Global impoverishment of natural vegetation revealed by dark diversity
Pärtel, Meelis; Tamme, Riin; Carmona, Carlos P; Riibak, Kersti; Moora, Mari; Bennett, Jonathan A; Chiarucci, Alessandro; Chytrý, Milan; de Bello, Francesco; Eriksson, Ove; Harrison, Susan; Lewis, Robert John; Moles, Angela T; Öpik, Maarja; Price, Jodi N; Amputu, Vistorina; Askarizadeh, Diana; Atashgahi, Zohreh; Aubin, Isabelle; Azcárate, Francisco M; Barrett, Matthew D; Bashirzadeh, Maral; Bátori, Zoltán; Beenaerts, Natalie; Bergholz, Kolja; Birkeli, Kristine; Biurrun, Idoia; Blanco-Moreno, José M; Bloodworth, Kathryn J; Boisvert-Marsh, Laura; Boldgiv, Bazartseren; Brancalion, Pedro H S; Brearley, Francis Q; Brown, Charlotte; Bueno, C Guillermo; Buffa, Gabriella; Cahill, James F; Campos, Juan A; Cangelmi, Giacomo; Carbognani, Michele; Carcaillet, Christopher; Cerabolini, Bruno E L; Chevalier, Richard; Clavel, Jan S; Costa, José M; Cousins, Sara A O; Čuda, Jan; Dairel, Mariana; Dalle Fratte, Michele; Danilova, Alena; Davison, John; Deák, Balázs; Del Vecchio, Silvia; Dembicz, Iwona; Dengler, Jürgen; Dolezal, Jiri; Domene, Xavier; Dvorsky, Miroslav; Ejtehadi, Hamid; Enrico, Lucas; Epikhin, Dmitrii; Eskelinen, Anu; Essl, Franz; Fan, Gaohua; Fantinato, Edy; Fazlioglu, Fatih; Fernández-Pascual, Eduardo; Ferrara, Arianna; Fidelis, Alessandra; Fischer, Markus; Flagmeier, Maren; Forte, T'ai G W; Fraser, Lauchlan H; Fujinuma, Junichi; Furquim, Fernando F; Garris, Berle; Garris, Heath W; Giorgis, Melisa A; Giusso Del Galdo, Gianpietro; González-Robles, Ana; Good, Megan K; Guardiola, Moisès; Guarino, Riccardo; Guerrero, Irene; Guillemot, Joannès; Güler, Behlül; Guo, Yinjie; Haesen, Stef; Hejda, Martin; Heleno, Ruben H; Høye, Toke T; Hrivnák, Richard; Huang, Yingxin; Hunter, John T; Iakushenko, Dmytro; Ibáñez, Ricardo; Ingerpuu, Nele; Irl, Severin D H; Janíková, Eva; Jansen, Florian; Jeltsch, Florian; Jentsch, Anke; Jiménez-Alfaro, Borja; Jõks, Madli; Jouri, Mohammad H; Karami, Sahar; Katal, Negin; Kelemen, András; Khairullin, Bulat I; Khuroo, Anzar A; Komatsu, Kimberly J; Konečná, Marie; Kook, Ene; Korell, Lotte; Koroleva, Natalia; Korznikov, Kirill A; Kozhevnikova, Maria V; Kozub, Łukasz; Laanisto, Lauri; Lager, Helena; Lanta, Vojtech; Lasagno, Romina G; Lembrechts, Jonas J; Li, Liping; Lisner, Aleš; Liu, Houjia; Liu, Kun; Liu, Xuhe; Lucas-Borja, Manuel Esteban; Ludewig, Kristin; Lukács, Katalin; Luther-Mosebach, Jona; Macek, Petr; Marignani, Michela; Michalet, Richard; Miglécz, Tamás; Moeslund, Jesper Erenskjold; Moeys, Karlien; Montesinos, Daniel; Moreno-Jiménez, Eduardo; Moysiyenko, Ivan; Mucina, Ladislav; Muñoz-Rojas, Miriam; Murillo, Raytha A; Nambahu, Sylvia M; Neuenkamp, Lena; Normand, Signe; Nowak, Arkadiusz; Nuche, Paloma; Oja, Tatjana; Onipchenko, Vladimir G; Pachedjieva, Kalina L; Paganeli, Bruno; Peco, Begoña; Peralta, Ana M L; Pérez-Haase, Aaron; Peri, Pablo L; Petraglia, Alessandro; Peyre, Gwendolyn; Plaza-Álvarez, Pedro Antonio; Plue, Jan; Prentice, Honor C; Prokhorov, Vadim E; Radujković, Dajana; Rahmanian, Soroor; Reitalu, Triin; Ristow, Michael; Robin, Agnès A; Robles, Ana Belén; Rodríguez Ginart, Daniel A; Román, Raúl; Roos, Ruben E; Rosati, Leonardo; Sádlo, Jiří; Salimbayeva, Karina; Sánchez de Dios, Rut; Sanchir, Khaliun; Sattler, Cornelia; Scasta, John D; Schmiedel, Ute; Schrader, Julian; Schultz, Nick L; Sellan, Giacomo; Serra-Diaz, Josep M; Silan, Giulia; Skálová, Hana; Skobel, Nadiia; Sonkoly, Judit; Štajerová, Kateřina; Svitková, Ivana; Świerszcz, Sebastian; Tanentzap, Andrew J; Tanentzap, Fallon M; Tarifa, Rubén; Tejero, Pablo; Tekeev, Dzhamal K; Tholin, Michael; Thormodsæter, Ruben S; Tian, Yichen; Tokaryuk, Alla; Tölgyesi, Csaba; Tomaselli, Marcello; Tordoni, Enrico; Török, Péter; Tóthmérész, Béla; Toussaint, Aurèle; Touzard, Blaise; Trindade, Diego P F; Tsakalos, James L; Türkiş, Sevda; Valencia, Enrique; Valerio, Mercedes; Valkó, Orsolya; Van Meerbeek, Koenraad; Vandvik, Vigdis; Villellas, Jesus; Virtanen, Risto; Vítková, Michaela; Vojík, Martin; von Hessberg, Andreas; von Oppen, Jonathan; Wagner, Viktoria; Wan, Ji-Zhong; Wang, Chun-Jing; Wani, Sajad A; Weiss, Lina; Wevill, Tricia; Xiao, Sa; Zárate Martínez, Oscar; Zobel, Martin (2025-04-02)
Springer
02.04.2025
Pärtel, M., Tamme, R., Carmona, C.P. et al. Global impoverishment of natural vegetation revealed by dark diversity. Nature 641, 917–924 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08814-5
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202504042428
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-202504042428
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Anthropogenic biodiversity decline threatens the functioning of ecosystems and the many benefits they provide to humanity1. As well as causing species losses in directly affected locations, human influence might also reduce biodiversity in relatively unmodified vegetation if far-reaching anthropogenic effects trigger local extinctions and hinder recolonization. Here we show that local plant diversity is globally negatively related to the level of anthropogenic activity in the surrounding region. Impoverishment of natural vegetation was evident only when we considered community completeness: the proportion of all suitable species in the region that are present at a site. To estimate community completeness, we compared the number of recorded species with the dark diversity—ecologically suitable species that are absent from a site but present in the surrounding region2. In the sampled regions with a minimal human footprint index, an average of 35% of suitable plant species were present locally, compared with less than 20% in highly affected regions. Besides having the potential to uncover overlooked threats to biodiversity, dark diversity also provides guidance for nature conservation. Species in the dark diversity remain regionally present, and their local populations might be restored through measures that improve connectivity between natural vegetation fragments and reduce threats to population persistence.
Anthropogenic biodiversity decline threatens the functioning of ecosystems and the many benefits they provide to humanity1. As well as causing species losses in directly affected locations, human influence might also reduce biodiversity in relatively unmodified vegetation if far-reaching anthropogenic effects trigger local extinctions and hinder recolonization. Here we show that local plant diversity is globally negatively related to the level of anthropogenic activity in the surrounding region. Impoverishment of natural vegetation was evident only when we considered community completeness: the proportion of all suitable species in the region that are present at a site. To estimate community completeness, we compared the number of recorded species with the dark diversity—ecologically suitable species that are absent from a site but present in the surrounding region2. In the sampled regions with a minimal human footprint index, an average of 35% of suitable plant species were present locally, compared with less than 20% in highly affected regions. Besides having the potential to uncover overlooked threats to biodiversity, dark diversity also provides guidance for nature conservation. Species in the dark diversity remain regionally present, and their local populations might be restored through measures that improve connectivity between natural vegetation fragments and reduce threats to population persistence.
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Ellei muuten mainita, aineiston lisenssi on https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/