Stefan Schindler

Umweltbundesamt, Austria · Biodiversity & Nature Conservation

Significance Our ability to predict the identity of future invasive alien species is largely based upon knowledge of prior invasion history. Emerging alien species—those never before encountered as aliens—therefore pose a significant challenge to biosecurity interventions worldwide. Using a global database of the first regional records of alien spe...

Anthropogenic habitat fragmentation represents a major obstacle to species shifting their range in response to climate change. Conservation measures to increase the (meta-)population capacity and permeability of landscapes may help but the effectiveness of such measures in a warming climate has rarely been evaluated. Here, we simulate range dynamic...

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) are one of the three new greening measures of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We used an interdisciplinary and European-scale approach to evaluate ecological effectiveness and farmers’ perception of the different EFA options. We assessed potential benefits of EFA options for biodiversity using a survey a...

Floodplain ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots and supply multiple ecosystem services. At the same time they are often prone to human pressures that increasingly impact their intactness. Multifunctional floodplain management can be defined as a management approach aimed at a balanced supply of multiple ecosystem services that serve the needs of th...

In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related “Aichi Targets” to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adap...

Unlabelled: European farm households will face increasingly challenging conditions in the coming decades due to climate change, as the frequency and severity of extreme weather events rise. This study assesses the complex interrelations between external framework conditions such as climate change or adjustments in the agricultural price and subsid...

Modern agriculture negatively impacts on global biodiversity by converting natural and extensively used habitats into intensely managed systems, and by releasing pollutants, including greenhouse gases. Since the demand for certain food products determines what is grown, consumer behavior is key to reduce food system related biodiversity losses. Her...

The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has not halted farmland biodiversity loss. The CAP post‐2023 has a new ‘‘Green Architecture,’’ including the new ‘‘Eco‐scheme’’ instrument. How can this new Green Architecture help tackle the biodiversity crisis? Through 13 workshops and an online survey, over 300 experts from 23 European Member...

Technical report on the project CCCCCS (Conservation under Climate Change: Challenges, Constraints and Solutions). To assess and improve Austrian nature conservation strategies for climate change (CC) and to conceive adaptations, we (1) compiled a database of currently implemented conservation measures; (2) assessed the effectiveness of the curren...

Increasing evidence—synthesized in this paper—shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far n...

Der Klimawandel wird die Areale und die biotischen Beziehungen der Arten unter-einander und damit die globalen Biodiversitätsmuster entscheidend verändern, aber auch das Gefüge der Gefährdungsfaktoren, die auf Arten und Lebensräume wirken, entscheidend beeinflussen, was in weiterer Folge eine Neubewertung von Schutzmaß-nahmen und Schutzstrategien e...

Owing to climate change and other anthropogenic environmental changes, the suitability of locations is changing for many biota that consequently have to adapt in situ or to move to other areas. To mitigate the effects of such pressures, assisted colonization is a conservation tool developed to reduce extinction risks by intentionally moving and rel...

Climate driven species’ range shifts may interfere with existing protected area (PA) networks, resulting in a mismatch between places where species are currently protected and places where they can thrive in the future. Here, we assess the climate-smartness of the Austrian PA network by focusing on endemic species’ climatic niches and their future...

Aim The number of alien species has been increasing for centuries world-wide, but temporal changes in the dynamics of their inter-regional spread remain unclear. Here, we analyse changes in the rate and extent of inter-regional spread of alien species over time and how these dynamics vary among major taxonomic groups. Location Global. Time period...

Mediterranean pastures are experiencing strong changes in management, involving shifts from sheep to cattle-based livestock systems. The impacts of such shifts on biodiversity are still poorly understood. Here, we sought to contrast the grazing regime, vegetation structure, bird species richness and abundance, between sheep and cattle grazed parcel...

Adaptation to inevitable climate change makes it necessary to re-think land use management paradigms and strategies and to suggest modifications to existing practices to render them functional in future environmental conditions, in particular in a warming climate. We do so, by combining (i) quantitative assessment and cartographic representation o...

In the current era of Big Data, existing synthesis tools such as formal meta-analyses are critical means to handle the deluge of information. However, there is a need for complementary tools that help to (a) organize evidence, (b) organize theory, and (c) closely connect evidence to theory. We present the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach to a...

Biological invasions are a widespread phenomenon and cause substantial impacts on the natural environment and human livelihoods. Thus, the European Union (EU) recently adopted Regulation No 1143/2014 to limit the negative impacts of invasive alien species (IAS). For implementing IAS management and policies, public support is highly and increasingly...

Climate-driven range dynamics of species will interact with land use patterns that have reduced and fragmented habitat types needed for species’ survival. This interaction could either amplify or mitigate the threats to species from climate change, but has so far been little explored. Here, we investigate whether shifts of suitable areas under futu...

Increasing evidence—synthesized in this paper—shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far n...

Making agriculture sustainable is a global challenge. In the European Union (EU), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is failing with respect to biodiversity, climate, soil, land degradation as well as socio‐economic challenges. The European Commission's proposal for a CAP post‐2020 provides a scope for enhanced sustainability. However, it also al...

et X# signataires Rendre l'agriculture durable est un défi d'ampleur globale. En Union Européenne, la Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) est en train d'échouer en matière de biodiversité, de climat, des sols mais aussi des enjeux socio-économiques, surtout dans les zones rurales. La proposition de la Commission Européenne pour une PAC post-2020 perme...

Adaptation to inevitable climate change makes it necessary to re-think land use management paradigms and strategies and to suggest modifications to existing practices to render them functional in future environmental conditions, in particular in a warming climate. We do so, by combining (i) quantitative assessment and cartographic representation o...

Wildlife trade is a profitable economic activity. Birds are among the most heavily traded animals worldwide, with numerous species threatened by pet trade. Information on both legal and illegal aspects of trade and consumer demand is difficult to obtain across different countries, particularly given substantial socio-economic and cultural variation...

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) is one of the world's largest agricultural policies and the EU's longest-prevailing one. Originally focused mostly on supporting production and farm income, the CAP has progressively integrated instruments to support the environment. Nonetheless, there is considerable agreement among E...

In the current era of Big Data, existing synthesis tools (e.g. formal meta-analysis) are useful for handling the deluge of data and information. However, there is a need for complementary tools that help to (i) structure data and information, (ii) closely connect evidence to theory and (iii) further develop theory. We present the hierarchy-of-hypot...

Disturbances have frequently been shown to increase the invasibility of plant communities. Harvesting, the most common and severe type of anthropogenic disturbance in forests, creates pulses of enhanced resource availability for alien plants and for native colonizers. However, it is unclear for how long initial changes in species composition of the...

Lesser Spotted Eagle is a medium sized raptor with a stable population within its breeding range. Nonetheless, its favourable habitats (a mosaic of forest and low-vegetation forest-openings, often with water elements such as small ponds and flowing streams), are suffering from land abandonment as a result of abrupt socioeconomic changes related to...

The European Union (EU) has recently published its first list of invasive alien species (IAS) of EU concern to which current legislation must apply. The list comprises species known to pose great threats to biodiversity and needs to be maintained and updated. Horizon scanning is seen as critical to identify the most threatening potential IAS that d...

Very frequently biological databases are used for analysing distribution of different taxa. These databases are usually the result of variable sampling effort and location uncertainty. The aim of this study was to test the influence of geographically biased sampling effort and spatial uncertainty of locations on models of species richness. For this...

No saturation in the introduction, acceleration of spread and the increasing impacts of alien species are a characteristic feature of the Anthropocene. Concomitantly, alien species affecting human health are supposed to increase, mainly due to increasing global trade and climate change. In this study, we assess challenges and solutions posed by suc...

There is mounting evidence that climate change will facilitate biological invasions. Regarding alien species relevant for human health, climate change can modify their impacts by altering the likelihood of their introduction, establishment, distribution and abundance, the scale of impacts and management. In this chapter, we summarize climate change...

The Austrian biodiversity monitoring in agricultural areas “ÖBM Kulturlandschaft has a focus on habitat and species diversity in cultural (open) landscapes, including alpine pastures. The central goal is to determine the present status and trends of Austrian biodiversity of cultural landscapes.

Land use intensification may create habitats that organisms perceive as suitable, but where reproduction or survival is insufficient to maintain self-sustaining populations. Such conditions may qualify as ecological traps, but their existence is often hard to prove. Here we provide a practical framework to evaluate a potential ecological trap resul...

Human activities such as the transport of species to new regions and modifications of the environment are increasingly reshaping the distribution of biota. Accordingly, developing robust, repeatable, and consistent definitions of alien species that serve scientific and policy purposes has become of prime importance. We provide a set of classificati...

Question What are the woody vegetation encroachment patterns after agricultural land abandonment? Focusing on two parameters, woody plant species richness and vertical vegetation heterogeneity (number of different vegetation strata and their relative cover), we investigated: i) the effect of forest encroachment following land abandonment, ii) the c...

Background Alien species are frequently considered a serious environmental threat but negative impacts on human health through injury, allergy, or as vectors of disease sometimes have the most dire consequences for human livelihoods. Climate change and the increasing magnitude and frequency of introductions of species across geographic barriers as...

Agricultural landscapes in the EU are undergoing fundamental changes in land use, farm structure and management, and these in turn impose socio-economic and environmental impacts. It is often difficult to isolate the impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from other co-acting drivers, but a large number of studies attempt to do so. The lit...

Biological invasions are a threat to biodiversity, society and the economy. There is an urgent need to provide evidence‐based assessments of the risks posed by invasive alien species ( IAS ) to prioritize action. Risk assessments underpin IAS policies in many ways: informing legislation; providing justification of restrictions in trade or consumer...

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, by 2020 invasive alien species (IAS) should be identified and their impacts assessed, so that species can be prioritized for implementation of appropriate control strategies and measures put in place to manage invasion pathways. For one quarter of the IAS listed as the “100 of the world's worst”...

Globalisation has led to unprecedented changes in the distribution and incidence of human diseases. Pathogens, animal vectors, and reservoir species have been unintentionally displaced across natural geographic boundaries, resulting in serious human suffering and enormous economic costs. Non-native diseases can also threaten ecosystems and put ecos...

Although research on human-mediated exchanges of species has substantially intensified during the last centuries, we know surprisingly little about temporal dynamics of alien species accumulations across regions and taxa. Using a novel database of 45,813 first records of 16,926 established alien species, we show that the annual rate of first record...

Supplementary Figures 1-12, Supplementary Tables 1-2, Supplementary Note 1 and Supplementary References

Interdisciplinarity is needed to gain knowledge of the ecology of invasive species and invaded ecosystems, and of the human dimensions of biological invasions. We combine a quantitative literature review with a qualitative historical narrative to document the progress of interdisciplinarity in invasion science since 1950. Our review shows that 92.4...

Several studies confirm that biodiversity loss endangers ecosystem services (ES) supply and human well-being. A better understanding of biodiversity–ES relationships and effects of biodiversity loss on ES supply is needed. The objective was to determine relationships between potential biodiversity and three ES in Patagonia where cattle ranching und...

It is difficult to map and quantify biodiversity at landscape level in areas with low data availability, despite demand from decision-makers. We propose a methodology to determine potential biodiversity pattern using habitat suitability maps of the understory plant species with highest cover and occurrence frequency in the three different forests t...

Protected areas play a key role in biodiversity conservation, yet they face numerous pressures including the spread of invasive alien species (IAS). We designed a structured online survey to investigate the distribution and management of 53 invasive alien plant species in large protected areas, i.e. national parks and biosphere reserves, in eight C...

Background Alien species are severely impacting the environment, public health and socioeconomy at a global scale. Their management is thus of crucial importance and the subject of intensive research efforts. Common ragweed Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. is an alien species with negative impacts on agriculture, human health and biodiversity. It is a hi...

Responding to different questions generated by biodiversity and ecosystem services policy or management requires different forms of knowledge (e.g. scientific, experiential) and knowledge synthesis. Additionally, synthesis methods need to be appropriate to policy context (e.g. question types, budget, timeframe, output type, required scientific rigo...

Science–policy-interfaces (SPIs) are expected to go beyond the linear model of scientific policy advice through creating spaces for exchange and dialogue between ‘policy’ and ‘knowledge’. Given that most environmental issues require inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, SPIs must take into account a variety of knowledge types, views and interest...

In order to develop BiodiversityKnowledge, a Network of Knowledge working at the European science–policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services, we conducted three trial assessments. Their purpose was to test structure and processes of the knowledge synthesis function and to produce knowledge syntheses. The trial assessments covered cons...

To respond to the need for a strengthened biodiversity science-policy-society interface at the European level, this paper presents the relevant actors and steps of a knowledge synthesis process relying on a Network of Knowledge. This process aims to maximize active involvement and contribution (including holders of traditional and local knowledge),...

The absence of a good interface between scientific and other knowledge holders and decision-makers in the area of biodiversity and ecosystem services has been recognised for a long time. Despite recent advancements, e.g. with the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), challenges remain, particularly concerning th...

How to effectively inform decision-making on biodiversity and ecosystem services has been under continuous debate in Europe and globally since the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted in 1992. On the global level the Intergovernmental science–policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was installed in 2012 to address this need...

Harnessing wind energy is seen as an environmentally friendly strategy to combat climate change. However, adverse environmental impacts have come to light for species that are prone to collision with wind turbine blades, such as vultures, leading to a conflict between wind energy industry and conservation. Our study area epitomized such a conflict,...