title: Standardized Assessment of Biodiversity Trends in Tropical Forest Protected Areas: The End Is Not in Sight.
abstract: Extinction rates in the Anthropocene are three orders of magnitude higher than background and disproportionately occur in the tropics, home of half the world's species. Despite global efforts to combat tropical species extinctions, lack of high-quality, objective information on tropical biodiversity has hampered quantitative evaluation of conservation strategies. In particular, the scarcity of population-level monitoring in tropical forests has stymied assessment of biodiversity outcomes, such as the status and trends of animal populations in protected areas. Here, we evaluate occupancy trends for 511 populations of terrestrial mammals and birds, representing 244 species from 15 tropical forest protected areas on three continents. For the first time to our knowledge, we use annual surveys from tropical forests worldwide that employ a standardized camera trapping protocol, and we compute data analytics that correct for imperfect detection. We found that occupancy declined in 22%, increased in 17%, and exhibited no change in 22% of populations during the last 3-8 years, while 39% of populations were detected too infrequently to assess occupancy changes. Despite extensive variability in occupancy trends, these 15 tropical protected areas have not exhibited systematic declines in biodiversity (i.e., occupancy, richness, or evenness) at the community level. Our results differ from reports of widespread biodiversity declines based on aggregated secondary data and expert opinion and suggest less extreme deterioration in tropical forest protected areas. We simultaneously fill an important conservation data gap and demonstrate the value of large-scale monitoring infrastructure and powerful analytics, which can be scaled to incorporate additional sites, ecosystems, and monitoring methods. In an era of catastrophic biodiversity loss, robust indicators produced from standardized monitoring infrastructure are critical to accurately assess population outcomes and identify conservation strategies that can avert biodiversity collapse.
authors.affiliation: Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Lydia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Beaudrot
authors.affiliation: Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jorge A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ahumada
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Timothy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: Center for Tropical Conservation, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alvarez-Loayza
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Boekee
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, Mindset Interdisciplinary Centre for Tropical Environmental Studies, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Ahimsa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Campos-Arceiz
authors.affiliation: HP Sustainability, HP Inc., Palo Alto, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Eichberg
authors.affiliation: Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador.
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Espinosa
authors.affiliation: Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fegraus
authors.affiliation: Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fletcher
authors.affiliation: Conservation International Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname.
authors.forename: Krisna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gajapersad
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Society-Lao PDR Program, Vientiane, Lao PDR.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hallam
authors.affiliation: Organization for Tropical Studies, La Selva Biological Station, Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hurtado
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.|Center for Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Republic of Panama.
authors.forename: Patrick A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Jansen
authors.affiliation: Enterprise Services, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Palo Alto, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Centre ValBio, Ranomafana, Madagascar.|Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Eileen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Larney
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Pará, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Pará, Brasil.
authors.forename: Marcela Guimarães Moreira
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.affiliation: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Big Data, Palo Alto, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mahony
authors.affiliation: Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Centre, Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania.|Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
authors.forename: Emanuel H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Society-Lao PDR Program, Vientiane, Lao PDR.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McWilliam
authors.affiliation: Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC), Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mbarara, Uganda.|Department of Biology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.|Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Badru
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mugerwa
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Society-Congo Program, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
authors.forename: Mireille
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ndoundou-Hockemba
authors.affiliation: Centre ValBio, Ranomafana, Madagascar.
authors.forename: Jean Claude
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Razafimahaimodison
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Yachay Tech University, Urcuquí, Imbabura, Ecuador.
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Romero-Saltos
authors.affiliation: Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Centre, Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania.|Tropical Biodiversity, MUSE-Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rovero
authors.affiliation: Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salvador
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Pará, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Pará, Brasil.
authors.forename: Fernanda
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Natural (INA) Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway.|Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sheil
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Wilson R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Spironello
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Willig
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Climate Change, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia.
authors.forename: Nurul L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Winarni
authors.affiliation: Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zvoleff
authors.affiliation: Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sandy J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Andelman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004463:Ecology / Q000379:methods; D065928:Forests; D008322:Mammals; D014329:Tropical Climate