Table 2.

Biodiversity proxies for linking democracy with biodiversity conservation

Biodiversity proxy	Data availability	Articles	Link to biodiversity	Advantage	Disadvantage
Deforestation	Good	37	Proxy for habitat loss	Global Time-series Data availability	Indirect link to biodiversity Link to biodiversity spatially variable Only indirectly linked to biodiversity
Protected area	Good	8	Proxy for habitat loss	Global Time-series Data availability	Represents commitment rather than state of biodiversity Might be decoupled from biodiversity Biased by socio-economic variables
Red list threat	Medium	4	Per species extinction risk	Global Data availability Direct link to biodiversity loss	Expensive and time intensive Little change through time Temporally limited Taxonomically limited
Marine trophic Index	Good	4	Description of food chain length	Global Time-series Data availability Functional diversity	Indirect link to biodiversity Marine only Only small part of country level biodiversity Link to country borders simplistic
Land-use change	Good	3	Proxy for habitat loss	Global Time-series Data availability	Indirect link to biodiversity
Species abundance	Poor	1	Species number and abundance	Major component of biodiversity Responsive to human pressure Responsive to conservation	Time-lagged response Expensive and time intensive Confounding natural factors No standardized data available
Metabarcoding	Poor	0	Genetic diversity, species number	High taxonomic coverage Relatively cheap Global Time-series	Currently very little data available Method development ongoing