Abundance decline in the avifauna of the European Union reveals cross-continental similarities in biodiversity change

Although global assessments provide evidence of biodiversity decline, some have questioned the strength of the evidence, with local assemblage studies often showing a more balanced picture of biodiversity change. The multifaceted nature of biodiversity and imperfect monitoring datasets may partially explain these findings. Here, using an extensive dataset, we find significant biodiversity loss in the native avifauna of the European Union (EU). We estimate a decline of 17–19% in the overall breeding bird abundance since 1980: a loss of 560–620 million individual birds.