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Reply to: Do not downplay biodiversity loss

Nature volume 601, pages E29–E31 (2022)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 26 January 2022

replying to M. Loreau et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04179-7 (2022)

In the accompanying Comment1, Loreau et al. present two main criticisms of our article2: (1) that because annual population fluctuations are high and declines gradual, only ‘long-term’ time series can be trusted; and (2) that heterogeneity in the Living Planet Database (LPD) makes it more difficult to interpret aggregate trends. The first criticism is based on a simple statistical misunderstanding, and the second argument is a main point that is addressed in the original article2 and—explicitly—by the Bayesian hierarchical mixture (BHM) model. Nonetheless, we agree these issues are worth discussing, and ultimately reinforce the use of BHM and the conclusions of our paper2.

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Fig. 1: Mean log annual growth rates as a function of the number of yearly abundance estimates in each time series.

Data availability

Data can be accessed from the Living Planet Index database (www.livingplanetindex.org/).

References

  1. Loreau, M. et al. Do not downplay biodiversity loss. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04179-7 (2022).

  2. Leung, B. et al. Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines. Nature 588, 267–271 (2020).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery grant to B.L.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Brian Leung & Anna L. Hargreaves

  2. Bieler School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Brian Leung

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    Dan A. Greenberg

  4. School of Biology and Ecology and Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Brian McGill

  5. Centre for Biological Diversity, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Maria Dornelas

  6. Indicators and Assessments Unit, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK

    Robin Freeman

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  1. Brian Leung
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Contributions

B.L. wrote the response. A.L.H. and D.A.G. helped with writing, editing and discussing ideas. B.M. and M.D. discussed ideas and helped with editing. R.F. contributed discussions to the original manuscript2.

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Correspondence to Brian Leung.

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Leung, B., Hargreaves, A.L., Greenberg, D.A. et al. Reply to: Do not downplay biodiversity loss. Nature 601, E29–E31 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04180-0

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