Expert judgment underpins assessment of threatened ecosystems. However, experts are often narrowly defined, and variability in their judgments may be substantial. Models built from structured elicitation with large diverse expert panels can contribute to more consistent and transparent decision‐making. We conducted a structured elicitation under a broad definition of expertise to examine variation in judgments of ecosystem via...

Identifying threatened ecosystem types is fundamental to conservation and management decision‐making. When identification relies on expert judgment, decisions are vulnerable to inconsistent outcomes and can lack transparency. We elicited judgements of the occurrence of a widespread, critically endangered Australian ecosystem from a diverse pool of 83 experts. We asked 4 questions. First, how many experts are required to reliab...

Measuring the status and trends of biodiversity is critical for making informed decisions about the conservation, management or restoration of species, habitats and ecosystems. Defining the reference state against which status and change are measured is essential. Typically, reference states describe historical conditions, yet historical conditions are challenging to quantify, may be difficult to falsify, and may no longer be...