地下生态系统是地球上最广泛的环境之一,然而我们仍然对它们的生物多样性知之甚少。为了提高人们对地下生态系统的认识,他们提供的基本服务,以及他们独特的保护挑战,2021年和2022年被指定为国际洞穴和喀斯特年。由于这些生态系统传统上在全球保护议程和多边协议中被忽视,对基于解决方案的保护地下生物群和相关栖息地的方法进行定量评估是及时的。这项评估使研究人员和从业人员能够了解地下生态和管理方面的进展和研究需求。我们对全球地下生态系统的同行评审和灰色文献进行了系统回顾(陆地,淡水,和盐水系统),量化保护干预措施有效性的现有证据基础。我们选择了1964年至2021年的708份出版物,推荐,或在地下生态系统中实施了1,954项保护干预措施。我们注意到,从2000年代开始,研究数量急剧增加,令人惊讶的是,近年来,量化保护干预措施影响的研究比例稳步显著下降.31%的保护干预措施的有效性已经过统计检验。我们进一步强调,所报告的研究中有64%发生在古和近海生物地理区域。对保护干预措施有效性的评估严重偏向于间接措施(监测和风险评估),有限的生物样本(主要是节肢动物和蝙蝠),和更容易进入的系统(地面洞穴)。我们的结果表明,地下生物学领域的大多数保护科学都没有采用严格的定量方法,导致干预措施有效性的证据很少。这就提出了一个重要的问题,即如何使保护工作更加可行地实施,成本效益高,和持久的。虽然没有单一的补救措施,我们提出了一套潜在的解决方案,以使我们的工作更加集中于增加统计测试,并强调标准化研究报告以促进荟萃分析练习的重要性。我们还提供了一个数据库,总结了现有的文献,这将有助于建立有关干预措施的定量知识,这些干预措施可能会根据感兴趣的地下物种和栖息地产生最大的影响。我们认为这是一个起点,以摆脱基于轶事和专家信息而不是科学证据推荐保护干预措施的普遍趋势,没有定量测试它们的有效性。
Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems have traditionally been overlooked in global conservation agendas and multilateral agreements, a quantitative assessment of solution-based approaches to safeguard subterranean biota and associated habitats is timely. This assessment allows researchers and practitioners to understand the progress made and research needs in subterranean ecology and management. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature focused on subterranean ecosystems globally (terrestrial, freshwater, and saltwater systems), to quantify the available evidence-base for the effectiveness of conservation interventions. We selected 708 publications from the years 1964 to 2021 that discussed, recommended, or implemented 1,954 conservation interventions in subterranean ecosystems. We noted a steep increase in the number of studies from the 2000s while, surprisingly, the proportion of studies quantifying the impact of conservation interventions has steadily and significantly decreased in recent years. The effectiveness of 31% of conservation interventions has been tested statistically. We further highlight that 64% of the reported research occurred in the Palearctic and Nearctic biogeographic regions. Assessments of the effectiveness of conservation interventions were heavily biased towards indirect measures (monitoring and risk assessment), a limited sample of organisms (mostly arthropods and bats), and more accessible systems (terrestrial caves). Our results indicate that most conservation science in the field of subterranean biology does not apply a rigorous quantitative approach, resulting in sparse evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. This raises the important question of how to make conservation efforts more feasible to implement, cost-effective, and long-lasting. Although there is no single remedy, we propose a suite of potential solutions to focus our efforts better towards increasing statistical testing and stress the importance of standardising study reporting to facilitate meta-analytical exercises. We also provide a database summarising the available literature, which will help to build quantitative knowledge about interventions likely to yield the greatest impacts depending upon the subterranean species and habitats of interest. We view this as a starting point to shift away from the widespread tendency of recommending conservation interventions based on anecdotal and expert-based information rather than scientific evidence, without quantitatively testing their effectiveness.