Applications of Living Planet Index

The Living Planet Index is an indicator designed to monitor the state of the world’s biodiversity. Specifically, it tracks trends in a large number of populations of species in much the same way that a stock market index tracks the value of a set of shares or a retail price index tracks the cost of a basket of consumer goods.

The Living Planet Index is based on the population trends of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish species from around the globe. The Living Planet Database (LPD) currently holds time-series data for over 10,000 populations of more than 2000 vertebrate species from around the world.

The changes in the population of each species are averaged and shown relative to 1970, which is given a value of 1.0.

The following figures are examples of how the Living Planet Index method has been used to analyse population data. These indices have been used to demonstrate temporal trends in the abundance of vertebrate species on a global, national and regional scale.