The Time Machine framework: monitoring and prediction of biodiversity loss

Niamh Eastwood, William A. Stubbings, Mohamed Abou-Elwafa Abdallah, Isabelle Durance, Jouni Paavola, Martin Dallimer, Jelena H. Pantel, Samuel Johnson, Jiarui Zhou, J. Scott Hosking, James Brown, Sami Ullah, Stefan Krause, David Hannah, Sarah Crawford, Martin Widmann, Luisa Orsini

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

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Abstract

Transdisciplinary solutions are needed to achieve the sustainability of ecosystem services for future generations. We propose a framework to identify the causes of ecosystem function loss and to forecast the future of ecosystem services under different climate and pollution scenarios. The framework (i) applies an artificial intelligence (AI) time-series analysis to identify relationships among environmental change, biodiversity dynamics and ecosystem functions; (ii) validates relationships between loss of biodiversity and environmental change in fabricated ecosystems; and (iii) forecasts the likely future of ecosystem services and their socioeconomic impact under different pollution and climate scenarios. We illustrate the framework by applying it to watersheds, and provide system-level approaches that enable natural capital restoration by associating multidecadal biodiversity changes to chemical pollution.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)138-146
Number of pages9
JournalTrends in Ecology & Evolution
Volume37
Issue number2
Early online date9 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank William Scavone, Kestrel Studio, USA, for the artwork in Figure 1 and Chantal Jackson for the artwork in Figure 2 . This work was supported by The Alan Turing Institute under the EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1 , the Natural Environment Research Council ( NE/N005716/1 ), and a MIBTP-BBSRC PhD fellowship to N.E. ( BB/M01116X/1 ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Ecosystem function
  • AI
  • Economic valuation
  • Time-series
  • Climate
  • Pollution
  • ecosystem function
  • time-series
  • climate
  • pollution
  • artificial intelligence
  • economic valuation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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