EcoMaths - The Numbers of Life (and Death)

EcoMathsThe Numbers of Life (and Death)
Professor Corey J. A. Bradshaw
THE ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE, University of Adelaide
South Australian Research & Development Institute

> 4 million protists
16600 protozoa
75000-300000helminth parasites
1.5million fungi
320000 plants
4-6 million arthropods
> 6500 amphibians
> 30000 fishes
10000 birds
> 5000 mammals

99 % of ALL species that have ever existed...
EXTINCT
species lifespan = 1-10 M years
Ordovician (490-443 MYA)
Devonian (417-354 MYA)
Permian (299-250 MYA)
Triassic (251-200 MYA)
Cretaceous (146-64 MYA)
Anthropocene
extinction rate 100-10000× background
© Tiantian Zhang, Good50x70.org
Crutzen 2002 Nature 415:23; Bradshaw & Brook 2009 J Cosmol2:221-229

Bradshaw et al. 2009 Trends Ecol Evol24:541-548
Bradshaw et al. 2009 Front Ecol Environ 7:79-87
1,011,000 km2 lost 2000-2005 (3.1 %; 0.6 %/year)
highest in boreal biome (60 %)
humid tropics next (Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia)
dry tropics next highest (Australia, Brazil, Argentina)
N.A. greatest proportional lost by continent
Nationally, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, DR Congo
Hansen et al. 2010 PNAS
doi:10.1073/pnas.0912668107
Barson et al. 2000 Land Cover
Change in Australia, Bur RurSci

IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES www.iucnredlist.org
21 % of all known mammals
30 % of all known amphibians
12 % of all known birds
35 % of conifers & cycads
17 % of sharks
27 % of reef-building corals
threatened with extinction

Correlates of extinction
3366 spp
life history (reproduction, fecundity, body size, habit)
ecological (range size)
environment (temperature, precipitation, human density)
threat ~ X1 + X2 + X3… (Order/Family)
decline ~ …
Sodhi et al. 2008 PLoS One 3:e1636
Sodhi et al. (2008) PLoS One 3:e1636

Sodhi et al. 2008 PLoS One 3:e1636

range(number of FAO Fishing Areas),
 risk for sharks with small range size
similar for teleosts with slightly larger ranges
habitat
 threat risk for reef sharks
and for pelagic teleosts
environmental temperature regime
 risk for deepwater sharks
 risk deepwater teleosts
Field et al. 2009 Advances in Marine Biology 56:275-363

Bradshaw et al. 2008 J Ecol 96:869-883

Bradshaw et al. 2008
J Ecol 96:869-883

invasive species and starfish outbreaks
bleaching
deforestation, soil erosion, sediment & nutrient loading
destructive fishing practices
overfishing

Mellin et al. 2010 Glob EcolBiogeog19:212

3.0 ± 0.4
3.1 ± 0.4
2.2 ± 0.4
2.0 ± 0.3
1.7 ± 0.3
1.5 ± 0.3
Reef isolation
Reef area
Mellin et al. In press Ecology

Mellin et al. In press Ecology

Evil quartet
habitat destruction
over-exploitation
introduced species
extinction cascades
Diamond 1984 Extinctions Chicago University Press

Brook et al. 2008 Trends Ecol Evol25:453-460

Evil quintet
Evil sextet
habitat destruction
over-exploitation
introduced species
extinction cascades
climate change
synergies
Brook et al. 2008 Trends Ecol Evol25:453-460

justification to maintain healthy ecosystems is intangible because it seems unrelated to personal well-being
© Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

reduce desertification
maintain soils
crop pollination
seed dispersal
food provision
water purification
fuel provision
fibre provision
climate regulation
flood regulation
disease regulation
waste decomposition/detoxification
nutrient cycling
soil formation
primary production
pharmaceutical sources
cultural appreciation (aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational…)
€153 billion/year
fisheries: €50 billion/year
€50 billion lost/year
land-based ecosystem loss €545 billion by 2010
> €14 trillion/year lost by 2050
Cost of Policy Inaction (COPI):
The case of not meeting the 2010 biodiversity target.
European Commission

1990-2000
~100,000 people killed
320 million people displaced
total reported damages > US$1151 billion
Bradshaw et al. 2007 Glob Change Biol13:2379-2395

decades of warning
human population 6.8 B; 9-10 B by 2050
competition for resources – famine, wars
loss of basic ecosystem services
fundamental worldwide shifts in policy required
identifying relative country degradation
highlight nations needing assistance
better-performing nations as model governance structures

City Development Index www.unchs.org
Ecological Footprint www.footprintnetwork.org
Environmental Performance Index epi.yale.edu
Environmental Sustainability Index sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu
Genuine Savings Index worldbank.org
Human Development Index hdr.undp.org
Living Planet Index www.panda.org
Well-Being Index www.well-beingindex.com
Environmental Impact Rank
Böhringer & Joachim 2007 Ecol Econ 63:1-8

inability to describe complexity of ‘sustainability’
not comprehensive
mix environmental, economic and health data
often subjective combinations, weightings, normalisation
not available for large sample of nations
not consistent

natural forest loss
2005-1990 D/ha
natural habitat conversion
human-modified landcover/total landcover
marine captures
1990-2005 fish, whales, seals/EEZ km
fertiliser use
NPK/ha arable land
water pollution
biochemical oxygen demand/total renewable water resources
carbon emissions
forestry, land-use change, fossil fuels/km2
biodiversity threat
Red List threatened birds, mammals, amphibians/listed species
Bradshaw et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10440

“I anticipate that the anti-science crowd will be screeching and howling with indignation when they read this one.”
“This is such BS, China is WAY worse then the U.S.”
“This researcher is a waste ...”
“This article is crap.”
“Can we really depend on some study when the Chinese could have funded this or maybe some group who was angry at the US and Brazil for whatever? I highly doubt the accuracy of the findings. Looks like the Treehuggers are at it again.”
“Shame on you Australia !!! I guess your dying great Barrior[sic] reef is America's fault too!!!!”
“here we go again. I'm so frickin' sick of these watermelons (green on the outside, red (communist) on the inside) treehuggers. The only f*^king green I care about is made of paper and folds.”

ENVIRONMENTAL
KUZNETS CURVE
environmental damage
per capita prosperity

physician-assessed morbidity declines with more green spaces near Dutch patients
Maas et al. 2009 J EpidemiolComm Health 63:967-973
dioxin-poisoning accident in Milan – increased circulatory disease, lymphoma, pulmonary disease & diabetes 25 years later
Consonni et al. 2008 Am J Epidemiol167:847-858
low water quality, poor sanitation & indoor air pollution from household solid fuels increased child mortality and reduced life expectancy in Mexico
Stevens et al. 2009 Proc NatlAcadSci USA 105:16860-16865
malaria-vector mosquito bite rates 278× higher in deforested sites in Amazon
Vittor et al. 2006 Am J Trop Med Hyg74:3-11
Anopheline mosquito density  after deforestation in 60% of 60 studies over past century; 70 % of cases  incidence of malaria
Yasuoka & Levins 2007 Am J Trop Med Hyg76:450-460

DATA
Human health: World Health Organization Global Burden of Disease database
Environment: - Environmental Combination Index (adapted from Yale Env Performance Index)
- Proportional Environmental Impact rank (Bradshaw et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10440)
- natural habitat conversion proportion (Global Land Cover 2000 dataset)
- air/water quality (Yale Environmental Performance Index)
- NPK fertiliser use/area arable land (FAOSTAT database)
- CO2 emissions (Climate Analysis Indicators tool)
Control: - human population size (United Nations Common Database)
- purchasing-power parity-adjusted GNI (World Resources Institute)
- health expenditure (WHO Statistical Information System)

DATA
Human health: WHO Global Burden of Disease database
Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) - years of life lost due to premature mortality and healthy years of life lost due to disability
Infant Mortality (male) – 2004 mortality per 1000 live births
Life Expectancy at birth (male) – 2004
Diarrhoea deaths among children < 5 years (2000)
Malaria deaths among children < 5 years (2000)
Deaths due to Cardiovascular Disease (2002 age-standardised per 10,000)
Deaths due to Cancers (2002 age-standardised per 10,000)

10 %  ECI   mINFM 7.0/1000 live births
 mLE 1.9 years
http://epi.yale.edu

extinction must be inferred from record of sightings/collections
when a species becomes increasingly rare before extinction, might persist unseen for many years
so the time of last sighting often poor estimate of extinction date
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
?
?
present
past
Roberts & Solow 2003 Nature 426:245

optimal linear estimation
joint distribution of k same Weibull form regardless of parent distribution
estimated extinction time q
L: symmetric k×k matrix
n: Estimated shape parameter of joint Weibull distribution of k
CI
q
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
present
past
Roberts & Solow 2003 Nature 426:245

maximum likelihood to account for radio carbon dating error
assume true ages U independent/uniformly distributed over (b1,g1) where b1 = extinction date
PDF of Xj:
b1
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
present
past
Solow et al. 2006 PNAS 103:7351

but... previous sighting rate important
length of period since last sighting informative
given previous sighting rate(n/tn), probability of next sighting
where p drops below threshold with increasing T-tn, TE inferred
TE
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
present
past
McInerny et al. 2006 ConservBiol20:562

but... TE depends on number of samples in ‘final’ period
declining influence of dates within time since last sighting
sequentially recalculated TE, weighting by cumulative distance from T1
T1
TE
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
present
past

extinctions - constrained
P(rand overlap) = 0.09

Barry Brook University of Adelaide
Alan Cooper University of Adelaide
Camille MellinUniversity of Adelaide/AIMS
Mark MeekanAIMS
Iain Field Macquarie University
XingliGiamPrinceton University
Navjot S. SodhiNational University of Singapore
Tony McMichael Australian National University
corey.bradshaw@adelaide.edu.au
www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/corey.bradshaw
ConservationBytes.com
© Tiantian Zhang, Good50x70.org

EcoMaths - The Numbers of Life (and Death)

by Conservation Bytes on Jun 16, 2010

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