Data availability on European biodiversity, drivers and protected areas and gap analysis for European tetrapods
Authors: Navarro Laetitia , Cosentino Francesca , Hermoso Virgilio , Maiorano Luigi , Paniw Maria , Revilla Eloy , Sacchi Andrea , Santini Luca , Tablado Zulima , Thuiller Wilfried 
Published: December 2024

This report presents an overview of data identification and documentation related to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the associated drivers, pressures, and response mechanisms. While not systematic nor exhaustive, our effort of data identification and documentation allowed us to describe more than 100 datasets and databases on European biodiversity (most datasets), ecosystem services, the drivers and pressures affecting them, and the mechanisms put in place to address these. These datasets represent nearly 2000 variables and metrics that can be used directly by researchers, land managers and decision-makers, for example for spatial planning in conservation or for further integration into biodiversity and ecosystem services models.

Moreover, we also evaluate the completeness of biodiversity data (occurrence, trait and biotic interactions) in Europe across four terrestrial vertebrate classes, and assess potential drivers of data completeness. Despite Europe being one of the richest continents for biodiversity data globally, there are substantial data gaps in species distribution, trait, and species interactions, particularly in Eastern Europe, and for reptiles and amphibians. Results highlight how this heterogeneity in data availability is strongly associated with socioeconomic factors.

We found that freshwater systems, data on ecosystem functions and population abundances are overall still under-represented in large-scale biodiversity data repositories and catalogues such as the ones that we consulted to build our metadatabase. In contrast, most of the metrics identified can be classified as species traits (both functional and life-history traits) although those also largely related to static data. By design, most of the datasets that we describe are openly available and easily accessible. Nevertheless, they also vary greatly in formats and standardization efforts which would impair a smooth integration into open workflows that could support the wider adoption of the tools that projects such as NaturaConnect could develop.

Moreover, knowledge gaps are unevenly distributed within the European continent showing a strong taxonomic but also geographic bias. Amphibian and reptile data are strongly under-sampled compared to mammals and birds considering the species distribution (Wallacean shortfall), biological traits (Raunki&aelig;ran shortfall), and trophic interactions data (Eltonian shortfall).

Some general recommendations in the view of these results are: i) there is a need to promote the publication of open protocols that describe in a standardized way the inputs and outputs of models used for decision-making and research in biodiversity conservation and that would limit the risk for redundancy, overestimations and circularity when integrating several datasets from various sources and disciplines; and ii) priority areas for data collection are located in southern and eastern Europe, which are strongly under-sampled compared to central and northern Europe (e.g., France, United Kingdom). Addressing these issues is crucial for advancing biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service management across Europe.