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Download Thesis This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Beyond 2010 Use of habitat suitability models in the re-assessment of the 2010 Biodiversity Target for plant species Aletrari, Elina Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 09. Oct. 2021 KING’S COLLEGE LONDON, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY Beyond 2010: Use of habitat suitability models in the re-assessment of the 2010 Biodiversity Target for plant species Ph.D Thesis ELINA ALETRARI King’s College London Natural History Museum London Supervisor: Dr Mark Mulligan Supervisor: Dr Neil Brummitt APRIL 2016 1 COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgment. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and warm appreciation to my supervisors, Mark Mulligan and Neil Brummitt for their extraordinary guidance and generosity; both have been true mentors. I am thankful to Mark for patiently guiding me through what was for me the unknown territory of spatial analysis and programming, and for always being available despite his many commitments. I thank Neil for giving me the opportunity to work with him and for so generously sharing his invaluable botanical and fieldwork knowledge. I would like to acknowledge the Natural History Museum, London for enabling this study through providing the Sampled Red List Index data for pteridophytes and the much-necessary fieldwork funding. I am indebted to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for providing the Sampled Red List Index data for angiosperms, and to Steve Bachman for introducing me to the Sampled Red List Index project and the world of natural history collections. I also thank Harald Schneider for helping me understand pteridophytes and Michael Kessler for sharing his team’s field data in order to validate my work. Thank you to Mindy Syfert who has broadened my knowledge on GIS techniques, joined me in Costa Rica for fieldwork adventures and shared her Species Distribution Models. Most importantly, I thank her for always being there when I needed her scientific advice. I would also like to thank Sarah Stow for her encouragement during this thesis’ writing process. This PhD thesis would not have been possible without the financial (as this was a self-funded project) and emotional support of my husband and family. I cannot thank them enough for everything they have done for me these past four years. My parents supported me in all my pursuits and have sacrificed many things for me through the years. I owe becoming a scientist to my father, to whom I am immensely grateful, as I am to my mother for teaching me everything I know about life. Special thanks to Chris, Stelios, Christos and Lara for their continued support and understanding. Finally but not least I would like to thank my husband, the love of my life, for his infinite support, encouragement, patience and for believing in me and my work. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................ 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ 4 TABLE OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... 8 TABLE OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................... 19 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................ 21 1.1 RATIONALE .................................................................................................................. 21 1.2 AIM and OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................. 23 1.2.1 Aim ...................................................................................................................... 23 1.2.2 Objectives ............................................................................................................ 23 1.3 OVERVIEW of THESIS ................................................................................................ 24 1.4 GENERAL INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 28 1.4.1 Biodiversity & Habitat Loss ................................................................................. 28 1.4.2 The IUCN Sampled Red List Index ..................................................................... 30 1.4.3 IUCN Red List assessments for SRLI plant species ........................................... 32 1.4.4 Species geographical range metrics ................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................ 35 IMPROVING THE METHOD OF CALCULATING SPECIES GEOGRAPHICAL RANGES ........ 35 2.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 35 2.2 METHODS .................................................................................................................... 37 2.2.1 Gathering and investigating the bias in the IUCN Sampled Red List Index data 37 2.2.2 Refining the species geographical range ............................................................ 40 2.2.2.1 Calculating the Extent of Occurrence ............................................................ 40 2.2.2.2 Calculating the Extent of Suitable Habitat ...................................................... 40 2.2.2.2.1 Ecological/environmental variables ............................................................. 41 2.2.2.2.2 ESH calculation using two variables ........................................................... 44 2.2.2.2.2.1 Selecting the best land cover classification database ........................... 45 2.2.2.2.2.2 Comparison of ESHs and EOOs for trans-continental species ............. 46 2.2.2.2.3 ESH calculation using three variables ......................................................... 47 2.2.2.2.3.1 Selecting the most suitable water availability dataset for the analytical script…………………………………….. ..................................................................... 49 2.2.3 Validating the species Extent of Suitable Habitat ................................................ 51 2.3 RESULTS...................................................................................................................... 52 2.3.1 Investigation into the bias in the SRLI data ......................................................... 52 2.3.2 Calculation of species’ Extent of Suitable Habitat ............................................... 55 2.3.2.1 ESH calculation using two variables .............................................................. 55 2.3.2.1.1 Selecting the best land cover classification database ................................. 57 2.3.2.1.2 Comparison of ESHs and EOOs for trans-continental species .................. 65 2.3.2.2 ESH calculation using three variables............................................................. 66 4 2.3.2.2.1 Selecting the best water availability dataset for the ESH calculation ........ 68 2.3.2.2.2 Comparison of the 2-variable and 3-variable ESH models ......................... 73 2.3.3 Validating the species Extent of Suitable Habitat ................................................ 75 2.4 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................... 77 2.4.1 Investigating the bias in the SRLI data ............................................................... 77 2.4.2 Building the most appropriate ESH method ........................................................ 78 2.4.3 EOO/ESH comparison ........................................................................................ 82 2.4.4 Using the ESH metric .........................................................................................
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