Fond Social
Européen; Université Antilles-Guyane

Devil’s gardens are a phenomenon of the Amazon,
in which highly specialized ant species adapted toliving within cavities of equally specialized plants,
so-called myrmecophytes, attack and completely

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12802

EXPLORING MODES OF NEOTROPICAL SPECIATIONDATA USED: 4,229 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

André T, Salzman S, Wendt T and Specht CD (2016) Speciation
dynamics and biogeography of Neotropical spiral gingers(Costaceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
Elsevier BV 103: 55–63.
Author countries: United States, Brazil
Research funding: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento
de Pessoal de Nível Superior; Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; National
Geographic Society; NSF; UC Berkeley; CNR-BSP; SPUR; URAP

Speciation, the evolutionary process by which
populations become distinct species, is often related
to geographic alterations as uplifting mountain

THE LARGEST OF THE DEVIL’S GARDENS FOUND IN FRENCH GUIANA.
PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION FROM ALEX SALAS-LOPEZ.

evolution & biogeography

DATA USED: 4,400,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ranges and rising oceans create barriers and new
climates to support increased diversity. More evident
in the Neotropics than anywhere, the high levels of
biological diversity draw attention from researchers
looking to explain evolutionary patterns. In this study,
researchers examine the diversification dynamics of
the Neotropical region using a phylogenetic frameworkof the Spiral Gingers (Costaceae family). Through
GenBank downloads and de novo DNA sequencing
combined with GBIF-mediated occurrences, theresearchers produce a dated phylogeny of Costaceae
showing an Eocene origin of the family with the large
Costus genus diverging about 30 million years ago.
The most-recent common ancestor of the Neotropical
Costus clade is estimated to have occurred only 10
million years ago, with speciation without geographic
separation (sympatry) being high, as opposed to theolder South American clade dominated by speciation
as a result of separation (allopatry).

evolution & biogeography

18

clear the surrounding area of non-host plants. The
typical culprit, Myrmelachista schumanni, poisons
all other plants to promotegrowth and reproductionof its host, typically Duroia hirsuta. This paper
describes the discovery of Devil’s gardens in French
Guianan cloud forests, more than 2000 km away frompreviously known distributions of this rare mutualism.
To investigate the factors contributing to thegeographic isolation of the association, researchers
used GBIF-mediated occurrences of myrmecophytes
and compared these with known locations of devil’s
gardens, finding no evidence of host plant limitation.
The authors instead suggest that the isolated
phenomenon are relicts from past wider distributions,although this hypothesis needs further validation, e.g.
findings in other countries with montane forests.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0266467416000195

FERNS IN THE SKY ISLANDS OF EAST AFRICADATA USED: 4,313 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Liu H-M, Zhang S-Z, Wan T, Kamau PW, Wang Z-W, Grall A,
Hemp A and Schneider H (2016) Exploring the pteridophyte
flora of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot.
Journal of Systematics and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell 54(6):691–705.
Author countries: China, Kenya, United Kingdom, Germany
Research funding: Scientific Research Program of SinoAfrica Joint Research Center; National Natural Science
Foundation of China

Part of the East African Rift Valley, the Eastern
Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot (EABH) is a hyperdiverse region with a complex history of processes
shaping species richness. The mountains of the EABH
are different from other tropical mountain formations,as they do not form a continuous chain, and are often
described as “sky islands”.

In this study, researchers explore the origins of fern
and lycophyte diversity of the sky islands of east
Africa. Using a combination of traditional floras, journal
articles and online resources including GBIF they
identify 485 taxa in the region, a number that is only
surpassed by Madagascar. The authors note that GBIF
data alone reliably describes the species richness forsome countries, but not all.
The study finds evidence for a distinct flora in the
EABH region dominated by species preferably
occurring in humid climates, while also prodividing
framework for future studies on conservation, ecology
and evolution.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.12232

TRACING EVOLUTION OF PHOTOSYNTHETICPATHWAYSDATA USED: 20,373 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷLundgren MR and Christin P-A (2016) Despite
phylogenetic effects, C3–C4 lineages bridge the ecological
gap to C4 photosynthesis. Journal of Experimental Botany.
Oxford University Press (OUP) 68(2): 241–254.
Author country: United Kingdom
Research funding: European Research Council; Royal
Society University

Photosynthesis in flowering plants relies on two
different biochemical pathways known as C3 andC4. C4 photosynthesis evolved from C3, particularly
in warm regions where it boosts growth, and today,
intermediate species with traits from both C3 and C4
pathways exist, though little is known about theirecology.
In this paper, researchers use GBIF-mediatedoccurrences combined with data on climate and soil
conditions to study the distribution and phylogenyof 56 such C3- C4 intermediate species. They reportthat the group occurs across tropical and temperateregions, spanning a belt from 50°S to 65°N, and atelevations ranging from below sea level to the Andes
mountains. Climates supporting C3- C4 intermediates
feature temperatures from below zero to 30°C, andprecipitation ranging from being virtually absent to
extremely wet.
Precipitation and soil preferences tended to correlatewith those of C3 close relatives, however, intermediatetaxa inhabit warmer climates, suggesting thatthe condition may facilitate evolution of the full C4
pathway.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erw451

PELLAEA CALOMELANOS BY JOHN BARKLAHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1453082858 CC BY-NC 4.0

19evolution & biogeography

VERONICA PERSICA BY STEFANIAVERTUCCIO HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1265566440 CC BY-NC 4.0

LIVE SHORT AND PROSPERDATA USED: 9,374 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷWang J-C, Pan B-R and Albach DC (2016) Evolutionof morphological and climatic adaptations in Veronica
L.(Plantaginaceae). PeerJ. PeerJ 4: e2333.
Author countries: China, Germany
Research funding: Chinese Academy of Sciences; National
Natural Science Foundation of China

Some annual flowering plants have evolved to havevery short life histories, the record being less than
three weeks from germination to seed set. The annual
life strategy may offer advantages of being able tosurvive drought, heat, frost and other unfavourable
periods as seeds.

differences between the two strategies, as perennials
had larger leaves, petals and stamina, and annuals
had larger bracts. In terms of climatic trends, annual
habitats had higher temperatures, but perennial
habitats were generally wetter.
All examined annual species of Veronica originated in
the Mediterranean and southwest Asia, likely becauseof parallel evolution spurred by aridification.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2333.

The present paper presents a comparative study of
perennials and annuals, and examines morphologicaltrends and climatic factors that might favour
annuality. Using a combination of genetic information,
trait data and GBIF-mediated occurrences of 80
Veronica species, researchers found significant

See all Evolution and biogeography citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

20

Food and farming

A SOUNDER OF WILD BOAR (SUS SCROFA) BY ARIEL-SHAMIR HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1270051088 CC BY-NC 4.0

IMPACT OF LAND CONSOLIDATION ON PLANT
SPECIES DIVERSITYWILD BOAR AND THE SPREAD OF AFRICA SWINEFEVERDATA USED: 1,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCESDATA USED: 10,190 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Osawa T, Kohyama K and Mitsuhashi H (2016) Trade-off
relationship between modern agriculture and biodiversity:
Heavy consolidation work has a long-term negative impact
on plant species diversity. Land Use Policy. Elsevier BV,
78–84.

Bosch J, Iglesias I, Muñoz MJ and de la Torre A (2016) A
Cartographic Tool for Managing African Swine Fever inEurasia: Mapping Wild Boar Distribution Based on the
Quality of Available Habitats. Transboundary and Emerging
Diseases. Wiley-Blackwell.

Author country: Japan
Research funding: Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science; Ministry of the Environment, Japan

Author country: Spain
Research funding: European Commission

Land consolidation is used in agriculture to improve
the livelihoods of farmers and to facilitate a more
prosperous and efficient agricultural sector. Allowing
farmers to have farms with larger areas of land,enables them to become more competitive. But whatis the long-term impact of heavy land consolidation
on biological diversity? In this study from Japan,
researchers used plant red list data as a case study
to attempt to answer this question. By compiling
occurrences of 23 previously common but currently
threatened plant species from GBIF and other sources,
and then examining how these relate to agriculturalconsolidation, the authors found that threatened
plants species were unlikely to inhabit consolidated
areas. Unconsolidated agricultural land contained
significantly higher numbers of threatened species,
suggesting a negative impact on plant biodiversity ofthe practice.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
landusepol.2016.02.001

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) can act as reservoirs of
diseases that can infect both livestock and humans.
In certain regions of Europe, populations of wild boar
are responsible for maintaining and spreading Africanswine fever (ASF) across borders.
In this paper, authors use standardized global
vegetation data combined with expert opinions togenerate a map showing quality of available habitats
in endemic (mainly Russia) and non-endemic (mainlyEU) scenarios. They superimpose occurrences of wildboar from GBIF and other sources, as well as reported
ASF cases on the generated map to assess the qualityof their model.
More than half of the occurrences were in areas
classified as having the highest level of suitability,
indicating a good predictive ability of the model.
However, ASF cases differed in the endemic and nonendemic scenario showing that wild boar play a keyrole ASF spread in the EU.

21

The presented map suggests areas that should be thefocus of wildlife management and can be an important
tool in epidemiological studies.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/tbed.12559

EXPLORING THE CURRENT AND FUTURE NICHESOF BLUETONGUE VIRUS AND ITS VECTORSDATA USED: 40 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷSamy AM and Peterson AT (2016) Climate Change
Influences on the Global Potential Distribution of Bluetongue
Virus. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science (PLoS) 11(3):e0150489.
Author countries: United States, Egypt
Research funding: Graduate Fulbright Egyptian Mission
Program (EFMP)When examining the effect of latitude, however,the correlation is only significant in three families.
In two families, Sapindaceae and Sapotaceae, oilcontent increases with latitude, while it decreases
in Papaveraceae. They also find that proportions of
unsaturated fatty acids increase with latitude.
Shedding light on the role of oil seed content in plant
adaptation, this study may also provide useful datafor breeding of oilseed crops for human consumption.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-016-0752-7

YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY POTATODATA USED: 600 SPECIES

Dupin J, Matzke NJ, Särkinen T, Knapp S, Olmstead RG,
Bohs L and Smith SD (2016) Bayesian estimation of the
global biogeographical history of the Solanaceae. Journal of
Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell 44(4): 887–899.
Author countries: United States, Australia, United Kingdom
Research funding: National Science Foundation; Universityof Tennessee; Australian Research Council; Australian
National University

The nightshade family (Solanaceae) is a clade of 2,800
species including important crops, such as potato,
tomato and peppers, distributed across all continents
except Antarctica. Despite its economic importance,
the biogeographical history of the family is relatively
unknown.

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0150489

THE ADAPTIVE ROLE OF SEED OIL CONTENTDATA USED: 2,567 SPECIESꇷSanyal A and Decocq G (2016) Adaptive evolution ofseed oil content in angiosperms: accounting for the global
patterns of seed oils. BMC Evolutionary Biology. Springer
Nature 16(1).
Author countries: France, Sweden
Research funding: French ANR

Seed oil is the primary energy source needed for
germination and establishment of plants. Studying
the biogeographic distribution of seed oil content istherefore fundamental to understanding mechanismsof adaptive evolution in plants.
In this study, researchers combined details of oilcontent of more than 2,500 species of angiosperm
plants with species distributions data from GBIFKANGAROO APPLE (SOLANUM LACINIATUM) BY JOHN BARKLAHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1265596713 CC BY-NC 4.0

In this study, researchers pruned a recently inferred
phylogeny of the clade and used data from GBIF andother sources to determine the current distributionof around 1,000 species. Using biogeographicalstochastic mapping (BSM) they identify the mostprobable ancestral area for extant species offood & farming

Bluetongue disease is a viral, but non-contagious
disease of ruminants caused by the Bluetongue
virus (BTV). Outbreaks in the Mediterranean region
has resulted in the deaths of 800,000 sheep since1998. In the US alone, BTV is responsible for losses
amounting to US$125 million per year. In this study,
researchers built a comprehensive compilation of
BTV cases and modelled the potential distribution of
the virus under current and future climates. Under all
future scenarios, they find that the virus is projected
to expand its niche. Relating these findings to nichemodels for vector species (Culicoides spp.) basedon different sources including GBIF, they find no
significant differences, indicating that the virus andvectors share niches. This important observation may
assist in identifying areas with no current diseasereported, but at potential risk for infections in the
future.

and other sources. On a broad scale, they showthat tropical species have higher oil content thantemperate species. This pattern is also evident at thefamily level.

food & farming

22

Solanaceae to be South America, and estimate thatmost species evolved through within-area speciationand dispersals. Movement patterns were strongly
asymmetrical in all region pairs, except between
Africa and Eurasia, where numbers were equal in both
directions.
The study provides new insights into thebiogeographical history of the nightshade family,
and acts as a proof of concept for using the BSM
approach for exploring frequency and directionality ofbiogeographical events.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12898

MODELLING FOOD WEBS FROM PLANKTON TO TOPPREDATORSDATA USED: 42,945 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Halouani G, Ben Rais Lasram F, Shin Y-J, Velez L, Verley P,
Hattab T, Oliveros-Ramos R, Diaz F, Ménard F, Baklouti M,
Guyennon A, Romdhane MS and Le Loc’h F (2016) Modelling
food web structure using an end-to-end approach in the
coastal ecosystem of the Gulf of Gabes (Tunisia). EcologicalModelling. Elsevier BV 339: 45–57.
Author countries: Tunisia, France, South Africa, Peru
Research funding: Institut de Recherche pour leDéveloppement (IRD); JEAI IRD; ENVI-Med-MISTRALS;
Fondation TOTAL; FRB

Recognized as one of the most productive areas inMediterranean, The Gulf of Gabes is under multiple
anthropogenic threats, such as overfishing andpollution.
Seeking to characterize the structure of the food
web in the Gulf and model the main processes
that influence species’ life cycles, this study
used a combination of an individual-based model

representing high trophic level organisms informed
by GBIF-mediated occurrences and hydrodynamic/
biochemical model representing low trophic level
organisms.
The two models were linked through trophic
interactions and together provide a realistic
representation of the food web from smallest
plankton to top predators. Comparing model simulated
predator diets with stomach contents data, showed
an acceptable level of similarity. The modelled size
at catch also showed a close consistence whenconfronted with empirical data.
Overall, the model provides a foundation for futurestudies into the effects of anthropogenic change
threatening the Gulf ecosystem.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ecolmodel.2016.08.008

IMPACT OF 10,000 YEARS OF HUMANS IN ALASKADATA USED: 27,082 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷDunne JA, Maschner H, Betts MW, Huntly N, Russell R,
Williams RJ and Wood SA (2016) The roles and impacts ofhuman hunter-gatherers in North Pacific marine food webs.
Scientific Reports. Springer Nature 6: 21179.
Author countries: United States, Canada
Research funding: NSF; Idaho State University; Bamfield
Marine Sciences Centre; Santa Fe Institute

Modern civilizations are depleting commercial
fisheries leading to regulation excluding local
indigenous peoples from traditional harvesting
territories. This affects the Aleut peoples of thewestern Gulf of Alaska, who have depended on
marine resources for nearly 10,000 years. This study
simulates the impact of the Aleut on the ecologicalintegrity of the region by combining anthropological
data with food webs informed by GBIF-mediatedoccurrences. Despite being the top predator and ahighly omnivorous generalist feeding on 70 different
taxa, a behaviour that could potentially result in
extinctions, the researchers find no evidence linking
the Aleut population of Homo sapiens to such. In fact,
the authors suggest that prey-switching behaviour
promoted ecological integrity in the region.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21179

COMMON PANDORA (PAGELLUS ERYTHRINUS) BY WHODDENHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1265535366 CC BY-NC 4.0

See all Food and farming citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

23

Impacts of climate change

PRICKLYBURR (DATURA INNOXIA) BY LAURA URIBE HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1211983014 CC BY-NC 4.0

CLIMATE CHANGE AND MARINE FOOD-WEB
STRUCTURESDATA USED: 131,645 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Hattab T, Leprieur F, Lasram FBR, Gravel D, Loc’h FL andAlbouy C (2016) Forecasting fine-scale changes in the foodweb structure of coastal marine communities under climatechange. Ecography. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: France, Tunisia, Canada
Research funding: not listed

Changing climates affect biodiversity in a number ofdifferent ways including range shifts, reorganizing
local communities, and even extinctions. Marine
species are not just affected by abiotic conditions
such as temperature and salinity. They are connected
in intricate food-web networks through competition,
predation, parasitism, etc. If one species is affected, it
will inevitably affect many others.
Focusing on the Gulf of Gabes in the southern
Mediterranean, the authors of this study predict the
impacts of climate change on species networks bycombining climatic envelopes derived from GBIFmediated occurrences with a niche food web model.
Their results forecast range shifts for at least half
the species under future scenarios. 14 species may
be lost altogether, and with them 414 potential biotic
links. The study is an important reminder that species

communities are far from just a simple collectionof independent species, and that this should beconsidered when modelling distributions.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.01937

EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND LAND-USE CHANGE ONNORTH AMERICAN SEED PLANTSDATA USED: 3,786,713 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Zhang J, Nielsen SE, Chen Y, Georges D, Qin Y, Wang S-S,
Svenning J-C and Thuiller W (2016) Extinction risk of North
American seed plants elevated by climate and land-use
change. Journal of Applied Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: Canada, France, Denmark
Research funding: Climate Change and Emissions
Management Corporation; Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring
Institute; European Research Council

Climate and land-use change are expected to affectfuture distributions of plants and potentially lead tohigher extinction rates. In this study, researchers
used GBIF-mediated occurrences to examine current
and future distributions of 7,465 seed plant taxa inNorth America. Based on the distribution models,
they evaluated the vulnerability and extinction riskof each species. Their results showed that by 2080
about 2,000 species are projected to lose more than
80 per cent of their suitable habitat, however, gains ofsimilar proportions are likely to happen for about 100

24

species. The ratio of loss to gain expected is 13 to one.
The greatest losses are expected in southern regions,while northern latitudes can expect gains. Extinctions
are likely to affect evolutionarily distinct species
more, suggesting a potentially disproportionate lossof phylogenetic diversity. Overall, the study points toa rapid and severe changes in future distributions ofNorth American plant species.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12701

ASSESSING THE THREAT OF AGRICULTURAL PESTSUNDER CHANGING CLIMATESDATA USED: 18 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBiber-Freudenberger L, Ziemacki J, Tonnang HEZ and
Borgemeister C (2016) Future Risks of Pest Species under
Changing Climatic Conditions. PLOS ONE. Public Library of
Science (PLoS) 11(4): e0153237.

climate change

Author countries: Germany, Kenya
Research funding: Volkswagen Foundation

Climate change presents many challenges toagriculture, including drought and irregular weather,
especially in Africa where climate-change effects areprojected to be some of the most severe in the world.
Changing climatic conditions may also alter habitat
suitability for pest species, which could change
the threat of such pests. In this study, researchers
used GBIF-mediated occurrences to model the
distribution of three important pest species (Tutaabsoluta, Ceratitis cosyra, and Bactrocera invadens)
under current and future climates. Showing a goodpredictive performance, the models indicated that
habitat suitability for the three insect pests ispartially increasing across the continent, especially inthose areas already overlapping with or close to mostsuitable sites under current climate conditions. The

three pests are likely to remain a threat to agricultural
production under future climatic conditions. These
results may inform management decisions and help
farmers choose crops less susceptible to certain pest
species.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0153237

PROTECTING ARTIC MIGRANTS AGAINST CLIMATECHANGEDATA USED: 81,503 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Wauchope HS, Shaw JD, Varpe Ø, Lappo EG, Boertmann D,
Lanctot RB and Fuller RA (2016) Rapid climate-driven lossof breeding habitat for Arctic migratory birds. Global Change
Biology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: Australia, Norway, Russian Federation,
Denmark, United States
Research funding: ARC; ARC Centre of Excellence forEnvironmental Decisions

Millions of birds migrate to and from the Arctic
every year with some species travelling more than
20,000 km to escape the cold of the winter. Warming
climates may, however, disturb breeding grounds anddisrupt migratory flyways. In this study, researchersmodelled climatically suitable breeding grounds of
24 Arctic specialist shorebirds and projected themto future climates as well as the last major global
warming event, 6,000 years ago. The models predicta drastic decline in suitable breeding conditions
by the year 2070, with as many as 20 species
losing up to half their current breeding grounds. The
conditions at the last warming event were far lesssevere. The Beringia region of Alaska and Russia withhigh shorebird species richness and endemism, ispredicted to become unsuitable for many species. The
study suggests protection of migratory stopover sites
for birds having to travel further to reach suitablebreeding grounds.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13404

A DOUBLE THREAT TO TROPICAL BIRDSDATA USED: 6,286,920 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Frishkoff LO, Karp DS, Flanders JR, Zook J, Hadly EA, Daily
GC and M’Gonigle LK (2016) Climate change and habitat
conversion favour the same species. Ecology Letters. WileyBlackwell 19(9): 1081–1090.
Author countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom,
Costa Rica, Sweden
Research funding: Ward Wilson Woods, Jr.; Killam; Belmont
Forum

BACTROCERA INVADENS BY IAEA IMAGEBANK
https://flic.kr/p/bxKLKr CC BY-SA 2.0

Climate change is not the only threat to species, butwhen amplified by anthropogenic land-use changes, a
global biodiversity crisis looms. Some species are able

25

to thrive in human-dominated landscapes, but thediversity in such areas is very different from naturalareas. In this study, researchers used census data
and GBIF-mediated occurrences of more than 300
species of Neotropical birds combined with climate
data to assess relationships between species’ niches,origins and tolerance of human-dominated habitats.
They find precipitation to be the strongest predictor, inthat that species originating in drier regions are more
likely to occupy agriculture than forest. Interestingly,
these species appear to be more resilient to changes
in climate and land-use than forest-occupying
species. Apparently favouring similar species, climatechange and habitat conversion may homogenize
global biodiversity even faster and more severely
than previously anticipated.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12645

species shifting their ranges towards the poles. In thisstudy, researchers investigated 40 years of fishing in
the Mediterranean to determine whether changes inlandings can be explained by seawater temperature.
Dividing species into thermal affinity groups basedon median latitude of GBIF-mediated occurrences,
and aggregating the landing data in Mediterranean
sub-areas, the researchers find that catches follow ageneral temporal trend but depend on an interaction
between temperature and sub-area. They confirm
that cold affinity species are negatively affected bywater warming, whereas both temperate and warm
affinity groups show a positive relationship withtemperature. The study shows that climate change
can have a major impact on global fisheries, althoughmanagement strategies may prove more meaningful
at a regional scale.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2016.00143

DATA USED: 4,733 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷHarsch MA and HilleRisLambers J (2016) Climate
Warming and Seasonal Precipitation Change Interact toLimit Species Distribution Shifts across Western North
America. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science (PLoS) 11(7):e0159184.
Author country: United States
Research funding: National Science Foundation

WHITE ALDER (ALNUS RHOMBIFOLIA) BY KENNYHANHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1265541193 CC BY-NC 4.0

ASSESSING THE EFFECT OF WARMING WATER ON
MEDITERRANEAN FISHERIESDATA USED: 25,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷPranovi F, Anelli Monti M, Brigolin D and Zucchetta M(2016) The Influence of the Spatial Scale on the FisheryLandings-SST Relationship. Frontiers in Marine Science.
Frontiers Media SA 3.
Author country: Italy
Research funding: None listed

Various recent studies have shown a correlation
between sea-surface temperature and fish
distributions and species composition globally. Thisin turn affects fisheries, as other studies have shown

Many studies have predicted species distributions
responding to climate warming by shifting pole-wards
or towards higher elevation. In this study, researchersinvestigated 293 plant species in western North
America to determine if distributions have shifted as
expected in the past 40 years, and to gain knowledge
into future responses to further climatic changes.
Using species occurrences from several sources
including GBIF combined with historic climate data,
the researchers find that overall, plants were equally
likely to shift upward as they were downward, butalso that regional differences exist. Species occurringin multiple regions followed regional patterns rather
than species-specific patterns. Temperature alone
could not explain the direction of distribution shifts,
and the researchers found that combining the effectof summer warming with seasonal precipitation
change proved a better predictor, highlighting thecomplexity of species responding to changing
climates.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0159184

climate change

THE COMPLEXITY OF SPECIES’ RESPONSE TO
CLIMATE CHANGE

26

URBAN WARMING AFFECTS LOCAL PLANTASSEMBLAGESDATA USED: 25,863,271 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Duffy GA and Chown SL (2016) Urban warming favours C4
plants in temperate European cities. Journal of Ecology.
Wiley-Blackwell 104(6): 1618–1626.

distinct ecotypes differed significantly inclimate niche space, showing adaptation to local
environment. The models were better able to predict
populations than those that did not consider the
genetic component.

climate change

Author country: Australia
Research funding: Australian Research Council

Urbanization represents an environmental
challenge and urban land cover in 2030 is predicted
to be three times the area observed in 2000.
The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is apronounced climatic effect that may even affectthe local plant assemblages of urban areas. In thisstudy, researchers used differences in plants’photosynthetic pathways to test the hypothesis that
UHI favours so-called C4 plants thriving in warmer
climates as opposed to C3 plants that prefer colder
climates. Researchers downloaded GBIF-mediatedoccurrences of plants in the UK and Germany andclassified species according to photosynthetic
pathway- C3 or C4. Using remotely sensed temperature
readings, the researchers showed that summer
temperatures in urban regions were 2-3°C warmer inboth countries. As expected, overall C4 abundance
was low in both countries, but increased significantly
in urban regions with similar patterns for species
richness, showing how UHI is able to restructure plant
assemblages in urban areas.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12652

USING GENETICS TO IMPROVE ECOLOGICAL NICHE
MODELSDATA USED: 28 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Ikeda DH, Max TL, Allan GJ, Lau MK, Shuster SM and Whitham
TG (2016) Genetically informed ecological niche models
improve climate change predictions. Global Change Biology.
Wiley-Blackwell 23(1): 164–176.
Author country: United States
Research funding: NSF

To determine the effects of climate change on
biodiversity, researchers often rely on modelling
distributions or niches of species using a combinationof occurrence records and climatic data. Such models
might predict that the range of a species is likely tocontract under future climates, but they may not beable to capture local adaptation.
In this study, researchers used genetic information
to define ecological subregions, downloading GBIFmediated occurrences of Fremont cottonwood(Populus freemontii) and modelled them separately
by subregion. The models showed that genetically

FREMONT COTTONWOOD (POPULUS FREEMONTII) BY DON LOARIE
https://flic.kr/p/EytbVh CC BY 2.0

When addressing impacts of climate change, theresearchers found that ecotypes varied greatly intheir response, as some were predicted to gain morethan 60 per cent in suitable habitat while others stood
to lose it all.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13470

27

THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON ECOLOGICALNETWORKSDATA USED: 403,277 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷSchleuning M, Fründ J, Schweiger O, Welk E, Albrecht
J, Albrecht M, Beil M, Benadi G, Blüthgen N, Bruelheide
H, Böhning-Gaese K, Dehling DM, Dormann CF, Exeler N,
Farwig N, Harpke A, Hickler T, Kratochwil A, Kuhlmann
M, Kühn I, Michez D, Mudri-Stojnić S, Plein M, Rasmont P,
Schwabe A, Settele J, Vujić A, Weiner CN, Wiemers M and Hof
C (2016) Ecological networks are more sensitive to plant
than to animal extinction under climate change. Nature
Communications. Springer Nature 7: 13965.
Author countries: Germany, Canada, Poland, Switzerland,
New Zealand, United Kingdom, Belgium, Serbia, Australia
Research funding: Hesse’s Ministry of Higher Education,
Research and the Arts; DFG; European Commission; German
Academic exchange service; German Federal Environmental
Foundation; German Federal Ministry of Education andResearch; Climatic Impacts on Ecosystems and Climatic
Adaptation Strategies; FNRS (Belgium); BELSPO

Combining species distribution models based on
GBIF-mediated occurrences with ecological network
analyses, researchers examined the impact of climatechange on more than 700 plant and animal species
in pollination and seed dispersal networks in Central
Europe. They also tested the hypothesis that species
with narrow niches and projected losses in climatic
suitability are specialist species with few biotic
partners.

DATA USED: 5,719 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Munson SM and Long AL (2016) Climate drives shifts ingrass reproductive phenology across the western USA. New
Phytologist. Wiley-Blackwell 213(4): 1945–1955.
Author country: United States
Research funding: US Geological Survey Ecosystems
Mission Area; National Climate Change; Wildlife Science
CenterIn this study, researchers used herbarium records
from GBIF and other sources to investigate how
well grasses of the western United States cope withenvironmental variability.
Deriving flowering date of each grass species fromthe specimen collection date and relating this toclimate data, the researchers found that increasing
temperature variables affected flowering timedifferently according to photosynthetic pathway, as
flowering was accelerated in C3 plants, but delayedin C4. For precipitation, increasing variable values
generally delayed flowering. In both cases, however,the behaviour also depended on the ecoregion of thegrass species, most likely attributable to species
adaptation to local climates.
The results confirm that grass flowering time islargely controlled by climate change, and thatgrass phenology can cope with moderate changes
in temperature and precipitation. This resilience,
however, is most relevant if species can migrate to
new locations, which is unlikely to happen at the same
velocity of climate change.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.14327

Their results show that the breadth of animal
climatic niches is correlated with number of plantpartners, however, not vice versa. Animals projected
to lose climatic suitability have low diversity inplant partners, indicating that pollinators andseed dispersers with fewer plants interactions are
particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13965

DISTICHLIS SPICATA BY MILLIEBASDEN
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1453398771 CC BY-NC 4.0

See all Impacts of climate change citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

climate change

Climate change can force species to either adapt or
move, and many studies have modelled the impact
of warming climates on individual species. Ecologicalcommunities, however, consists of networks ofinteracting species, and understanding the impact on
entire ecological interaction networks is important.

CLIMATE CHANGE SHIFTS GRASS PHENOLOGY

28

Invasive alien species

GYPSY MOTH (LYMANTRIA DISPAR) BY MARTIN GRIMM HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1291061003 CC BY-NC 4.0

CLIMATE CHANGE REDUCES RISK OF PLANTINVASIONDATA USED: 317,063 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Allen JM and Bradley BA (2016) Out of the weeds? Reduced
plant invasion risk with climate change in the continental
United States. Biological Conservation. Elsevier BV 203:
306–312.
Author country: United States
Research funding: National Science Foundation; National
Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA; Massachusetts
Agricultural Experiment Station; Department ofEnvironmental Conservation

Invasive species represent a serious threat to
ecosystems, and identifying species and areas of risk
is critical for management prioritization, however, it’sequally important to consider how changing climates
may alter the risk picture.
In this study, researchers assembled a database ofinvasive plant occurrences in the continental UnitedStates from variety of sources including GBIF. Usingclimate data, they modelled the potential distributionsof each species and find that the current observed
richness of invasive plants is much lower than thepredicted potential.
Under future climate scenarios, however, the potential
richness is predicted to decline significantly, in someareas up to 50 per cent. Only in northern regions did
the researchers find predicted increases in invasiverichness, albeit up to 175 per cent. Most predictedinvasion hotspots (areas with potential richness in the
top 25th percentile) remained stable through the year
2050.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.09.015

WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL INVADER?
DATA USED: 381,231 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBellard C, Leroy B, Thuiller W, Rysman J-F and Courchamp
F (2016) Major drivers of invasion risks throughout the world.
Ecosphere. Wiley-Blackwell 7(3): e01241.
Author countries: France, United Kingdom
Research funding: ANR; European Research Council;
European Community

For invasive species to be successful, the climate
in the invaded regions must be at least similar to
the native region. However, other factors are also
known to play an important role. To provide insight
into what these factors might be and how they eachcontribute to successful invasions, researchers dida full investigation of abiotic and socioeconomic
parameters for 95 of the world’s worst invasive
species. Using occurrences primarily from GBIF, theymodelled the distributions of each species, and foundthat overall, the socioeconomic parameters such as
human density and distance to airports play a role
for more species than climatic parameters. However,in terms of predicting invasion success, temperatureand precipitation are still most important. The authors

29

finally identify Western and Central Europe, Eastern
North America, Central America, Eastern Australia,
and some Indonesian islands as potential invasion
hotspots that should be carefully monitored toprevent new invasions.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1241

GEOGRAPHIC BIASES IN INVASIVENESS: THE CASE
OF ASIAN AND AFRICAN PARAKEETSDATA USED: ~30,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Cardador L, Carrete M, Gallardo B & Tella JL (2016) Combining
trade data and niche modelling improves predictions of theorigin and distribution of non-native European populations ofa globally invasive species. Journal of Biogeography.
Author country: Spain
Research funding: ESFRI LifeWatch; Severo Ochoa Programfor Centresof Excellence in R+D+I
Some
examplesFLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEEDATA USED: 8,642 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷAcosta AL, Giannini TC, Imperatriz-Fonseca VLand Saraiva AM (2016) Worldwide Alien Invasion: A
Methodological Approach to Forecast the Potential Spreadof a Highly Invasive Pollinator. PLOS ONE. Public Library of
Science (PLoS), e0148295.
Author country: Brazil
Research funding: São Paulo State Research Foundation;
National Counsel of Technological and Scientific
Development

The worldwide number of alien species invasions is
rapidly increasing, and new methods of predicting
vulnerable areas are required. In this study,
researchers suggest a new methodological framework
for assessing habitat invasion susceptibility on a
global scale by focusing on the bumblebee, Bombus
terrestrisis. The native range of the bee is in Europe,
but it has invaded several regions including SouthAmerica, Oceania and Asia. Using occurrences
primarily from GBIF, the authors modelled habitat
suitability based on environmental topoclimatic
data to create a global map of areas particularly
susceptible to invasion by the bumblebee. Countries
that were identified as vulnerable, including Australia,
Brazil and Uruguay, may use the findings of this study
to develop action plans for monitoring bumblebee
invasion.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0148295

THE GLOBAL THREAT OF INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIESDATA USED: 78,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBellard C, Genovesi P and Jeschke JM (2016) Global
patterns in threats to vertebrates by biological invasions.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The
Royal Society, 20152454.
Author countries: France, Italy, Germany
Research funding: European Research Council; ANR

BOMBUS TERRESTRIS BY KAT Y JOHNSHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1088958824 CC BY-NC 4.0

Studies have shown that invasive alien species (IAS)
are responsible for a fifth of animal extinctions forwhich the causes are well-known, but are invasive
species a treat to global biodiversity? In this paper,
researchers assessed the spatial and taxonomic
relationship between IAS and threatened vertebrates
worldwide. Using GBIF-mediated occurrences and
IUCN Red List data, they determine that IAS playa role in more than a quarter of all threatenedvertebrates. Birds and amphibians have the highest
share of IAS-threatened species, and the largest
IAS-threatened proportion is found among criticallyinvasive species

When evaluating the invasive risk of a species,
researchers commonly use environmental-based
predictions. This study, however, suggests that
including international trade data and variability ingeographical origin may lead to much more thoroughrisk analyses. The authors compiled occurrencesof ring-necked parakeets from GBIF and othersources and built distribution models for the birds’
native niches in Africa and Asia, respectively. When
comparing with invasive ranges in Europe, theirresults show that the distribution here is mainly
explained by geographical origin of the birds andtime since introduction. Their models indicatethat while most of Europe is suitable for the Asian
population, almost no habitat is suitable for the
African population. This finding is supported by recent
evidence that genetic markers of established invadersmostly match those of Asian populations, althoughintroduced in similar numbers as African birds.

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12694

30

endangered species. The study identifies the frog
fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis as the IAS thatthreatens most vertebrate species (amphibians only),
whereas rats combined threaten nearly as many
species across all vertebrate classes. They finallyshow how the effects of IAS aren’t equally distributed
worldwide, and point to major centres of IASthreatened species in the Americas, India, Indonesia,
Australia and New Zealand.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2454

THE IMPACT OF ALASKA’S FIRST INVASIVEFRESHWATER PLANTDATA USED: 52,820 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Luizza MW, Evangelista PH, Jarnevich CS, West A and Stewart
H (2016) Integrating subsistence practice and species
distribution modeling: assessing invasive elodea’s potential
impact on Native Alaskan subsistence of Chinook salmon
and whitefish. Environmental Management. Springer Nature
58(1): 144–163.

invasive species

Author country: United States
Research funding: National Institute of Food and Agriculture,
USDA; Colorado State University

Biodiversity in Alaska is threatened not only
by changing climate, but also anthropogenic
disturbances through increased resource extraction
and infrastructure development. Together, thesefactors increase the state’s vulnerability to biologicalinvasions. In this interdisciplinary paper, researchers
studied waterweeds (Elodea spp.), the first
documented invasive freshwater plant in Alaska andassessed the potential threat posed by the invader
to the subsistence of Alaskan Native communities
by examining effect on harvest of important species,
Chinook salmon and whitefish. Using GBIF-mediatedoccurrences, the researchers constructed suitable
habitat models for Elodea in Alaska and find highsuitability across most of the state. In future climates,
the models show a slight increase in suitable habitat.
Combining this data with known spawning and rearing
sites for salmon and whitefish, the study identifies thenearly 1 million square kilometre Athabascan cultural
domain of interior Alaska as having the highest
concern, both under current and future scenarios.

EXPANDING NICHES THROUGH GENETIC
ADAPTATION?
DATA USED: 4,803 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷGallien L, Thuiller W, Fort N, Boleda M, Alberto FJ, Rioux
D, Lainé J and Lavergne S (2016) Is There Any Evidence for
Rapid, Genetically-Based, Climatic Niche Expansion in theInvasive Common Ragweed? PLOS ONE. Public Library of
Science (PLoS) 11(4): e0152867.
Author country: France
Research funding: French Agence Nationale de la Recherche;
European Research Council

Common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), an annual
weed native to North America, is a highly successful
invader colonizing locations across Eurasia, Australia
and South America. Being highly allergenic, ragweed
is a substantial public health concern. In this study,
researchers investigated the invasive successof ragweed in the French Alps, an area the plantreached about sixty years ago, and attempt to link
the niche expansion with genetic evolution. Using
GBIF-mediated occurrences of ragweed at global andregional scales, the researchers modelled climaticniches and related these to genetic structure andphenotypic architecture gathered through a large
experiment, in which they analysed DNA and tracked
the development of 3,000 plants. Their results identify
36 genetic markers potentially under selection,
as they showed correlation with climate nicheparameters, and eight of these also correlated withquantitative traits markers. The combined results
point to a rapid adaptation of ragweed during its
colonization of the French Alps.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0152867

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0692-4

CANE TOAD (RHINELLA MARINA) BY LEK KHAUVHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1122958334 CC BY-NC 4.0

31

USING INVASIVE TOADS TO TEST EVOLUTIONARY
HYPOTHESESDATA USED: 3,384 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Trumbo DR, Epstein B, Hohenlohe PA, Alford RA, Schwarzkopf
L and Storfer A (2016) Mixed population genomics support
for the central marginal hypothesis across the invasive
range of the cane toad (Rhinella marina) in Australia.
Molecular Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell 25(17): 4161–4176.
Author countries: United States, Australia
Research funding: Australian Research Council; National
Science Foundation; National Institute of Health

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13754

PREDICTING GLOBAL INVADERS AND REGIONS ATRISK OF INVASIONDATA USED: 1,540,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷWang Y and Xu Z (2016) Where are the Alien Species?
Predictions of Global Plant Species Invasions under Current
Environmental Conditions and the Human Footprint. Polish
Journal of Environmental Studies. HARD Publishing Company
25(4): 1729–1738.
Author country: China
Research funding:National Natural Science Foundation of
China

Species invasion is a major global concern, andidentifying potential invasive regions before they
are invaded is crucial. In this study, researchers
selected 308 species of invasive plant species,
gathered occurrence data from GBIF, and createdspecies distribution models based on climatic,
topographic and human activity data using ninedifferent modelling approaches. Their results show

WHITE LEADTREE (LEUCAENA LEUCOCEPHALA) BY TONY IWANEHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1253299481 CC BY-NC 4.0

invasion hotspots, defined as regions under threat
from more than 100 different invasive species, in theSoutheastern United States, Eastern South America,
Southeast Asia, Southeast Australia and New Zealand.
While abundance of alien species showed weakcorrelations with both mean annual temperatureand precipitation, topographic wetness and solar
radiation, the most significant correlation was foundfor human footprint. Turning to world’s 100 worst
invasive species, the study also examined the species
with the largest potential invasive distributions,
identifying among others the castorbean (Ricinus
communis), the dwarf copperleaf (Alternanthera
sessilis) and sweet acacia (Vachellia farnesiana).
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.15244/pjoes/62094

THE ROLE OF CLIMATE DATA RESOLUTION ON
SPECIES DISTRIBUTION MODELSDATA USED: 35,138 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Wan J-Z, Wang C-J and Yu F-H (2016) Impacts of thespatial scale of climate data on the modeled distribution
probabilities of invasive tree species throughout the world.
Ecological Informatics. Elsevier BV 36: 42–49.
Author countries: China, United Kingdom
Research funding: Fundamental Research Funds for theCentral Universities; NSFC; National Key Research andDevelopment Program of China

Species distribution models (SDMs) can provide
valuable information on the potential range of species
and are particularly useful for predicting suitability forinvasive species and thus potential spread in present
day and future climate scenarios. The scale of climate
data used is such models, however, may affect theoutcome.
Using invasive trees as a case study, researchers
addressed the role of spatial scale of climate data

invasive species

In evolutionary ecology, the central marginal
hypothesis (CMH) predicts that a species cannot
adapt to conditions outside their current range as
genetic diversity decreases from core the edge,
because of smaller, more isolated populations in
the latter. In this study, researchers tested thepredictions of CMH on invasive ranges of the cane toad
(Rhinella marina) in Australia, originally introduced
as a biocontrol against sugar canes beetles. Usinga combination of ecological niche modelling basedon GBIF-mediated occurrences and high-throughput
genetic sequencing, the researchers found thehighest overall habitat suitability in Arnhem Land on
the northern coast of the Northern Territory, but inthis region, genetic differentiation patterns showed
limited support for CMH. In the south-eastern part of
the range, diversity and differentiation were, however,consistent with CMH. The study is an example of how
species invasions, unfortunate as they might be, canbe utilized in evolutionary hypothesis testing.

invasive species

32

on species distribution models. By combining GBIFmediated occurrences of nine invasive species withbioclimatic variables at three different resolutions,they built SDMs and compare the performance of themodels and evaluate the impact of spatial scale.
In a general measure of model performance, theSDMs appear to perform well regardless of resolution.
However, the average distribution probabilities
increased significantly with resolution, and the mostimportant climatic variable differed depending on
resolution.
These findings suggest that the spatial scale of theclimate data impacts the ability of SDMs to provide
accurate predictions.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2016.10.001

INVADERS LURKING IN OUR GARDENSDATA USED: 835,036 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷDullinger I, Wessely J, Bossdorf O, Dawson W, Essl F,
Gattringer A, Klonner G, Kreft H, Kuttner M, Moser D, Pergl
J, Pyšek P, Thuiller W, van Kleunen M, Weigelt P, Winter M
and Dullinger S (2016) Climate change will increase thenaturalization risk from garden plants in Europe. Global
Ecology and Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell 26(1): 43–53.
Author countries: Austria, Germany, United Kingdom, Czech
Republic, France
Research funding: ERA-Net BiodivERsA; Austrian Science
Fund; French National Research Agency; Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft; University of Göttingen; Czech
Science Foundation; Centre of Excellence

Ornamental plants may escape our gardens andbecome naturalized invaders. This invasion risk
may increase as changing climates provide moresuitable habitat. This paper evaluates the current
naturalization risk from garden plants in Europe andexplores how a warmer climate might affect it. Using
GBIF-mediated occurrences of all species naturalized
anywhere in the world but Europe, the researchersmodel potential European distributions today andunder future climate scenarios. Out of more than 700
species investigated, current models showed thatabout a quarter would find suitable habitat. Under
the most severe climate change scenario, invasion
hotspots (supporting more than ten per cent of thepotential invaders) are predicted to double in areaby the end of the century. The authors recommend
raising awareness of plant invasions among gardening
and ornamental trade communities, especiallyconsidering how the internet has removed any
limitations on availability of plants for interested
customers.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12512

FROM ESCAPING PETS TO INVASIVE SPECIESDATA USED: 7,809 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Vall-llosera M, Woolnough AP, Anderson D and Cassey
P (2016) Improved surveillance for early detection of apotential invasive species: the alien Rose-ringed parakeet
Psittacula krameri in Australia. Biological Invasions. Springer
Nature 19(4): 1273–1284.
Author countries: Australia, New ZealandResearch funding: Department of Economic Development,
Jobs, Transport and Resources; Invasive Animals
Cooperative Research Centre (CRC); Australian ResearchCouncil (ARC)

Being the most widely introduced parrot in the world,
the rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri) isclassified as an “extreme threat” to native wildlife andagriculture in Australia. The complete details of thespecies’ distribution and impact is, however, currently
unknown.
In this study, researchers compiled a unique P. krameri
dataset from multiple sources including GBIF, missing
pet websites and government agencies, and used
incursion risk and species distribution modelling toassess the potential distribution and economic impact
on agricultural assets.
From 1999 to 2013, the researchers recorded
incursions of more than 1100 individual birds,
especially in areas around large cities, with Brisbane
accounting for more than 40 per cent of cases. These
numbers are almost ten times larger than previous
estimates, however, far from all lead to actual
invasions, as events typically include one or two
individuals highly dependent on humans.
The study shows show alternative data sources, likemissing pet websites, can be a novel resource forunderstanding and assessing bird incursions.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-016-1332-x

ROSE-RINGED PARAKEET (PSITTACULA KRAMERI) BY M. MCMASTERS
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1134965843 CC BY 2.0

33

INVASIVENESS RUNS IN THE FAMILYDATA USED: 338,945 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Harris RMB, Kriticos DJ, Remenyi T and Bindoff N (2016)
Unusual suspects in the usual places: a phylo-climatic
framework to identify potential future invasive species.
Biological Invasions. Springer Nature 19(2): 577–596.
Author country: Australia
Research funding: Australian Government’s National
Environmental Research Programme

The threat of biological invasions is likely to changewith climate conditions, and identifying species
and regions of risk is becoming a priority. This study
presents a general framework that relies on currently
introduced and related species for recognizing
species that may become invasive in the future.

The addition of phylogeny in the proposed framework
allows for identification of potential invaders in theabsence of species-specific knowledge.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-016-1334-8

HIGH INVASION RISKS IN ANTARCTICADATA USED: 600,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Pertierra LR, Aragón P, Shaw JD, Bergstrom DM, Terauds A andOlalla-Tárraga MÁ (2017) Global thermal niche models of two
European grasses show high invasion risks in Antarctica.
Global Change Biology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: Spain, Australia
Research funding: Spanish MINECO

Biological invasions are a global concern that affects
not only regions in which humans live, but also remoteareas such as Antarctica, previously consideredpristine, have been invaded by foreign species.
Focusing on two already established non-native
grasses in Antarctica, Poa annua and Poa pratensis,
this study used GBIF-mediated occurrences combinedwith temperature data to model the distribution of
the invaders, and subsequently, quantify climatic
suitability in the Antarctic Peninsula.

COLORADO BUR (SOLANUM ROSTRATUM) BY OPUNTIA CADEREY TENSISHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1088973449 CC BY-NC 4.0

Further relating climatic suitability with humanpresence data, the researchers identify specificresearch stations, tourist sites and protectedareas with the highest risk of being the source of aninvasion.
The study concludes that the Antarctic Peninsula
is more vulnerable to biological invasions thanpreviously expected, and the authors suggest aneed for strict management policies to minimize
introduction of invasive species.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13596

invasive species

By applying a series of questions, the researchers
demonstrate the framework on the Australian Alp
region, which is rapidly warming. For three alreadyintroduced species of hawkweed (Hieracium spp.)
as well as a missing relative species (H. murorum)present in a neighbouring region, they combine GBIFmediated occurrences and climate data to constructniche models to determine climatic suitability in the
future. By considering climatically similar regions
worldwide as sources, they identify another relative(H. pringlei), with potential to become invasive in the
future.

34

INVASIVE SPECIES ALONG FOR THE RIDEDATA USED: 9,605 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Horvitz N, Wang R, Wan F-H and Nathan R (2016) Pervasive
human-mediated large-scale invasion: analysis of spreadpatterns and their underlying mechanisms in 17 of China’s
worst invasive plants. Journal of Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell
105(1): 85–94.
Author countries: China, Israel
Research funding: Israel Science Foundation; Ring
Foundation; National Nature Science Foundation of China;
Special Fund for Scientific Research in Environmental
Protection Public Interest; National Key Technology
Research and Development Program of China; National
Key Research and Development Program of China; Minerva
Center for Movement Ecology; Adelina and Massimo Della
Pergola Chair of Life Sciences

Knowingly or not, humans are responsible fortransporting species around the world and introducing
them to new regions with beneficial, but also
undesirable consequences. As global traffic and travelincrease, so does the dissemination of potentiallyinvasive species.
In this study, researchers examine the species
inventory, distribution and dissemination of bamboos,
a large subfamily of grasses, interesting beyond
timber functions because of its versatility andtotal-plant utilisation. Relying on a variety of sources
including GBIF, the researchers compiled a databaseof 1,662 bamboo species across 122 countries andterritories, and identified 14 per cent as having been
introduced outside native ranges.

invasive species

Biological invasions threaten global biodiversity andis also considered a major cause of recent extinctions.
Human activity contributes to invasions throughdifferent mechanisms, but the rapid speed andpatterns of invasion are large unexplored.
In China, 268 invasive plants species have been
described, and in this study, researchers trace
the origin and spread rate of 17 the worst invaders
using a collection of data from herbaria, monitoring
programmes, literature and own field surveys. Theyuse GBIF-mediated data of non-invasive species tonormalize their dataset, and find the average minimal
speed across all species to be 1.5 km per year, withsome species spreading more than 100 km per year.
These rates are unlikely to be explained by spreadof seeds by the animals, water or wind, and in fact,
the study finds a significant correlation between
number of private-owned cars in China and counties
with invasive species, providing further evidence forhuman-mediated spread.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12692

ASSESSING POTENTIAL CAUSES OF BAMBOOINVASIONSDATA USED: 23,218 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷCanavan S, Richardson DM, Visser V, Roux JJL,
Vorontsova MS and Wilson JRU (2016) The global distributionof bamboos: assessing correlates of introduction andinvasion. AoB Plants. Oxford University Press (OUP) plw078.
Author countries: South Africa, United Kingdom
Research funding: South African National Departmentof Environment Affairs; DST-NRF Centre of Excellence forInvasion Biology; National Research Foundation of South
AfricaMOSO BAMBOO (PHYLLOSTACHYS EDULIS) BY HARUM.KOH
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1088912416 CC BY-NC 4.0

Investigating morphology, they find a number of traits
that correlated positively with being introduced,
including runner rhizomes, culm diameter andheight. Species with more cultivars are also more
likely to have been introduced. Finally, and perhaps
unsurprisingly, they find strong evidence linking
number of introductions with risk of being invasive,
suggesting that bamboo invasions are first andforemost a product of human activity rather thanspecies differences.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plw078

See all Invasive alien species citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

35

Species conservation and protected areas

AGAVE CHRYSANTHA BY STEVE JONES HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1500266068 CC BY-NC 4.0

NO BATS, NO TEQUILA: PROMPTING PARTY PEOPLE
TO PROTECT POLLINATORSDATA USED: 2,655 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Trejo-Salazar R-E, Eguiarte LE, Suro-Piñera D and Medellin RA(2016) Save Our Bats, Save Our Tequila: Industry and Science
Join Forces to Help Bats and Agaves. Natural Areas Journal.
Natural Areas Journal 36(4): 523–530.
Author countries: Mexico, United States
Research funding: none listed

As the third-largest genus in Mexican flora, Agave
pervades the natural landscapes and cultural heritageof the Americas, providing human communities withfood, fiber and distilled drinks for centuries. The
best-known spirit, tequila, depends on the pollinationof cultivated crops of A. tequiliana Weber var. azul
by three imperiled species of nectar-eating bats.
One likely contributor to the decline of these species
is that commercial Agave isn’t allowed to flower,
sacrifing bat food for tequila’s ‘aguamiel’ base.
In this study, the authors model a ‘bat-friendly’
approach that permits the inflorescence of between
5 and 10 per cent of cultivated plants to boost
nectar supplies for hungry chiropterans. Potential
mutual benefits that crop up include increased
genetic diversity among commercial Agave clones
now vulnerable to emerging plantation diseases,suggesting how to sustain healthy populations ofbats, A. tequiliana, as well as producers, distributors
and—within the confines of their own limits—
consumers of tequila.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3375/043.036.0417

DIVERSITY OF REEF CORALS IN THE SOUTH CHINASEADATA USED: 66 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Huang D, Hoeksema BW, Affendi YA, Ang PO, Chen CA, Huang
H, Lane DJW, Licuanan WY, Vibol O, Vo ST, Yeemin T and ChouLM (2016) Conservation of reef corals in the South China Sea
based on species and evolutionary diversity. Biodiversity
and Conservation. Springer Science + Business Media,
331–344.
Author countries: Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Brunei
Darussalam, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand
Research funding: NUS

Building on an existing database on stony reef corals
in the South China Sea, researchers used data from
GBIF and others to analyse coral species richness,rarity and phylogenetic diversity in the South China
Sea, and to clarify relationships between regional andglobal patterns of coral diversity. The resulting data
point to considerable differences between examined
reef areas in the region. One area (West Malaysia)
contains a very high number of both regionally andspecies conservation

36

globally rare species, and another (northern Palawan)
has only two, albeit extremely rare species, present
only in one ecoregion. Generally, a high number ofrare species is associated with high richness, withsouthern Vietnam being a notable exception. The
authors couple their data with IUCN extinction risks,and conclude that conservation planning in the South
China Sea shouldn’t be based on species diversity
alone.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1052-7

IDENTIFYING SPECIES SUITABLE FOR ECOSYSTEMRESTORATION NOW AND IN THE FUTUREDATA USED: 28,668 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Butterfield BJ, Copeland SM, Munson SM, Roybal CM andWood TE (2016) Prestoration: using species in restorationthat will persist now and into the future. Restoration Ecology.
Wiley-Blackwell.
Author country: United States
Research funding: Colorado Plateau Native Plants Program;
USGS

Restoration of ecosystems can be achieved throughintroducing species important for the structure andfunction of the habitat. Changing climates complicate
this process as suitable habitats may shift in the
future. In this paper, researchers propose the conceptof “prestoration”, a method of selecting species
that will persist not only now but also in the future.
Working from the Colorado Plateau as a case study,
the researchers use GBIF-mediated occurrences toconstruct ecological niche models for 24 speciesof local perennial grasses previously selected as
candidate species for restoration. They then calculate
the prestoration potential of each species, and findthat suitable area might decline by 40 per cent by midcentury. Turning again to GBIF data, the researchers
are able identify new species more suitable for longterm climate changes. Adding these has the potentialof making up for the losses projected for the local
species.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12381

LEAVING NO STONE UNTURNED IN EUROPE’S FIRST
MARINE RESERVEDATA USED: 3,856 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Trowbridge CD, Little C, Ferrenburg LS, Resk HM, Kachmarik
K, Plowman CQ, Stirling P and McAllen R (2016) Shallow
subtidal octocorals in an Irish marine reserve. Mar Biodiv.
Springer Science + Business Media.
Author country: United States; United Kingdom; Ireland
Research funding: National Science Foundation

Lough Hyne is fully marine, semi-enclosed, tidal

ALCYONIUM DIGITATUM BY GUIDO SCHMITZHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1227715431 CC BY-NC 4.0‘lake’ in the southern-most part of Ireland. The lough,connected to the Atlantic Ocean via tidal rapids, is thefirst marine reserve in Europe, known for high species
and habitat diversity. This study is the conclusionof a two-decade monitoring programme during
which researchers surveyed intertidal and shallow
subtidal octocoral species at 20 sites by carefully
turning rocks, photographing them, and returningthem to their original location. The most commonlyrecorded species was the pink soft coral Alcyonium
hibernicum, the abundance of which, however,fluctuated greatly over the period. The red octocoral
Alcyonium glomeratum was recorded for the firsttime inside the lough. A previously recorded species,
Alcyonium digitatum was notably absent, but anotherspecies, Sarcodictyon catenatum, not observed sincethe 1930s, was recorded at eight sites, presumably
overlooked for eight decades due to its cryptic
coloration and small size.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-016-0450-0

AMPHIBIANS OF THE PHILIPPINESDATA USED: 1,525 SPECIES

Diesmos AC, Watters JL, Huron NA, Davis DR, Alcala AC,
Crombie RI, Afuang LE, Gee-Das G, Sison RV, Sanguila MB,
Penrod ML, Labonte MJ, Davey CS, Leone EA, Diesmos ML,
Sy EY, Welton LJ, B. R. & S. C. (2015). Amphibians of thePhilippines, Part I: Checklist of the Species. Proceedings of
the California Academy of Sciences, 62(20), 457–539.
Author countries: Philippines, United States, Malaysia
Research funding: National Museum of the Philippines;
Oklahoma Museum of Natural History; NSF; Miama Universityof Texas; University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute37

The amphibian fauna of the Philippines is high indiversity and endemism, yet faces threats fromhabitat modification, invasive species, hunting,and the spread of chytrid fungus. Developing acomplete species list of amphibians is essential for
conservation planning and informed management
decisions. Based on GBIF-mediated occurrences andrecords from 33 museums, the authors of this study
present a revised list of all known amphibians in thePhilippines with distribution maps and representative
photos of most currently recognized species. New
species descriptions have been steadily risingsince the early 1990s due to increased sampling
and awareness of species boundaries based on
phylogenetic studies. Within the last 20 years
alone, 27 new species have been described (nearly
one-quarter of the country’s recognized diversity),
all endemic to the Philippines. The cryptic andunderestimated diversity highlights the importance ofcontinued efforts to study the amphibian fauna of thearchipelago.
Link to paper: http://bit.ly/2ryr4vE

WHERE THE WILD WHEATS GROWDATA USED: 5,863 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Author country: France
Research funding: Institut National de la Recherche
Agronomique (INRA); Ministère de l’Enseignement et de laRecherche; Ministère de l’Agriculture

Gene exchange is a common phenomenon between
crops and wild relatives when they grow in the same
area. This can lead to changes in adaptation of thewild relatives to natural ecosystems. As climatechange progresses, sympatry patterns might change,
and in this study, researchers examined projectedchanges for cultivated wheat and six wild relatives(Aegilops spp.). Using GBIF-mediated occurrences
and bioclimatic data, the researchers created nichemodels for each of the species, and find that by 2050,
one species (Ae. ventricosa) might lose more than
50 per cent of suitable habitat, potentially becoming
endangered. The models also showed, that European
levels of sympatry will increase by 49 per cent. In
some countries, the increase will be higher (e.g.
five-fold in Russia), and in others it will even decrease(e.g. UK). Concluding, the study stresses a need forincreased monitoring to protect the important genetic
resources of wild Aegilops populations.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0153974

PROTECTING THE COASTAL DUNES OF MEXICODATA USED: 2,012 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Mendoza-González G, Martínez ML, Rojas-Soto O, TéllezValdés O and Arias-Del Razo I (2016) Priority areas forconservation of beach and dune vegetation of the Mexican
Atlantic coast. Journal for Nature Conservation. Elsevier BV
33: 25–34.
Author countries: Mexico, United States
Research funding: Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico; CONABIO

The combination of urban development and rising
sea levels is a threat to coastal ecosystems. In
Mexico, coastal dunes represent one per cent of thenational territory, but is home to seven per cent of
the country’s seed plants. This study focuses on
the Atlantic coast of Mexico and identifies areas ofhigh diversity and potential targets for conservation
efforts. Using GBIF-mediated occurrences,
researchers modelled the distribution of 23 speciesof herbaceous plants and perennial shrubs and findthe highest number of typical and endemic species
in areas ranging from southern Tamaulipas to central
Veracruz and the northern and eastern coast of theYucatan peninsula. Although being close to protectedareas, a great deal of areas identified have no direct
coastal protection. The study suggests that increased
conservation efforts are needed and should takes
priority over other activities, such as tourism.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2016.04.007

species conservation

ꇷOstrowski M-F, Prosperi J-M and David J (2016) Potential
Implications of Climate Change on Aegilops Species
Distribution: Sympatry of These Crop Wild Relatives with the
Major European Crop Triticum aestivum and Conservation
Issues. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science (PLoS) 11(4):e0153974.

GOAT’S FOOT CONVOLVULUS (IPOMOEA PES-CAPRAE) BY CLAUDIO C. MUÑIZ
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1249293275 CC BY 4.0

species conservation

38

CONSERVATION STATUS OF AFRICAN REPTILESDATA USED: 104,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Tolley KA, Alexander GJ, Branch WR, Bowles P and Maritz B(2016) Conservation status and threats for African reptiles.
Biological Conservation. Elsevier BV 204: 63–71.
Author countries: South Africa, United States
Research funding: none listed

Africa has a larger land surface than China, India,
North America and Western Europe combined, anddespite being home to nine of the world’s biodiversity
hotspots, our knowledge of Africa’s fauna ispoorly documented. This study aimed to elucidate
knowledge gaps and conservation status of mainland
African reptiles. Using GBIF-mediated occurrences,
researchers quantified sampling efforts and species
richness on a country level. They find species richness
to be correlated to sampling, noting a potential bias.
For the best sampled countries, species richness
is strongly related to country area. The researchers
also developed a Threat Index based on various
socioeconomic factors, and find that countries witha high threat index also have the lowest levels ofsampling. Combined with IUCN Red List data showingthat more than half of African mainland reptiles havenot been evaluated, the study highlights a need forincreased data mobilization and centralization in open
access databases such as GBIF.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
biocon.2016.04.006

EFFECTS OF PROTECTED AREAS ON GLOBAL
BIODIVERSITYDATA USED: 240 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷGray CL, Hill SLL, Newbold T, Hudson LN, Börger L,
Contu S, Hoskins AJ, Ferrier S, Purvis A and Scharlemann
JPW (2016) Local biodiversity is higher inside thanoutside terrestrial protected areas worldwide. Nature
Communications. Springer Nature, 12306.

rarefied richness did not differ. By using GBIFmediated occurrences to determine range sizes, theyalso found evidence that protection has little effect on
the proportion of individuals within a community thathave narrow geographic ranges. Within the protectedareas, the most likely explanation of the effects
appeared to be differences in land use. The study
reinforces the importance of protected areas, but
stresses that the effectiveness of protection must be
studied to be improved further.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12306

IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITIZING SITES FORCONSERVATION PLANNINGDATA USED: 1,124,142 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷAlbuquerque F and Beier P (2016) Predicted rarityweighted richness, a new tool to prioritize sites for species
representation. Ecology and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell6(22): 8107–8114.
Author country: United States
Research funding: none listed

A major limitation for site ranking algorithms inconservation planning is lack of biodiversity data.
Measurements such as vegetation communities or
occurrences of a single well-inventoried taxon often
act as surrogates in those cases.
This study presents a novel ranking alternative
based on predicting the rarity-weighted richness
using environmental data combined with species
occurrences from a subset of sites in a given planningarea.
The researchers applied the method to six different
areas and tested the ability of the model to prioritizesites for species representation, and with just ten percent of sites used in the model, the method performed
significantly better than a random selection of sites.
In one case based on birds in Spain, having just five

Author countries: United Kingdom, Australia
Research funding: University of Sussex; Natural History
Museum; UK Natural Environment Research Council

The Aichi biodiversity target 11 commits parties
to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to
increasing protected terrestrial areas to 17 per centby 2020. Protected areas are, however, expensive
to maintain and quantifying their effectiveness istherefore crucial. This study present a global analysis
of how successful protection is in terms of sustaining
biodiversity.
Comparing protected sites with matched unprotected
counterparts, the researchers found richness andabundance to be higher in protected sites, however,

CLOUDBERRY (RUBUS CHAMAEMORUS) BY TORSTEN ERIKSSONHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1291129059 CC BY-NC 4.0

39

per cent of sites inventoried, yielded a result 60 per
cent as efficient as having all sites inventoried.
The suggested method can be a useful surrogate
for prioritizing sites when just a small fraction of thelandscape is inventoried.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2544

CONSERVING CROP WILD RELATIVES TO HELP
FEED THE WORLDDATA USED: 382,605 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Phillips J, Asdal Å, Magos Brehm J, Rasmussen M and Maxted
N (2016) In situ and ex situ diversity analysis of priority crop
wild relatives in Norway. Diversity and Distributions. WileyBlackwell 22(11): 1112–1126.
Author countries: United Kingdom, Norway
Research funding: Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture andFood

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12470

UNDERSTANDING HISTORY TO BETTERUNDERSTAND THE FUTUREDATA USED: 56,602 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷCalderón L, Campagna L, Wilke T, Lormee H, Eraud C,
Dunn JC, Rocha G, Zehtindjiev P, Bakaloudis DE, Metzger B,
Cecere JG, Marx M and Quillfeldt P (2016) Genomic evidence
of demographic fluctuations and lack of genetic structure
across flyways in a long distance migrant, the European
turtle dove. BMC Evolutionary Biology. Springer Nature 16(1).
Author countries: Germany, United_States; France, United
Kingdom, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Malta, Italy
Research funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft;
Justus Liebig University

In a recent study, researchers combined genetic
sequence analyses and niche modelling tocharacterize the demographic history and population
structure of the European turtle dove (Streptopelia
turtur), a long-distance migrant, recently designatedas vulnerable.
The results of the genetic study revealed historical
population fluctuations with a drastic early-Holocene
expansion, and a more recent contraction, both ofwhich are supported by the suitable habitats as shownby niche models constructed using GBIF-mediatedoccurrences and paleoclimatic data. The researchers
found no evidence of genetic structures being linked tomigratory flyways.
The combined results suggest that all turtle dove
populations across Europe are equally vulnerable andrelevant for conservation.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-016-0817-7

USING BIOQUALITY FOR PRIORITIZINGCONSERVATION EFFORTSDATA USED: 1,970,142 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Marshall CAM, Wieringa JJ and Hawthorne WD (2016)
Bioquality Hotspots in the Tropical African Flora. Current
Biology. Elsevier BV 26(23): 3214–3219.
Author countries: United Kingdom, Netherlands
Research funding: Clarendon Fund; Merton College; James
Martin 21st Century School; BP BiofuelsSpecies richness is often used to identify biodiversity
hotspots and to prioritize areas for conservation. Thisapproach, however, does not consider the individual
conservation status of species in assemblages andisn’t very suitable for local management.
In this study, researchers suggest a new conservation
framework for tropical Africa. Using mainly GBIFmediated occurrences of African vascular plants, theysummarized the global range of each species andassigned a simple star rating based on the numberof degree squares occupied by a species. Plants
were given either a black (fewest squares), yellow,
blue or green (most squares) star rating according to
distribution patterns.
Combining conservation ratings, the researchers thenidentified bioquality hotspots in areas with the highest
proportion of globally rarer species, i.e. black stars.

species conservation

A growing global population means higher demands
for food productivity. Increased homogeneity anddecreased genetic diversity in crops, however, may
lead to maladaptation to changing environments.
Crop wild relatives (CWR) can be used as a genetic
resource to make crops better suited for the futureenvironments. In this study, researchers created achecklist of CWR in Norway and used GBIF-mediatedoccurrences to model the potential distributions of the
included species and identify conservation priorities.
The resulting list contained 204 priority CWR taxa,
including vegetables, berries and herbs, many ofwhich were concentrated around the capital city ofOslo. The authors recommend creating a network ofin situ genetic reserves throughout Norway to help
capture the genetic diversity of priority CWR, and thecollection of 177 taxa without ex situ accessions to
be stored the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. They finally
recommend reviewing and updating the CWR priority
list every five years.

Current changes in climate as well as human activities
are affecting the evolution and distribution of species
worldwide. Understanding fluctuations throughout
history can help predict similar changes in the futureand focus conservation efforts.

species conservation

40

Previously underestimated, the highest bioquality isidentified in the Horn of Africa.
The framework suggested is based on the argumentthat areas of high bioquality is more important thanareas with high species richness alone.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.045

PESTICIDES TURN QUEENS INTO WORKERSDATA USED: 430 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷDos Santos CF, Acosta AL, Dorneles AL, dos Santos PDS
and Blochtein B (2016) Queens become workers: pesticides
alter caste differentiation in bees. Scientific Reports.
Springer Nature 6(1).
Author country: Brazil
Research funding: Conselho Nacional do Desenvolvimento
Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq); Fundação de Amparo àPesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

Pesticides are used in agriculture to combat
insects that threaten crop yields and quality. The
chemicals used to kill or deter pests, however, arealso known to have an impact on beneficial insects
providing ecosystem services, such as pollination byhoneybees and bumblebees. This study focuses onanother group of important pollinators, the stinglessbees, for which toxicological pesticide studies arelacking. Investigating the effects of a common
pesticide, CPY, on stingless bee larval development,
researchers used GBIF-mediated occurrences
overlapped with data on use of CPY to determine
relevant geographical context. Through in vitro queenrearing experiments, the researchers discovered thatin addition to being lethal at higher doses, CPY at sublethal concentrations caused 33 per cent of the larvae
to develop into workers rather than queens, and thispercentage increased with dose. CPY also increased
development time significantly. The authors suggest
developing alternative methods of pest control toreduce toxic exposure among beneficial insects.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep31605

IDENTIFYING OVERLOOKED OCTOCORAL HABITATDATA USED: 114 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷBoavida J, Assis J, Silva I and Serrão EA (2016)
Overlooked habitat of a vulnerable gorgonian revealed in
the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic by ecological nichemodelling. Scientific Reports. Springer Nature 6(1).
Author country: Portugal
Research funding: Inaqua Conservation Fund; National
Geographic Society; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

The violescent sea-whip (Paramuricea clavata) is
a sensitive, but important structuring octocoral
species in the Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic,

threatened by fishing, recreational diving, pollution
and climate change. Little is known about the habitat
requirements of the sea-whip and the factors limiting
its distribution.
A study aimed at increasing knowledge of P. clavata
compiled all currently known occurrences from
GBIF and other sources, and added new underwater
survey records to model the ecological niche of thespecies. The full distribution was best explained byocean temperatures and, in particular, slope. When
restricting the suitable habitat to hard bottom areas,
where larvae are more likely to settle, the researchers
estimated a total area of 36,000 km2, consistent withknown occurrences, but also identifying novel areas
including Algeria, Alboran Sea and Atlantic coasts.
The study provides new insights into the potential
distribution of an important octocoral species andsuggests sites as targets for further investigation
and, potentially, conservation.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36460

CONSERVING INDIGENOUS VEGETABLESDATA USED: 108,787 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Solberg SØ and Chou Y-Y (2017) Conservation of Indigenous
Vegetables from a Hotspot in Tropical Asia: What Did We
Learn from Vavilov? Frontiers in Plant Science. FrontiersMedia SA 7.
Author country: Taiwan
Research funding: none listed

As global populations increase and climates change,
agriculture needs to produce more food under
unpredictable climatic conditions. The need for crop
wild relatives and the genetic diversity provided bysuch is greater than ever. In tropical Asia, the IndoBurma biodiversity hotspot is a potential source forimportant cultivars.
This study examines the representation of indigenous
vegetables in global conservation. Using tropical Asia
as a case study, researchers focus on Myanmar andidentify 30 target species for further examination.
They compare number of available GBIF-mediatedoccurrences and GENESYS conserved accessions
for Myanmar with other countries and regions, andfind that important species have very low number ofrecords. The researchers conclude that the overall
underrepresentation of indigenous vegetables fromtropical Asia is clear. They suggest prioritizing newcollection missions to safeguard and utilize thepotential of plant genetic resources.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.01982

See all Species conservation citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

41

Advancing biodiversity science

ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER (OREOTHLYPIS CELATA) BY JAMIE CHAVEZ https://flic.kr/p/j7NMkb CC BY-NC 2.0

GETTING ABSENCE FROM PRESENCE

WHY DO BIRDS ... WINTER WHERE THEY DO?

DATA USED: 1.7 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCESDATA USED: 6,793 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Coro G, Magliozzi C, Vanden Berghe E, Bailly N, Ellenbroek A& Pagano P. (2016). Estimating absence locations of marine
species from data of scientific surveys in OBIS. EcologicalModelling, 323, 61–76.

ꇷPérez-Moreno H, Martínez-Meyer E, Soberón Mainero
J and Rojas-Soto O (2016) Climatic patterns in theestablishment of wintering areas by North American
migratory birds. Ecology and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell,2022–2033.

Author countries: Italy, Belgium, Greece, Philippines
Research funding: European Commission; Presidency of the
Tuscan Regional Government

The lack of a presence doesn’t necessarily meanabsence. When modelling species distributions
based on occurrences, absence is often derived fromlack of presence (pseudo-absence), but absence
could be due to poor surveying or species behaviour.
This paper presents a novel methodology to predict
absence information from presence-only information.
Using Marine Species Survey Reports from the Ocean
Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the authors
developed a method which relies on the principle
of predicting the absence of one species by thepresence of others, thereby avoiding some samplingbias. They evaluated the performance of the method
using the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) as a casestudy, and finally benchmarked against 1.7 million
GBIF-mediated occurrences of 280 marine species.
Although the method does not produce an exhaustive
set of absences, it performs well and can be scaled towork regionally as well as globally.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ecolmodel.2015.12.008

Author countries: Mexico, United States
Research funding: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología(CONACYT)When migratory birds travel to wintering grounds,
what factors determine where they decide to stay?
Some birds are known to follow their niches andtravel to areas with climates similar to their native
breeding grounds, while others prefer climates thatare very different. This study presents an analysisof the monthly climatic variation of the distributionof 13 neotropical migratory birds throughout the
winter season. Using GBIF-mediated occurrences
and climatic data, researchers constructed monthly
ecological nice models for each of the species, andtheir results indicate that the selection of winteringsites is driven mainly by temperature and levels of
precipitation. The models also show that distributionsin the early winter months vary less than late months,
suggesting that the birds who arrive first, will occupy
the sites with optimal climate conditions, leaving
suboptimal sites to late-comers.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1973

42

THE IMPACT OF HUMAN LAND USE ON THE
COMPOSITION OF ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIESUSING DNA SEQUENCES TO IMPROVE TAXONOMIC
IDENTIFICATIONSDATA USED: 240 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCESDATA USED: 4,672 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Newbold T, Hudson LN, Hill SLL, Contu S, Gray CL,
Scharlemann JPW, Börger L, Phillips HRP, Sheil D, Lysenko
I and Purvis A (2016) Global patterns of terrestrial
assemblage turnover within and among land uses.
Ecography. Wiley-Blackwell.

ꇷSmith BE, Johnston MK and Lücking R (2016) From
GenBank to GBIF: Phylogeny-Based Predictive Niche
Modeling Tests Accuracy of Taxonomic Identifications in
Large Occurrence Data Repositories. PLOS ONE. Public
Library of Science (PLoS), e0151232.

Author countries: United Kingdom, Norway
Research funding: Natural Environment Research Council,
UK

Author countries: United States, Germany
Research funding: National Science Foundation

biodiversity science

Human land use has a negative impact of on thecomposition of ecological communities, also known
as alpha diversity, but less is known about how the
widespread modifications of natural habitats affectspecies turnover. In the present study, authors

GEOFFROY’S TAMARIN (SAGUINUS GEOFFROYI) BY HENRY DE LA TORREHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1291073189 CC BY-NC 4.0

used data from nearly 500 studies sampling morethan 14,000 sites worldwide covering all but one of
the world’s terrestrial biomes. Using GBIF-mediatedoccurrences to estimate the total range size of eachspecies present, the authors paired biome-matchedsites and calculated an endemicity-weighted
compositional similarity between sites. Their results
showed little evidence for difference in turnover,
but they confirmed that alterations of habitats havea significant effect on community composition,
especially in tropical biomes. The study reiterates thefact that human activities have a profound impact
on the global structure of terrestrial ecologicalcommunities.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.01932

Some species are easily misidentified because they
appear very similar to other species. This affects
large biodiversity repositories, such as GBIF, but how
can such misidentifications be corrected without
having to go through millions of records? In thisstudy, researchers present a strategy that combines
DNA sequence data and specimen occurrence data
to potentially find incorrectly identified specimens
in large repositories such as GBIF. The researchers
create ecological niche models for the lichen fungus,
Usnea longissima, by using georeferenced specimen
data that at the same time have been confirmed torepresent a single species by DNA sequence data.
When plotting GBIF-mediated occurrences against
the verified distribution of the fungus, outliers
identified potentially records for taxonomic scrutiny
and revision. Revision of these outliers revealed thatmost were, in fact, misidentified and belonged tosimilar species with different distributions. The study
raises interesting questions about the potential of
DNA sequence data to improve the quality of species
information in GBIF.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0151232

ARE RANGE LIMITS DEFINED BY NICHE LIMITS?
DATA USED: 88,253 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷLee-Yaw JA, Kharouba HM, Bontrager M, Mahony C,
Csergő AM, Noreen AME, Li Q, Schuster R and Angert AL(2016) A synthesis of transplant experiments and ecologicalniche models suggests that range limits are often niche
limits. Ecology Letters. Wiley-Blackwell 19(6): 710–722.
Author countries: Canada, Switzerland, United States,
IrelandResearch funding: Swiss National Science Foundation

The range of any given species is limited by several
biotic and abiotic conditions. But to what extent cangeographical range limits be explained by ecologicalniches? This study combined results from existingtransplant experiments using both plants and animals
with new ecological niche models based on GBIFmediated occurrences to provide a comparative

43

approach to the question. The researchers weighed
performance of transplanted species against
predicted suitability in the niche models, and foundthat across almost all species tested, the twoparameters were concordant and significantly lower
outside the range than inside. The results provide
compelling support for the hypothesis that range
limits reflect niche limits, raising questions about
the importance of dispersal limitation to species’
distributions. The study combines methods andprovides a robust framework for studying range limits.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12604

ASSESSING COMPLETENESS OF PLANT
INVENTORIES FOR AFRICADATA USED: 3,546,206 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷStropp J, Ladle RJ, M. Malhado AC, Hortal J, Gaffuri J, H.
Temperley W, Olav Skøien J and Mayaux P (2016) Mapping
ignorance: 300 years of collecting flowering plants in Africa.
Global Ecology and Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell 25(9):1085–1096.
Author countries: Italy; Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain,
Luxembourg, Belgium
Research funding: Biodiversity and Protected Areas
Management; Brazilian National Council for Scientific andTechnological Development; Spanish Dirección General de
Correos y Telégrafos

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12468

PHILIPPINE GROUND ORCHID (SPATHOGLOTTIS PLICATA) BY LEON PERRIEHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1135528836 CC BY-NC 4.0

ASSESSING SPECIES-LEVEL GAPS AND BIASES IN
OCCURRENCE DATADATA USED: 4,524,585 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Meyer C, Jetz W, Guralnick RP, Fritz SA and Kreft H (2016)
Range geometry and socio-economics dominate specieslevel biases in occurrence information. Global Ecology and
Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell 25(10): 1181–1193.
Author country: Germany; United Kingdom; United States
Research funding: Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt;
German Academic Exchange Service; Universitätsbund
Göttingen; NSF; Spatial Biodiversity Science andConservation; Hesse’s Ministry of Higher Education; German
Research Foundation

Gaps in data may hamper good species distribution
modelling. When assessing quality of species
occurrence data, an often suggested (but rarely
tested) cause of species-level variation and bias is,that species attributes, e.g. body size and diurnal
activity, affect detection and collection. In this study,
researchers overlaid GBIF-mediated occurrences of
3,625 mammalian species with expert-drawn range

biodiversity science

In this study, researchers assessed the qualityof occurrence data of flowering plants in Africa todetermine the reliability of these records, and tosystematically review botanical sampling in Africa
in the past 300 years. Finally, the authors aimed
to determine the overall completeness of the plantinventory for Africa. Using a download of more than
three million GBIF-mediated records from 2012,
the researchers make the following observations:the number of specimens collected in South Africa
surpasses the total number for all other Africancountries, and there is a pronounced bias towards old
specimens. The overall peak of sampling took placein the 1970s and 1980s, and well-sampled areas aresparse (less than one per cent of investigated units of
25 km by 25 km) and generally clustered in both timeand space. The authors suggest implementation ofcommunity feedback mechanisms to allow continued
improvement of data quality.

44

maps, and assessed occurrences of species andhigher taxonomic groups according to record count,range coverage and geographical bias. Relatingthese to species attributes, range geometry andsocio-economic factors, the researchers found thatprimates stand out for below average record counts,
and carnivores for below average range coverage.
Marsupials, however, score high in both measures.
On a global scale, coverage is, not surprisingly,
positively correlated with record count. However, thetopography can effectively predict habitat diversity
and, in turn, species richness.
The authors found that indicators of topographic
complexity, temperature and precipitation can match
the power of land area in predicting orchid richness
and endemism in the southwest Pacific. And while
isolation does help explain the decreasing patternof Orchidaceae diversity from west to east, age
fails to predict the species richness across islands
and archipelagos. As a result, the study suggests
refinements toward improving our understanding of
the tangled banks of island biodiversity.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12805

REVEALING THE SECRET PATHS OF ILLUSIVEMIGRANTSDATA USED: 12,951 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Fournier AMV, Sullivan AR, Bump JK, Perkins M, Shieldcastle
MC and King SL (2016) Combining citizen science species
distribution models and stable isotopes reveals migratory
connectivity in the secretive Virginia rail. Journal of Applied
Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: United States, Sweden, Canada
Research funding: Michigan Technological University;
National Science Foundation
VIRGINIA RAIL (RALLUS LIMICOLA) BY PAUL FENWICKHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1272089847 CC BY-NC 4.0

role of species attributes is remarkably minor. The
study concludes by recommending increased data
mobilization in institutions near data gaps and added
focus on understudied species.

biodiversity science

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12483

RECIPE FOR ORCHID DIVERSITY: MIX HABITATTEMPERATURES, TOPOGRAPHY AND WATERDATA USED: 8,935 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Keppel G, Gillespie TW, Ormerod P and Fricker GA (2016)
Habitat diversity predicts orchid diversity in the tropicalsouth-west Pacific. Journal of Biogeography. Wiley-Blackwell43(12): 2332–2342.
Author countries: Australia, United States
Research funding: University of South Australia

Age, area and isolation—researchers studying island
biogeography have long presumed this trio to be thethree critical factors in determining species richness.
With its dust-like seeds that disperse easily in thebreeze, the famously diverse orchid family makes
significant contributions to the plant species richness
across the Pacific Islands. Relying on GBIF-mediateddata from eight southwestern Pacific archipelagoes,
this study builds on recent research suggesting thatmeasuring the variation in an island’s climate andSome birds are extremely illusive and difficult to track
systematically, making their migratory pathways
hard to study and conservation management difficult.
Employing stable isotope methods can provide some
information, but as large geographic regions shareisotope populations, such indications are often verybroad. In this study, researchers use GBIF-mediatedoccurrences relying on citizen science observations
to refine hydrogen isotope estimates of migratory
origins of the secretive Virginia rail (Rallus limicola).
Combining methods, the researchers produced
high-resolution estimates of the origins of migrant
birds, showing that 45 per cent of individuals fromLouisiana had breeding origins outside the Mississippi
flyway, and less than 20 per cent of Texas individuals
originated in the Central flyway, both refuting previous
assumptions. The results highlight the need forspecies-specific migratory studies, as management
strategies based on surrogate species may beinaccurate, as indicated by the study.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12723

THE BIODIVERSITY SCIENCE LAB OF THE FUTURE
ꇷLa Salle J, Williams KJ and Moritz C (2016) Biodiversity
analysis in the digital era. Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The Royal Society371(1702): 20150337.

45

Author country: Australia
Research funding: National Research Infrastructure forAustralia; Australian Research Council; Australian Biological
Resources Study; CSIRO

Using the Atlas of Living Australia as a case study,
this paper breaks down the needs of a future
biodiversity e-infrastructure in terms of data,
tools and overall framework. In addition to species
occurrences as mediated by GBIF, the authors
suggest that an e-infrastructure should integratea range of equally important data, such as genetic
sequences, morphological attributes, behaviour,
habitat information and species interactions. To
deal with complexities and ambiguity of taxonomic
naming, the authors suggest a framework that allows
differing views of taxa and operational nomenclaturefor species that are recognized but not formally
named. Visualization of phylogenies will allow for
better understanding of evolutionary responses toenvironmental changes, and incorporating a wealthof spatial biotic and abiotic factors is key to this. The
infrastructure should provide tools for discovery,
access, (gap) analysis and annotation while allowing
users the ability to adapt such tools to their own
needs.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0337

12,000 SPECIES OF TREES IN THE AMAZONIAN
RAINFORESTDATA USED: 1.5 MILLION SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Author countries: Netherlands, Colombia, France, Sweden,
United States, Brazil
Research funding: MEC/MCTI/CAPES/CNPq/FAPs; Swedish
Research Council; European Union

Amazonia is the most biodiverse rainforest on Earthwith thousands of species of animals, and tens of
thousands plant species. Whereas animal numbers
are well-founded, trees are understudied and their
numbers contentious. In this paper, researchers
compile collection data from GBIF and offline sources
to provide the first exhaustive checklist of all known
Amazonian trees. Their final database contains morethan 500,000 tree collection records spanning almost
12,000 species belonging to 140 families and 1225
genera. The average collection density found is only
10 per 100 km2, and while some areas surrounding
cities, such as Manaus, has almost 25,000 records,

other remote areas totalling 320,000 km2 are voidof collections. The researchers find only a weakeffect of population size of species on the number ofcollections, whereas the effect of range size was more
pronounced. The paper concludes by recommending
increased data exchange, curation, and digitization
rather than focusing on collecting more specimens.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29549

SURVEYING SURVEYS OF BIRDSDATA USED: 2,426,732 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷPeterson AT, Navarro-Sigüenza AG and Martínez-Meyer E(2016) Digital Accessible Knowledge and well-inventoriedsites for birds in Mexico: baseline sites for measuring
faunistic change. PeerJ. PeerJ 4: e2362.
Author countries: United States, Mexico
Research funding: Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico; CONACyT; Fulbright; Wildlife Institute of India.

When studying the short-term dynamics of species’
distributions, re-surveying areas of interest overyears and after prolonged periods of time can provide
fascinating information, however, choosing sites to
re-survey may be difficult. This study seeks to aid in
identifying sites for re-surveying and add to a poor
body of knowledge on changes in avian distributionsin Mexico.
Based on bird occurrences primarily mediatedby GBIF, researchers carry out extensive data
quality checking, remove duplicate records andcalculate levels of inventory completeness. The
resulting analysis provides a summary of estimatedcompleteness in 0.05 degree pixels. They identify
sampling hotspots of contiguous pixels in almost all
Mexican states, however, only three sites (El Triunfo in
Chipas, Xalapa in Veracruz, and the island of Cozumel
in Quintana Roo) meet the highest criterion at morebiodiversity science

ꇷTer Steege H, Vaessen RW, Cárdenas-López D, Sabatier
D, Antonelli A, de Oliveira SM, Pitman NCA, Jørgensen PM
and Salomão RP (2016) The discovery of the Amazoniantree flora with an updated checklist of all known tree taxa.
Scientific Reports. Springer Nature 6: 29549.

YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER (SETOPHAGA CORONATA SUBSP. AUDUBONI)BY JOSÉ BH DÍAZHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1229612499 CC BY-NC 4.0.

46

than 90 per cent estimated completeness.
The authors suggest that other researchers use
the results of this study for repeating inventories togenerate knowledge on avian distribution dynamics in
Mexico.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2362

MAPPING COLLECTION BIAS IN BRAZILDATA USED: 509,983 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Oliveira U, Paglia AP, Brescovit AD, de Carvalho CJB, Silva DP,
Rezende DT, Leite FSF, Batista JAN, Barbosa JPPP, Stehmann
JR, Ascher JS, de Vasconcelos MF, De Marco P, LöwenbergNeto P, Dias PG, Ferro VG and Santos AJ (2016) The strong
influence of collection bias on biodiversity knowledge
shortfalls of Brazilian terrestrial biodiversity. Diversity andDistributions. Wiley-Blackwell 22(12): 1232–1244.
Author country: Brazil; Singapore
Research funding: CNPq; FAPESP; FAPEMIG; Região Sudeste
Brasileira; RG Goelet; NSF

biodiversity science

Temporal and spatial variation in biological sampling
may generate bias leading to shortfalls of biologicalknowledge, including undescribed species, poorly
described species distribution, and a lack of
information on tolerances and responses of species toe.g. climate changes.

species of trees, of which as many as half may have
populations of less than 1,000 individuals. However,
how these rare and possibly endangered species are
distributed, is unclear.
Using more than 100 million GBIF-mediatedoccurrences of all angiosperm species, researchers(headed by the second prize winner of the 2016
Ebbe Nielsen Challenge) identified potentially rare
species in the Neotropics and characterized theirdistributions. Within Amazonia they find 10,000 rare
species, whereas the surrounding Neotropics accountfor 20,000 rare species. In both case, the species arewidely scattered but with concentrated centres inmontane regions.
Comparing the findings to a vegetation plot dataset,the researchers find a high level of concordance,suggesting the validity of the approach, althoughacknowledging a potential of false positives due tosampling gaps and biases.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02192

In this study, researchers compiled a database ofarthropod, vertebrate and angiosperm records in
Brazil using data mainly from the GBIF network totest for sampling bias. Comparing taxonomic groups,
they find significant differences in sampling effort
with angiosperms having larger areas of high density
than arthropods and vertebrates. Across all groups
and biomes, however, the highest density of records
falls within one kilometre of access routes, and thisdensity increases with number of routes.
The study notes the importance of considering suchcollection bias in biogeographic studies, and suggests
focusing on poorly sampled locations in future
biodiversity surveys.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12489

FINDING NEEDLES IN THE TROPICAL HAYSTACKDATA USED: 116,524,885 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Zizka A, Steege H ter, Pessoa M do CR and Antonelli A (2017)
Finding needles in the haystack: where to look for rare
species in the American tropics. Ecography. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil
Research funding: Swedish Research Council; European
Research Council; Wallenberg Academy

The biodiversity of the American tropics is remarkable,
and Amazonia biome is home to an estimated 16,000

VOCHYSIA TUCANORUM BY MAURICIO MERCADANTEHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1249271987 CC BY-NC 4.0.

CITIZEN SCIENCE AND GLOBAL BIODIVERSITYMONITORINGDATA USED:ꇷChandler M, See L, Copas K, Bonde AMZ, López BC,
Danielsen F, Legind JK, Masinde S, Miller-Rushing AJ,
Newman G, Rosemartin A and Turak E (2016) Contributionof citizen science towards international biodiversity
monitoring. Biological Conservation. Elsevier BV.
Author countries: United States, Austria, Denmark, Spain,
Australia
Research funding: German Centre for Integrative
Biodiversity Research (iDiv)

47

Citizen science (CS) is a potential source of data inmany disciplines, including biodiversity monitoring.
Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) represent
the minimum set of measurements required tocapture major dimensions of biodiversity change,
and while some EBVs can be monitored electronicallyand remotely, others require human-assisted datacollection, as indeed provided by some CS projects.
But what are the characteristics of such projects andto what extent do they make an impact on EBVs as
measured through contributions to GBIF?

The impact of ‘roughness’, i.e. spatial heterogeneityof environmental variables was overwhelmingly
important with the most critical predictor being
diurnal temperature range roughness.
Facilitating regional coexistence and powering
speciation, environmental heterogeneity, as shownby this study, is an important predictor of species
richness to be considered in modelling.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12911

This study presents an assessment of more 3600
CS projects from around the world, of which most are
based in North America or Europe. Far from all of thesemake their data available through GBIF, whose total
records, however, are derived from CS in more thanhalf the cases. The most extensively CS-monitoredgroups globally are birds, moths and trees.
Overall, the study shows that CS projects play asignificant role in global biodiversity monitoring, butalso that the scope of CS has the potential to expand
across geography, taxonomy and additional EBVs.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
biocon.2016.09.004

PREDICTING SPECIES RICHNESS THROUGHENVIRONMENTAL HETEROGENEITYDATA USED: 926,837 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Cramer MD and Verboom GA (2016) Measures of biologically
relevant environmental heterogeneity improve predictionof regional plant species richness. Journal of Biogeography.
Wiley-Blackwell 44(3): 579–591.

Plant species richness is influenced by resource
availability, environmental stability andheterogeneity, however, most attempts to model
global richness focus on absolute values ofenvironmental variables rather than measures of theirvariability.
In this study, researchers hypothesized that including
heterogeneities of environmental variables would
improve models of plant species richness. Using
GBIF-mediated occurrences of vascular plants inSouth Africa combined with data on climate, soil, fire
frequency and distance from nearest coast, they
construct a boosted regression tree (BRT) modelof richness able to predict 68 per cent of species
richness and 95 per cent of biome richness.

PUTTING INSECTS ON THE MAP
DATA USED: 33,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Ballesteros-Mejia L, Kitching IJ, Jetz W and Beck J (2016)
Putting insects on the map: near-global variation in sphingid
moth richness along spatial and environmental gradients.
Ecography. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author countries: Brazil, United Kingdom, United States,
Switzerland
Research funding: Swiss National Science Foundation;
National Science Foundation; NASA; Synthesys; Freiwillige
Akademische Gesellschaft (FAG), Basel

The role of evolutionary and ecological mechanisms indriving species distributions is a core research topic
in biodiversity science. New insights, however, tend
to focus on vascular plants and vertebrates, eventhough invertebrates make up the clear majority of
species on the planet. This paper concentrated ona group of herbivorous insects, the sphingid moths,
and drew on GBIF and others to compute distributions
model for 789 species found outside the Americas.
The researchers used these to search for links
between environment and species richness and foundthe greatest concentration of diversity in the moist
tropics. This is matched by the observation that most
species ranges are found in warm and wet areas with
evapotranspiration being the strongest predictor of
species richness. This contrasts with studies focusedbiodiversity science

Author country: South Africa
Research funding: Oppenheimer Memorial Trust; Universityof Cape Town

BEDSTRAW HAWK-MOTH (HYLES GALLII) CATERPILLAR BY KJELD BREM
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1052582478 CC BY-NC 4.0

48

TREE FERN ECOLOGY IN NEW ZEALANDDATA USED: 28,343 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Brock JMR, Perry GLW, Lee WG and Burns BR (2016) Tree fern
ecology in New Zealand: A model for southern temperate
rainforests. Forest Ecology and Management. Elsevier BV
375: 112–126.
Author country: New ZealandResearch funding: University of Tasmania

ROUGH TREE FERN (DICKSONIA SQUARROSA) BY LEON PERRIEHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1227769163 CC BY-NC 4.0.

on terrestrial vertebrates, where temperature is themost important predictor of richness, highlighting theneed to expand studies areas beyond these taxa.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02438

CLEANING UP BIG DATADATA USED: 1,041,941 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Gueta T and Carmel Y (2016) Quantifying the value of userlevel data cleaning for big data: A case study using mammal
distribution models. Ecological Informatics. Elsevier BV 34:
139–145.

biodiversity science

Author country: Israel
Research funding: Israel Institute of Technology.

Researchers frequently combine downloads fromthe more than 700 million occurrence records in
the GBIF network with environmental data to model
distributions of species or higher level taxa. An initial
step in the process often involves data cleaning toensure the quality of the models, however, what
effect do such cleaning procedures have on model
performance? In this paper, researchers used one
million records of Australian mammals to compare
model performance before and after strict data
cleaning, during which they removed among others
entries with coordinates with less than 3 decimal
digits and entries recorded before 1990, effectively
reducing the number of records to half. The massive
reduction in records significantly improved theperformance of the models across all spatial scales
and measurements, as both gain measures and AUC
increased, most prominently for small mammals. This
paper demonstrates an example of quality control anddata cleaning in a world of big data.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2016.06.001

Tree ferns are a clade of leptosporangiate ferns withtrunk-like structures in the order Cyatheales. In New
Zealand, tree ferns have been a widespread andsignificant component of the forest ecosystems since
the Paleocene epoch. Although not a major player
in modern forestry, tree ferns are harvested in vast
numbers to service the international ornamental
market. This paper provides an overview of New
Zealand tree fern ecology and its role in forest
community dynamics, in part informed by GBIFmediated occurrences. Prominent in early forest
communities after disturbances, tree ferns are limited
in gamete and spore production by irradiance andnutrient levels, but may persist for more than 250
years. The main predictor of tree fern abundance istotal soil phosphorus, and the key drivers of species
diversity is mean temperature and solar radiation. In
regenerating forest communities, tree ferns can playa major role in suppressing canopy angiosperms andconifers.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
foreco.2016.05.030,

ADDING BIOTICS TO SPECIES DISTRIBUTIONMODELSDATA USED: 33,349 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Leach K, Montgomery WI and Reid N (2016) Modelling theinfluence of biotic factors on species distribution patterns.
Ecological Modelling. Elsevier BV 337: 96–106.
Author country: United Kingdom
Research funding: Queen’s University Belfast

Species distribution models (SDMs) commonlyuse environmental variables such as climate data
to predict distributions of species. Biotic factors,
however, also shape spatial distributions, and mostSDMs ignore factors such as predation, parasitism,
and other interactions between species. In thisstudy, researchers used GBIF-mediated occurrences
to construct models of lagomorph distributions
in Europe. They then tested the predictive abilityof models based solely on abiotic factors againstmodels containing both abiotic and biotic factors
using IUCN range maps to quantify the influence of
biotic factors on species distribution patterns. For

49

the majority of European lagomorph species, themodels incorporating biotic factors outperformed themodels with only abiotic data, as both appear to haveequal importance in shaping distributions. The paper
shows that biotic factors must be taken into accountin order to improve the reliability of predicting species
distribution patterns and for the field of species
distribution modelling to advance.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ecolmodel.2016.06.008

CALCULATING AND VISUALIZING PLANT PRINCIPALSTRATEGIESDATA USED: 3,068 SPECIES

Pierce S, Negreiros D, Cerabolini BEL, Kattge J, Díaz S, Kleyer
M, Shipley B, Wright SJ, Soudzilovskaia NA, Onipchenko
VG, van Bodegom PM, Frenette-Dussault C, Weiher E, Pinho
BX, Cornelissen JHC, Grime JP, Thompson K, Hunt R, Wilson
PJ, Buffa G, Nyakunga OC, Reich PB, Caccianiga M, Mangili
F, Ceriani RM, Luzzaro A, Brusa G, Siefert A, Barbosa NPU,
Chapin FS III, Cornwell WK, Fang J, Fernandes GW, GarnierE, Le Stradic S, Peñuelas J, Melo FPL, Slaviero A, Tabarelli M
and Tampucci D (2016) A global method for calculating plant
CSR ecological strategies applied across biomes world-wide.
Functional Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell, 444–457.
Author countries: Italy, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Canada,
Panama, Netherlands, United States, Russian Federation,
United Kingdom, Tanzania, Australia, China, France, Belgium,
Spain
Research funding: TRY Initiative

In plants, the competitor - stress tolerator – ruderal(CSR) theory is used to describe different principal

strategies. In this work, researchers compile
functional trait records for more than 3,000 plant
species supplied with GBIF-mediated taxonomic
information to create a global analysis tool to derive
CSR plant strategies using three simple traits: leaf
area and fresh/dry weight. Calibration of the tool
revealed that the high values of the traits were
mutually exclusive, as dense, tough leaves were
not large, while soft and acquisitive leaves were nottough. Large leaves were only seen in intermediates.
The tool, called StrafeFY, is based on a simple
spreadsheet that allows researchers to input trait
measurements for any number of plant specimens,
and retrieve a readout of CSR strategy. The tool also
provides values for easy plotting of ternary graphs
to visualize and compare relative proportions of CSR
classes.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12722

MODELLING SPECIES NICHES USING EXPERTBASED RANGE MAPSDATA USED: 4,769 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Fourcade Y (2016) Comparing species distributions
modelled from occurrence data and from expert-based range
maps. Implication for predicting range shifts with climatechange. Ecological Informatics. Elsevier BV 36: 8–14.
Author country: Sweden
Research funding: None listed

Species distribution models (SDMs) based on
occurrence and environmental data are used
extensively to model species’ niches and predictbiodiversity science

COMMON BRACKEN (PTERIDIUM AQUILINUM) BY CAILIN O’CONNOR FITZPATRICK HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1269580807 CC BY-NC 4.0.

50

biodiversity science

PULQUE AGAVE (AGAVE SALMIANA) BY CARLOS GALINDO-LEAL HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1092903512 CC BY-NC 4.0.

e.g. the spread of invasive species or responses tochanging climates. Such models can only perform
as well as the data that feeds them, and are thus
vulnerable to biases in the underlying data.

this attraction leads the path for Mexican long-nosedbats (Leptonycteris nivalis) on their annual spring
migration from central Mexico to the southern UnitedStates.

This study considers IUCN-derived expert-based range
maps as an alternative source of species distribution
information, and evaluate the modelling performanceof such data compared to models using empiricaloccurrence data. Although using the range maps as abase for SDM involves sampling pseudo-occurrences,
the researcher finds that while comparing thepredicted distributions of 85 species based on either
GBIF-mediated occurrences or on expert-based range
maps, the two approaches produce similar results.

In this study, researchers use agave and L. nivalis
occurrences primarily from the GBIF network to modelthe distribution of relevant species, and to determine
the concordance between agave species richness andbat occurrences. The modelled distributions of agave
show that richness is associated with elevation,and that more species occur at higher and narrower
elevation ranges. Bats co-occur in areas with morethan one species of agave in 77 per cent of cases.

The author concludes by arguing that expert-based
maps may be used for SDM when true occurrence data
is limited or known to be biased.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2016.09.002

AGAVE LEADS THE WAY FOR LONG-NOSED BATSDATA USED: 250 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Gómez-Ruiz EP and Lacher TE (2016) Modelling the potential
geographic distribution of an endangered pollination corridor
in Mexico and the United States. Diversity and Distributions.
Wiley-Blackwell 23(1): 67–78.
Author countries: Mexico, United States
Research funding: CONACYT; Mohamed bin Zayed Species
Conservation Fund; Bat Conservation International; National
Park Service; Metroparks Zoo; Cleveland Zoological Society;
Society of Mammalogists; GBIF

Paniculate agave (Agave spp.) flower clusters are
adapted to attract bats, and evidence suggests that

The combined results of the study provide convincing
evidence that L. nivalis occurrences are correlatedwith distribution of Agave species, which support the
proposed migratory corridor hypothesis presented in
the study.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12499

CHOOSING THE RIGHT CLIMATE DATA FOR SPECIESDISTRIBUTION MODELSDATA USED: 21,500,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Bateman BL, Pidgeon AM, Radeloff VC, Flather CH, VanDerWal
J, Akçakaya HR, Thogmartin WE, Albright TP, Vavrus SJ and
Heglund PJ (2016) Potential breeding distributions of U.S.
birds predicted with both short-term variability and longterm average climate data. Ecological Applications. WileyBlackwell 26(8): 2720–2731.
Author countries: United States, Australia
Research funding: NASA Biodiversity Program; James Cook
University

51

When assessing the potential effects of climatechange on species distributions, researchers often
create models based on species occurrences andenvironmental variables. Such models show, forinstance, that future climates may lead to species
shifting their distributions to higher altitudes and/or elevations. In this study, researchers investigated
the role of short-term variability versus long term
averages of climate measurements for 320 bird
species in the United States. Using more than 21
million GBIF-mediated occurrences, the researchers
created sets of models for short- and long-termclimate data, respectively. Overall, the two schemes
performed well, with short-term models performing
slightly better. The study shows that short-term
models may produce more accurate results, but data
is more difficult to process and complex to analyse,
and for predicting general patterns of distribution,models based on long-term climate averages may
perform adequately.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1416

NEW WORLD BURYING BEETLE RESURRECTEDDATA USED: 158 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷSikes DS, Trumbo ST & Peck SB (2016) Cryptic diversity
in the New World burying beetle fauna: Nicrophorus hebes
Kirby; new status as a resurrected name (Coleoptera:
Silphidae: Nicrophorinae). Arthropod Systematics &Phylogeny 74(3): 299-309. Senckenberg.
Author countries: United States, Canada
Research funding: United States Fish and Wildlife’s Alaska
Region NWRS Inventory and Monitoring Initiative.

Using additional genetic data, researchers
demonstrated two distinct groups, corresponding
to those from Canada versus those from Alaska. In
fact, the Alaskan samples clustered with Palearctic
samples. Trapping individuals from both regions andsetting up breeding trials, the researchers found amating barrier preventing off-spring from reaching
maturity, confirmed the genetic evidence.
The study concludes that N. vespilloides is in fact two
species, and suggest readapting a previously used
name, N. hebes, for the Nearctic (minus Alaska) group.
Link to paper: http://bit.ly/2rytn1P

MAPPING CROP POLLINATION IN EUROPE
DATA USED: 120,429 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Nogué S, Long PR, Eycott AE, de Nascimento L, FernándezPalacios JM, Petrokofsky G, Vandvik V and Willis KJ (2016)
Pollination service delivery for European crops: Challenges
and opportunities. Ecological Economics. Elsevier BV 128:
1–7.
Author countries: United Kingdom, Norway, Spain
Research funding: Norwegian Academy of Science andLetters; VISTA

Crop pollination is an extremely important ecosystemservice, and as much as 10 per cent of European foodproduction depend on insect pollination. Nestingsites are threatened by land-use changes, andland managers need reliable models of pollination
service delivery. Using GBIF-mediated occurrences,
researchers developed distribution models for 12 bee
species, and by combining distributions with crop
data, they created a pollination delivery map andcalculate indices for potential pollination provisionand need at both species and country level. In
terms of richness, the highest diversity is found insouth and central Europe. Two species in particular(Anthophora plumipes and Apis mellifera) provide thehighest level of pollination service. Values for delivery
and efficiency on a country level do not correlate,
as Denmark, for instance, shows one of the highest
values of pollination delivery, but a low value in termsof efficiency.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ecolecon.2016.03.023

biodiversity science

Burying beetles (genus Nicrophorus), known for theirbiparental care, have been the focus of behavioural
ecological studies for many years. N. vespilloides is
distributed across most of the northern hemisphere,
but recent genetic evidence from North America
clusters Alaskan specimens outside the rest of thecontinent.

NICROPHORUS VESPILLOIDES BY JAMES BAILEYHTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1098916406 CC BY-NC 4.0

52

IMPROVING SPECIES DISTRIBUTION MODELSUSING SATELLITE DATADATA USED: 50,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Deblauwe V, Droissart V, Bose R, Sonké B, Blach-Overgaard
A, Svenning J-C, Wieringa JJ, Ramesh BR, Stévart T and
Couvreur TLP (2016) Remotely sensed temperature andprecipitation data improve species distribution modellingin the tropics. Global Ecology and Biogeography. WileyBlackwell, 443–454.
Author countries: France, Belgium, Cameroon, United States,
India, Denmark, Netherlands
Research funding: French Foundation for Research on
Biodiversity (FRB); IRD

Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12426

SHEDDING LIGHT ON MESOPHOTIC CORALECOSYSTEMSDATA USED: 836,971 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

ꇷPyle RL, Boland R, Bolick H, Bowen BW, Bradley CJ, Kane
C, Kosaki RK, Langston R, Longenecker K, Montgomery A,
Parrish FA, Popp BN, Rooney J, Smith CM, Wagner D and
Spalding HL (2016) A comprehensive investigation ofmesophotic coral ecosystems in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
PeerJ. PeerJ 4: e2475.
Author country: United States
Research funding: none listed

Most coral reefs are found in shallow waters oftropical regions, but even at depths ranging from 30
to 150 meters and sometimes even deeper so-called
mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) exist. Here,the levels of light are low, explaining the name “meso”(meaning middle) - “photic” (meaning light).
In an interdisciplinary study spanning more than
two decades, researchers characterized MCEs in
the Hawaiian Archipelago using a vast and diverse
set of methods to provide insights into structure,

biodiversity science

Species distributions models (SDMs) rely on
accurate climatic data to predict the potential rangesof species, however, climatic datasets are often
based on interpolations between weather stations.
In regions where stations are scarce, such as thetropics, modelling can therefore be problematic. In thisstudy, authors evaluated three alternative sources ofclimatic data based on remote-sensing (e.g. satellitedata) by building SDMs of angiosperm plants in threedifferent tropical regions using data from GBIF andother sources. When comparing the performanceof SDMs based on WorldClim data alone versus datafrom remote-sensing databases, the latter performed
consistently better. One explanation offered by theauthors is that remote-sensing methods are able

to capture complex climatic features, such as therain shadow effect of Mount Cameroon and flooded
forest bands around the Amazon, Sangha and Congorivers, which aren’t available in interpolated climatic
datasets.

EXPERIMENT TO DETERMINE CORAL FEEDING PATTERNS 89 METERS BELOW THE SURFACE. PHOTO BY RL PYLEHTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.7717/PEERJ.2475/FIG-3 CC BY 4.0

53

composition, ecological dynamics and managements
needs of MCEs in general. Their methods included
field operations of photo documenting and sampling
both by trained divers, remote-controlled devices andautomated sensors.
Biodiversity surveys documented or collected morethan 72 species of frondose macroalgae, ten speciesof scleactinian corals, 200 invertebrate specimens (ofwhich three quarters remain unidentified), and also
four undescribed species of fishes.

NOT ALL POLLEN ARE CREATED EQUALDATA USED: 3,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Roger N, Moerman R, Carvalheiro LG, Aguirre-Guitiérrez J,
Jacquemart A-L, Kleijn D, Lognay G, Moquet L, Quinet M,
Rasmont P, Richel A, Vanderplanck M and Michez D (2016)
Impact of pollen resources drift on common bumblebees in
NW Europe. Global Change Biology. Wiley-Blackwell 23(1):
68–76.
Author countries: Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands
Research funding: FRFC

The researchers deposited voucher specimens to
the Bernice P. Bishop Museum and documented
occurrences in a dataset available on GBIF.org.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2475

INVESTIGATING SEED TOLERANCE TO
DEHYDRATIONDATA USED: 4,200,000 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

Wyse SV and Dickie JB (2017) Predicting the global
incidence of seed desiccation sensitivity. Journal of
Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Author country: United Kingdom
Research funding: UK Department for Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs

Being able to tolerate dehydration is a crucial seedtrait in plant regeneration, however, some species are
more sensitive than others, and previous estimates
based on seed banks tend to favour tolerant species
and thereby underestimate proportion of desiccationsensitive species.

Depending on statistical calculation type, the firstmodel estimated between seven and 20 per centdesiccation-sensitive species, while the resultsfrom the model based on habitats suggested
approximately eight per cent of species. Overall,the evidence suggested that the latter is the best
estimate.
The study also identified the magnoliids as having thehighest proportion of desiccation-sensitive species,
including nutmeg, bay laurel and some magnolias.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12725

Exclusively relying on pollen for survival, bees may
be facing population declines due to to changes inhost plant availability and quality. Some generalist
species, however, have remained stable for many
years. In this study, researchers assessed potentialchanges in pollen diets for five bumblebee species
in northwestern Europe, using GBIF-mediatedoccurrences to test if such changes were related toshifts in suitable habitats of host plants. They findevidence that four out of five species tend to forage
on pollen from plants with expanding distributions.
Chemical analysis of the quality of the pollen revealed
no differences in nutrient composition between pastand recent diets. Finally, using an experimental setup
of queen-less microcolonies of Bombus terrestris, theresearchers find no difference in pollen collection,
however, productivity was higher in colonies fed dietsof newly integrated resources, showing a clear impact
of changing diet on colony development.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13373

biodiversity science

In this study, researchers use a combination ofmodels based on either shared taxonomy or habitat,to generate a non-biased estimate of the percentage
of sensitive species. The taxanomic-based model useddata from the Kew’s Seed Information Database, while
the habit-based model was based on GBIF-mediatedoccurrences.

LARGE RED-TAILED BUMBLEBEE (BOMBUS LAPIDARIUS) BY BRUNO DURAND.
HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1291146648 CC BY-NC 4.0

54

WHITE MANGROVE (LAGUNCULARIA RACEMOSA) BY JMORALESRBPC HTTP:// WWW.GBIF.ORG/OCCURRENCE/1088896079 CC BY-NC 4.0

EXPERTS UNDERESTIMATE CLIMATIC TOLERANCEOF PLANTSDATA USED: 608,254 SPECIES OCCURRENCES

biodiversity scienceꇷCurtis CA and Bradley BA (2016) Plant Distribution Data
Show Broader Climatic Limits than Expert-Based Climatic
Tolerance Estimates. PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science(PLoS) 11(11): e0166407.
Author country: United States
Research funding: NASA; National Institute of Food andAgriculture, USDA; Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment
Station; Department of Environmental Conservation

The climatic niche of a species is determined byvariety of parameters including tolerance to variables
such as temperature and precipitation. The USDA
Plants database offers climatic tolerance estimates
based on expert knowledge for a wide range of plant
species, and this study aimed to investigate howsuch estimates relate to tolerance inferred from plant
distributions based on GBIF-mediated occurrences
and WorldClim climate data.

By comparing tolerance values for 1800 species,
the researchers find that climatic niches basedon occurrence data are much broader than expert
estimates. On average, plants tolerate lower minimum
and higher maximum precipitation values as well as
lower minimum temperatures. More than 70 per centof the investigated species had lower minimum values
for occurrence data compared to expert estimates.
The observed difference increased with species range
size.
The combined results suggest that expert-based
estimates tend to underrepresent species’
fundamental niches, and that distributions based on
occurrence data produce better approximations ofclimatic tolerance.
Link to paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0166407

See all Biodiversity science citations in the Science Review Sourcebook

55

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