Authors: T. J. Clark-Wolf, Katie A. Holt, Erik Johansson, Anna C. Nisi, Kasim Rafiq, Leigh West, P. Dee Boersma, Elliott L. Hazen, Sue E. Moore, Briana Abrahms
Journal: Journal of Applied Ecology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14669
“A major obstacle to preventing and reversing biodiversity loss in the Anthropocene lies in the scarcity of tools and data for monitoring the health and trajectory of ecosystems. Sentinel species can provide insight into unobserved ecosystem change, but it is unclear how effective sentinels are due to the local, context-dependent nature of past research.
Here, we present the first global evaluation on the effectiveness of sentinel species as indicators of ecosystem change. We conducted a meta-analysis on 372 case studies to identify the ecological and methodological factors that correlate with the most effective sentinel species.”
Photo credit: NOAA / Dr. Kathy Crane
