Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31679498›Full record

ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019

Unshifting the baseline: a framework for documenting historical population changes and assessing long-term anthropogenic impacts.

Ana S L Rodrigues, Sophie Monsarrat, Anne Charpentier, Thomas M Brooks, Michael Hoffmann, Randall Reeves, Maria L D Palomares, Samuel T Turvey

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
20citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

20 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Biodiversity isn't measured in tons: Making sense of nature in the context of sustainable agriculture.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026
    Review
  2. Population Collapse of the Spidery Wattle (Ecology and evolution · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. New Perspectives on European Wildcat (Ecology and evolution · 2025
    Article
  7. Article
  8. LIFE: A metric for mapping the impact of land-cover change on global extinctions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Variation in stable carbon (δEcology and evolution · 2024
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Insights from the past: unique opportunity or foreign country?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Ana S L RodriguesCentre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175 (CNRS-Université de Montpellier-UPVM-EPHE), 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France.
Sophie MonsarratCenter for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE), Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Anne CharpentierCentre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175 (CNRS-Université de Montpellier-UPVM-EPHE), 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France.
Thomas M BrooksInternational Union for Conservation of Nature, 28 Rue Mauverney, 1196 Gland, Switzerland.
Michael HoffmannConservation and Policy, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK.
Randall ReevesOkapi Wildlife Associates, 27 Chandler Lane, Hudson, Quebec, Canada JOP 1HO.
Maria L D PalomaresSea Around Us, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Samuel T TurveyInstitute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Ecological baselines-reference states of species' distributions and abundances-are key to the scientific arguments underpinning many conservation and management interventions, as well as to the public support to such interventions. Yet societal as well as scientific perceptions of these baselines are often based on ecosystems that have been deeply transformed by human actions. Despite increased awareness about the pervasiveness and implications of this shifting baseline syndrome, ongoing global assessments of the state of biodiversity do not take into account the long-term, cumulative, anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Here, we propose a new framework for documenting such impacts, by classifying populations according to the extent to which they deviate from a baseline in the absence of human actions. We apply this framework to the bowhead whale (

Indexed as

BiodiversityBowhead WhaleHuman ActivitiesAnimalsConservation of Natural Resourcesanthropogenic impactsecological baselinesepoch assessmentspopulation depletionpopulation recoveryshifting baseline

Identifiers

PMID31679498
PMCPMC6863499

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.