Many factors are involved in determining the latitudinal and altitudinal spread of the important tick vector Ixodes ricinus (Acari: Ixodidae) in Europe, as well as in changes in the distribution within its prior endemic zones. This paper builds on published literature and unpublished expert opinion from the VBORNET network with the aim of reviewing the evidence for these changes in Europe and discusses the many climatic, ecological, landscape and anthropogenic drivers. These can be divided into those directly related to climatic change, contributing to an expansion in the tick’s geographic range at extremes of altitude in central Europe, and at extremes of latitude in Scandinavia; those related to changes in the distribution of tick hosts, particularly roe deer and other cervids; other ecological changes such as habitat connectivity and changes in land management; and finally, anthropogenically induced changes. These factors are strongly interlinked and often not well quantified. Although a change in climate plays an important role in certain geographic regions, for much of Europe it is non-climatic factors that are becoming increasingly important. How we manage habitats on a landscape scale, and the changes in the distribution and abundance of tick hosts are important considerations during our assessment and management of the public health risks associated with ticks and tick-borne disease issues in 21st century Europe. Better understanding and mapping of the spread of I. ricinus (and changes in its abundance) is, however, essential to assess the risk of the spread of infections transmitted by this vector species. Enhanced tick surveillance with harmonized approaches for comparison of data enabling the follow-up of trends at EU level will improve the messages on risk related to tick-borne diseases to policy makers, other stake holders and to the general public.

Abstract:  The monitoring of trends in the status of species or habitats is routine in developed countries, where it is funded by the state or large nongovernmental organizations and often involves large numbers of skilled amateur volunteers. Far less monitoring of natural resources takes place in developing countries, where state agencies have small budgets, there are fewer skilled professionals or amateurs, and socioeconomic conditions prevent development of a culture of volunteerism. The resulting lack of knowledge about trends in species and habitats presents a serious challenge for detecting, understanding, and reversing declines in natural resource values. International environmental agreements require signatories undertake systematic monitoring of their natural resources, but no system exists to guide the development and expansion of monitoring schemes. To help develop such a protocol, we suggest a typology of monitoring categories, defined by their degree of local participation, ranging from no local involvement with monitoring undertaken by professional researchers to an entirely local effort with monitoring undertaken by local people. We assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each monitoring category and the potential of each to be sustainable in developed or developing countries. Locally based monitoring is particularly relevant in developing countries, where it can lead to rapid decisions to solve the key threats affecting natural resources, can empower local communities to better manage their resources, and can refine sustainable‐use strategies to improve local livelihoods. Nevertheless, we recognize that the accuracy and precision of the monitoring undertaken by local communities in different situations needs further study and field protocols need to be further developed to get the best from the unrealized potential of this approach. A challenge to conservation biologists is to identify and establish the monitoring system most relevant to a particular situation and to develop methods to integrate outputs from across the spectrum of monitoring schemes to produce wider indices of natural resources that capture the strengths of each.

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in temperate regions of North America, Europe and Asia, and the number of reported cases has increased in many regions as landscapes have been altered. Although there has been extensive work on the ecology and epidemiology of this disease in both Europe and North America, substantial uncertainty exists about fundamental aspects that determine spatial and temporal variation in both disease risk and human incidence, which hamper effective and efficient prevention and control. Here we describe areas of consensus that can be built on, identify areas of uncertainty and outline research needed to fill these gaps to facilitate predictive models of disease risk and the development of novel disease control strategies. Key areas of uncertainty include: (i) the precise influence of deer abundance on tick abundance, (ii) how tick populations are regulated, (iii) assembly of host communities and tick-feeding patterns across different habitats, (iv) reservoir competence of host species, and (v) pathogenicity for humans of different genotypes of Borrelia burgdorferi . Filling these knowledge gaps will improve Lyme disease prevention and control and provide general insights into the drivers and dynamics of this emblematic multi-host–vector-borne zoonotic disease. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications'.

Summary: 1. Solutions to the global environmental crisis require scientific knowledge and responses spanning different spatial scales and levels of societal organization; yet understanding how to translate environmental knowledge into decision‐making and action remains limited. 2. We examined 104 published environmental monitoring schemes to assess whether participation in data collection and analysis influences the speed and scale of decision‐making and action. 3. Our results show that scientist‐executed monitoring informs decisions within regions, nations and international conventions. However, decisions typically take 3–9 years to be implemented. 4. We also show that scientist‐executed monitoring has little impact at the village scale, where many natural resource management decisions are made. 5. At the village scale, monitoring schemes that involve local people, and relate to resource utilization at the village level, are much more effective at influencing decisions; these decisions typically take 0–1 year to be implemented. 6. Synthesis and applications. Involving local stakeholders in monitoring enhances management responses at local spatial scales, and increases the speed of decision‐making to tackle environmental challenges at operational levels of resource management.

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is a policy mechanism now agreed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from developing countries through the sustainable management of forests, while providing co‐benefits of biodiversity conservation and livelihood support. Implementation challenges include linking remote sensing and national forest inventories of carbon stocks, to local implementation and measuring carbon loss from forest degradation. Community‐based forest monitoring can help overcome some of these challenges. We show that local people can collect forest condition data of comparable quality to trained scientists, at half the cost. We draw on our experience to propose how and where local REDD+ monitoring can be established. Empowering communities to own and monitor carbon stocks could provide a rapid and cost‐effective way of absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, while potentially contributing to local livelihoods and forest biodiversity conservation.

The rapid global growth of conservation schemes designed to incentivize local communities to conserve natural resources has placed new importance on biological monitoring to assess whether agreements and targets linked to payments are being met. To evaluate competence in natural resource monitoring, we compared data on status and trends collected independently by local-community members and trained scientists for 63 taxa and five types of resource use in 34 tropical forest sites across four countries over 2.5 years. We hypothesized that the results would vary according to differences in the education and value systems of the monitors. We found that, despite considerable differences in countries, cultures, and the types of natural resources monitored, the community members and the scientists produced similar results for the status of and trends in species and natural resources. Our findings highlight the potential value of locally based natural resource monitoring for conservation decisionmaking across developing countries.