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Application of the Red List Index as an indicator of habitat change

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Abstract

For the first time ever, the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Index for habitat types was calculated for an entire country, Finland. The RLIs were based on species threat assessments from 2000 and 2010 and included habitat definitions for all 10,131 species of 12 organism groups. The RLIs were bootstrapped to track statistically significant changes. The RLI changes of species grouped by habitats were negative for all habitat types except for forests and rural biotopes which showed a stable trend. Trends of beetles and true bugs were positive in rural and forest habitats. Other 16 observed trends of species group and habitat combinations were negative. Several trends observed were in accordance with studies focusing on particular taxa and habitats, and drivers for their change. This study demonstrates the usefulness of the RLI as a tool for observing habitat change based on species threat assessment data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 17, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Aino Juslén, Lauri Kaila, Jaakko Kullberg, Jaakko Mattila, Jyrki Muona, Sanna Saari & Pedro Cardoso

  2. Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140, 00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Juha Pykälä & Saija Kuusela

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  1. Aino Juslén
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  2. Juha Pykälä
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  3. Saija Kuusela
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Correspondence to Aino Juslén.

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Communicated by Neil Brummitt.

Electronic supplementary material

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10531_2016_1075_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Supplementary material Appendix 1 The species included in the study, their main habitats and the IUCN threat classification in 2000 (backcasted) and 2010

10531_2016_1075_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

Supplementary material Appendix 2 RLI values for all combinations of taxonomic groups and habitat types (Appendix) are available online. The authors are solely responsible for the content and functionality of these materials. Queries (other than absence of the material) should be directed to the corresponding author

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Juslén, A., Pykälä, J., Kuusela, S. et al. Application of the Red List Index as an indicator of habitat change. Biodivers Conserv 25, 569–585 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1075-0

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