Biology subjects

zu Ermgassen, S. O. S. E.

Publications and source records attributed to zu Ermgassen, S. O. S. E..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Early outcomes of England's new biodiversity offset market

Nature markets are increasingly being operationalised as a tool for filling the biodiversity finance gap to achieve global biodiversity targets. One example is the off-site market underpinning the requirement for construction projects to achieve Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) in England. Here, we quantify the outcomes of the market after 16 months of operation, collecting data from Englands offset register and planning portals. We evaluate the habitat diversity being delivered and how it aligns with environmental targets and existing efforts to achieve goals such as 30x30. Current habitat delivery is skewed toward a few habitat types, with other neutral grassland constituting 44% of planned habitat. There is very limited delivery of new wetland and woodland habitats, with most commitments being to improve the condition of existing habitats. Perhaps more importantly, only around 2% of the registered offset area has been sold. Our results demonstrate how the design of the statutory biodiversity metric used to measure BNG is shaping the market through incentives within the metric. The results also give insight into the demand for off-site BNG units in England and the role which government regulation plays in setting demand and therefore scaling the market.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Metrics based on habitat area and condition are poor proxies for invertebrate biodiversity

There is increasing demand for standardised, easy-to-use metrics to assess progress towards achieving biodiversity targets and the effectiveness of ecological compensation schemes. Biodiversity metrics based on combining habitat area and habitat condition scores are proliferating rapidly, but there is limited evidence on how they relate to ecological outcomes. Here, we test the relationship between the statutory biodiversity metric used for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) in England -- and as the basis for new biodiversity credit systems around the world -- and invertebrate richness, abundance, and community composition. We find that the combined area-condition BNG metric does not capture the value of arable farmland and grassland sites for invertebrate biodiversity: invertebrate communities were highly variable across sites that had the same type and condition under the BNG metric. We found no reliable relationship between scores under the metric and either invertebrate abundance or species richness, with the risk of the metric undervaluing sites of high invertebrate value. Our results highlight the need to incorporate factors beyond habitat type and condition into site evaluations, and to complement metric use with species-based surveys.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Mining threats in high-level biodiversity conservation policies

Amid a global infrastructure boom, there is increasing recognition of the ecological impacts of the extraction and consumption of construction minerals, mainly as concrete. Recent research highlights the significant and expanding threat these minerals pose to global biodiversity. To what extent is this pressure acknowledged in biodiversity conservation policy? We investigate how high-level national and international biodiversity conservation policies, including the 2011-2020 and post-2020 biodiversity strategies, the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, address mining threats with a special focus on construction minerals. We find that mining appears rarely in national targets, but more frequently in national strategies with greater coverage of aggregates mining than limestone mining, yet it is dealt with superficially in most countries. We then outline an 8-point strategy to reduce the biodiversity impacts of construction minerals, which comprises actions such as targeting, reporting, and monitoring systems, the evidence-base around mining impacts on biodiversity, and the behavior of financial agents and businesses. Implementing these measures can pave the way for a more sustainable approach to construction mineral use and safeguard biodiversity.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Unearthing the global impact of mining construction minerals on biodiversity

Construction minerals - sand, gravel, limestone - are the most extracted solid raw materials1 and account for most of the worlds anthropogenic mass, which as of 2020 outweighed all of Earths living biomass2. However, knowledge about the magnitude, geography, and profile of this widespread threat to biodiversity remains scarce and scattered3-6. Combining long-term data from the IUCN Red List and new species descriptions we provide the first systematic evaluation of species threatened by mining of construction minerals globally. We found 1,047 species in the Red List impacted by this type of mining, of which 58.5% are threatened with extinction and four species already went extinct. We also identified 234 new species descriptions in 20 biodiversity hotspots reporting impacts from mining. Temporal trends in the assessments highlight the increased saliency of this threat to biodiversity, whose full extent may well reach over 24,000 animal and plant species. While rock quarrying mostly threatens karst biodiversity and narrow-ranged species, sand and gravel extraction is a more prominent threat to freshwater and coastal systems. This study provides the first evidence base to support a global strategy to limit the biodiversity impacts of construction mineral extraction.

ecology↗