Publications by authors named "G D Powney"

Policy makers require high-level summaries of biodiversity change. However, deriving such summaries from raw biodiversity data is a complex process involving several intermediary stages. In this paper, we describe an operational workflow for generating annual estimates of species occupancy at national scales from raw species occurrence data, which can be used to construct a range of policy-relevant biodiversity indicators.

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In most circumstances, probability sampling is the only way to ensure unbiased inference about population quantities where a complete census is not possible. As we enter the era of 'big data', however, nonprobability samples, whose sampling mechanisms are unknown, are undergoing a renaissance. We explain why the use of nonprobability samples can lead to spurious conclusions, and why seemingly large nonprobability samples can be (effectively) very small.

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Aggregated species occurrence and abundance data from disparate sources are increasingly accessible to ecologists for the analysis of temporal trends in biodiversity. However, sampling biases relevant to any given research question are often poorly explored and infrequently reported; this can undermine statistical inference. In other disciplines, it is common for researchers to complete 'risk-of-bias' assessments to expose and document the potential for biases to undermine conclusions.

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Species occurrence records from a variety of sources are increasingly aggregated into heterogeneous databases and made available to ecologists for immediate analytical use. However, these data are typically biased, i.e.

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Article Synopsis
  • The urgency to take action against global warming is increasing, making it important to create different scenarios that account for social, economic, and environmental factors.
  • Recently, new methods for analyzing future scenarios have been developed, especially with the help of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tools like Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).
  • In the UK, while there are detailed climate projections based on RCPs, there hasn't been an equivalent development for SSPs, so a new set of UK-specific scenarios has been created by combining local insights with broader European and global data.
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