Indicator of biodiversity

Ethnopharmacological studies carried out in Brazilian forests are promising instruments for the discovery of new drugs the high indices of biodiversity and endemism associated to a process of intense miscegenation resulted in considerable wealth of knowledge on the flora. 

Table 2. Rank correlations between six species richness indicators of biodiversity...

IVA 11a] Ivanisevic J., Thomas O.P., Lejeusne C. et al., Metabolic fingerprinting as an indicator of biodiversity towards nnderstanding interspecific relationships among Homoscleromorpha sponges , Metabolomics, vol. 7, pp. 289-304,2011. 

Changes in the composition of the atmosphere are perhaps our most valid indicators of the influence of human activities on global systems. The next best barometer may very well be loss of biodiversity due to habitat destruction. 

Our primary focus here is on these questions where partial or incomplete orderings are directly informative to conservation, remediation, or allocation issues of environmental management. Biodiversity and ecosystem health are multifaceted concerns that are most readily and objectively approached through suites of indicators. Prioritization of landscape units in these regards is also intrinsically complex. If a subset of indicators is essentially concordant across all cases of observation, then the indicators in the (sub)set are also substantially redundant. On the other hand, indicators representing largely independent dimensions of biodiversity or ecosystem health will almost necessarily complicate prioritization processes because there will be less consistency in how the respective landscape units reflect... 

Natural phosphorus compounds are not harmful to living organisms, and are even considered to be indicators of the quality of life. Their surplus may cause the eutrophication that enhances the production of biomass in ecosystems, that in surface waters can result in a limitation of oxygen availability that ultimately proves fatal to water-borne life systems. A slight surplus of phosphorus within terrestrial ecosystems may lead to limitations in biodiversity. 

For the implementation of a land use category in the ISO methodological framework of LCI, several category indicators have been proposed. Mila i Canals et al. present an overview of currently used indicators of land use quality, differentiating between three impact pathways impacts on biodiversity, on biotic production potential, and on ecological soil quality [19]. They also discuss which kind of information is needed from the inventory to apply the respective indicator, which is considerably more than the simple information for occupation interventions. Mila i Canals et al. [19] also define a transformation impact which represents the difference between a reference state, where land use would not have been changed compared to the actual changes in the system under study. 

When the impact of process scale is viewed from the planetary boundaries perspective, the inherent multicriteria nature of any sustainability assessment is indispensable. Even when only environmental LCA impacts are accounted for, studies have shown that certain boundaries have been crossed or are very close to the limit (i.e., with respect to climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen and phosphorous cycles), while others are stiU reasonably well safeguarded (i.e., stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, and freshwater use) [64]. It is therefore possible that different production sectors may have an impact on different planetary boundaries some of which may be within or already outside their safe operating space. For instance, studies have indicated the severe impacts of plastic debris on marine organisms [65]. Thus, from a cradle-to-grave LCA perspective, fossil-based plastics production may have a more direct or at least a different kind of effect in terms of biodiversity compared to fossil-based fuel production, which is certainly in higher production scales. 

Bombard, B., Brown, C., Bruno, J., Carpenter, K. E. Carr, et al. (2010) Global biodiversity indicators of recent declines. Science, 328 1164-1168. 

Describe the known or probable primary centre(s) of origin, as well as secondary centres where additional important variability or biodiversity may occur, whether naturally (e.g. Beta) or through the process of domestication (e.g. Zea mays, Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum). The evolutionary centres important for natural biodiversity should be mentioned, and the central areas of domestication and landrace diversity, with indication of the centres relative importance. Genetic diversity is covered in Section 111. Provide a brief sketch of the history or extent of domestication including mention of relevant domestication traits (e.g. non-shattering, loss of seed dormancy). 

An even more streamlined approach scores each stage of the life cycle for impact on a number of environmental indicators. Typical indicators include resource depletion, global warming potential, smog production, acidification, eutrophication, toxic waste production and biodiversity impact. Impact is estimated using a simple numerical scale. The completed matrix is used to focus attention on areas for improvement. 

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