What this plate is
The Harz — one real German landscape, shown as a representative sample .
The index on this page is measured over the whole country and nothing on it was measured here.
What is drawn
What is not drawn
No protected-area boundary. The subject of this index is a national
territory, not a reserve. Germany holds some 58,000 protected areas covering 39.3% of it, so an
outline of any one of them would say less than this note does.
No species markers. All ten species are counted nationally, so a mark
on this plate would claim a location the measurement does not have. They are in the Priority
Species Index chapter, each with its own annual series.
✕
What this page is · and is not
Germany — the whole country
The Priority Species Index on this page is computed over the German national
territory: 357,596 km², of which roughly 32% (114,190 km²) is natural habitat. That is the unit
of aggregation, and it is why this page behaves differently from the other Priority Species
Index landscapes, each of which is one place. Ten species stand behind it. The index is stated
at six points, 2009 to 2019, two years apart:
eight species enter it at 2009 and 2011, all ten from 2013 (nine measured in 2019, one carried
forward under Appendix C). The species series behind it are annual: eight of the ten run every
year from 2009 to 2019, the Eurasian lynx 2013 to 2018 and the European hedgehog 2012 to 2019,
as tabulated in Table 5 of the Supplementary Material.
Why the index chapter says “not comparable”. Each point on the
index is an average over the species it holds that year. The Eurasian lynx and the European
hedgehog join from 2013, so the points before 2013 average eight species and the points from 2013
average ten. A change across that join mixes a change in the animals with a change in which animals
are being averaged, so the page does not quote one rise “since 2009”. The chart marks the join.
Extent 357,596 km² national territory
Natural habitat 114,190 km² about 32%
Protected areas some 58,000 39.3% of the country
Species in the index 10 of 11 evaluated
Index points 6 2009–2019, two years apart
Index 100.0 → 146.8 geometric mean, 2009 = 100; 8 species, then 10
Three things this page does not do
It draws no protected-area boundary. The subject is a country, not a
reserve and not a reserve network. Germany holds some 58,000 protected areas covering 39.3% of
its territory; an outline of any one of them would assert that the index is about that place,
and an outline of all of them would assert a national inventory this page has not built. So
nothing is drawn, and the map key says so where a reader is looking for a legend.
It does not recompute the index. The index is computed over all ten
species, the wolf among them, as the Supplementary Material states it (Table 5, as revised on
2026-09-29). A geometric mean recomputed from the ten inputs this page holds does not reproduce
the stated series to rounding, so the index shown is the figure the source states.
It withholds the leave-one-out sensitivity analysis. That analysis —
remove one species, see where the index lands — is the strongest argument a Priority Species
Index page can make, and it is withheld here. A geometric mean recomputed from
the ten species' inputs this page holds differs from the stated series in every year from 2011,
by 0.8 to 6.6 index points (153.40 against the stated 146.84 in 2019). The 2019 roster does not
explain it: the gap is there in years when every species present was measured. Its cause is an
open question for the paper's authors. Every leave-one-out figure would be measured against a
baseline this page cannot reproduce, so none is published.
What the plate is
The terrain under these chapters is the Harz , and it is a
representative plate — one real German landscape at a scale this engine has proven.
Nothing measured on this page was measured on that ground. The reason is arithmetic rather than
taste: the largest plate this engine has ever shipped is about 78,050 km², so a country-wide
satellite drape of Germany would be roughly four and a half times an unproven build. Until a
whole-country build is ready, the honest move is a sample that says it is a sample.
Relief on the plate is vertically exaggerated 3x. The elevation model runs from
76 m to 1,139 m across this frame — that range is the minimum and maximum of the
DEM this page actually renders, measured by us , not a figure quoted from a gazetteer, so
it is a statement about our own data. Elevation is Copernicus GLO-30; imagery is a median
composite of 14 Sentinel-2 L2A scenes from 2026; roads, rivers and still water are
OpenStreetMap. Place labels were read from OpenStreetMap through Nominatim, not typed from
memory.
An interim page
This page is interim . A whole-country build of Germany follows; until it
is ready, this page stands in for it. The index figures on it come from the study's Supplementary
Material and are measured over the whole country, whichever page shows them.
Every figure on this page is generated
from the transcribed source workbook rather than typed — see the index chapter for the full
series, the per-species years and a download of every number. The transcription has not
yet been checked by a second reader, and the page says so where the figures are. Extent, habitat
share and the protected-area totals are from the source document's own description of the
country. Elevation: Copernicus GLO-30. Imagery: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026.
Boundaries, water, roads and place names: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Imagery: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026 · Elevation: produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved (Copernicus GLO-30). The organisations in charge of the Copernicus programme by law or by delegation do not incur any liability for any use of the Copernicus WorldDEM-30. · Water, roads & place names: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Priority Species Index, from the paper’s Supplementary Material · An independent visualization by Landseed PBC — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced for any of the bodies named here.
