Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Global genetic diversity status and trends: towards a suite of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) for genetic composition

Hoban, Sean, Archer, Frederick I., Bertola, Laura D., Bragg, Jason G., Breed, Martin F., Bruford, Michael W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6357-6080, Coleman, Melinda A., Ekblom, Robert, Funk, W. Chris, Grueber, Catherine E., Hand, Brian K., Jaffé, Rodolfo, Jensen, Evelyn, Johnson, Jeremy S., Kershaw, Francine, Liggins, Libby, MacDonald, Anna J., Mergeay, Joachim, Miller, Joshua M., Muller-Karger, Frank, O'Brien, David, Paz-Vinas, Ivan, Potter, Kevin M., Razgour, Orly, Vernesi, Cristiano and Hunter, Margaret E. 2022. Global genetic diversity status and trends: towards a suite of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) for genetic composition. Biological Reviews 97 (4) , pp. 1511-1538. 10.1111/brv.12852

[thumbnail of Global genetic diversity status and trends - towards a suite of Essential BiodiversityVariables (EBVs) for genetic composition.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (3MB) | Preview

Abstract

Biodiversity underlies ecosystem resilience, ecosystem function, sustainable economies, and human well-being. Understanding how biodiversity sustains ecosystems under anthropogenic stressors and global environmental change will require new ways of deriving and applying biodiversity data. A major challenge is that biodiversity data and knowledge are scattered, biased, collected with numerous methods, and stored in inconsistent ways. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has developed the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as fundamental metrics to help aggregate, harmonize, and interpret biodiversity observation data from diverse sources. Mapping and analyzing EBVs can help to evaluate how aspects of biodiversity are distributed geographically and how they change over time. EBVs are also intended to serve as inputs and validation to forecast the status and trends of biodiversity, and to support policy and decision making. Here, we assess the feasibility of implementing Genetic Composition EBVs (Genetic EBVs), which are metrics of within-species genetic variation. We review and bring together numerous areas of the field of genetics and evaluate how each contributes to global and regional genetic biodiversity monitoring with respect to theory, sampling logistics, metadata, archiving, data aggregation, modeling, and technological advances. We propose four Genetic EBVs: (i) Genetic Diversity; (ii) Genetic Differentiation; (iii) Inbreeding; and (iv) Effective Population Size (Ne). We rank Genetic EBVs according to their relevance, sensitivity to change, generalizability, scalability, feasibility and data availability. We outline the workflow for generating genetic data underlying the Genetic EBVs, and review advances and needs in archiving genetic composition data and metadata. We discuss how Genetic EBVs can be operationalized by visualizing EBVs in space and time across species and by forecasting Genetic EBVs beyond current observations using various modeling approaches. Our review then explores challenges of aggregation, standardization, and costs of operationalizing the Genetic EBVs, as well as future directions and opportunities to maximize their uptake globally in research and policy. The collection, annotation, and availability of genetic data has made major advances in the past decade, each of which contributes to the practical and standardized framework for large-scale genetic observation reporting. Rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology present new opportunities, but also challenges for operationalizing Genetic EBVs for biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally. With these advances, genetic composition monitoring is starting to be integrated into global conservation policy, which can help support the foundation of all biodiversity and species' long-term persistence in the face of environmental change. We conclude with a summary of concrete steps for researchers and policy makers for advancing operationalization of Genetic EBVs. The technical and analytical foundations of Genetic EBVs are well developed, and conservation practitioners should anticipate their increasing application as efforts emerge to scale up genetic biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Biosciences
Additional Information: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Publisher: Wiley
ISSN: 1464-7931
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 1 June 2022
Date of Acceptance: 2 March 2022
Last Modified: 06 Jan 2024 02:46
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/150193

Citation Data

Cited 12 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics