ArticleNature communications2024
Mathematical biases in the calculation of the Living Planet Index lead to overestimation of vertebrate population decline.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of Biodiversity Loss on Freshwater Ecosystem Functions Increase With the Number of Stressors.Global change biology · 2025Pooled it
- Widespread declines of formerly common species reshape local assemblages over time.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Biodiversity conservation requires integration of species-centric and process-based strategies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Intermediate insights: tracing trematodes infecting amphibians via their first intermediate snail hosts.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- The utility of the Living Planet Index as a policy tool and for measuring nature recovery.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Living Planet Index (LPI) measures the average change in population size of vertebrate species over recent decades and has been repeatedly used to assess the changing state of nature. The LPI indicates that vertebrate populations have decreased by almost 70% over the last 50 years. This is in striking contrast with current studies based on the same population time series data that show that increasing and decreasing populations are balanced on average. Here, we examine the methodological pipeline of calculating the LPI to search for the source of this discrepancy. We find that the calculation of the LPI is biased by several mathematical issues which impose an imbalance between detected increasing and decreasing trends and overestimate population declines. Rather than indicating that vertebrate populations do not substantially change, our findings imply that we need better measures for providing a balanced picture of current biodiversity changes. We also show some modifications to improve the reliability of the LPI.
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