Assessing the sensitivity and robustness of the Living Planet Index through simulated population dynamics: strengths, stability, and challenges

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 4 of this Preprint. You must log in to post a comment. There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 4 of this Preprint. Add a Comment You must log in to post a comment. Comments There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. Understanding population change through time is crucial for effective conservation of biodiversity. The Living Planet Index (LPI) is a key indicator for tracking global species abundance trends under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, offering a picture of population change over time. However, the sensitivity of the index to zero values or to the number of missing values in time series has not been fully explored. Using simulations, we assessed how missing data and zero values influence the index and associated trends. We found that the LPI method is informative with complete datasets, as missing data raises variation but only results in minor deviations from baseline trends. In contrast, the presence and distribution of zeros within the underlying data substantially influence the results and produce significantly lower trends. These findings highlight the need to develop complementary approaches for evaluating how data heterogeneity influences LPI trends, towards a comprehensive understanding and better-informed decisions on biodiversity change https://doi.org/10.32942/X2F961 Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences Indicators, null models, decision making Published: 2026-05-07 14:39 Last Updated: 2026-05-12 08:36 CC-BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Data and Code Availability Statement: https://github.com/crcruzr/LPI_Simulations Language: English