The extinction debt, delayed species extinctions following landscape degradation, is a widely discussed concept. But a consensus about the prevalence of extinctions debts is hindered by a multiplicity of methods and a lack of comparisons among habitats. We applied three contrasting species–area relationship methods to test for plant community extinction debts in three habitats which had different degradation histories over the last century: calcareous grassland, heathland and woodland. These methods differ in their data requirements, with the first two using information on past and current habitat area alongside current species richness, whilst the last method also requires data on past species richness. The most data‐intensive, and hence arguably most reliable method, identified extinction debts across all habitats for specialist species, whilst the other methods did not. All methods detected an extinction debt in calcareous grassland, which had undergone the most severe degradation. We conclude that some methods failed to detect an extinction debt, particularly in habitats that have undergone moderate degradation. Data on past species numbers are required for the most reliable method; as such data are rare, extinction debts may be under‐reported.

中文翻译：

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使用不同方法对灭绝债务的不一致检测

灭绝债务，即景观退化后延迟的物种灭绝，是一个广泛讨论的概念。但是，由于方法的多样性和栖息地之间缺乏比较，就灭绝债务的普遍性达成了共识。我们应用了三种对比鲜明的物种 - 区域关系方法来测试上个世纪具有不同退化历史的三个栖息地的植物群落灭绝债务：石灰质草地、荒地和林地。这些方法的数据要求不同，前两种方法使用过去和当前栖息地面积以及当前物种丰富度的信息，而最后一种方法还需要过去物种丰富度的数据。数据最密集，因此可以说是最可靠的方法，确定了所有栖息地的专业物种的灭绝债务，而其他方法没有。所有方法都在钙质草原中检测到灭绝债务，该草原经历了最严重的退化。我们得出结论，一些方法未能检测到灭绝债务，特别是在经历了适度退化的栖息地。最可靠的方法需要过去物种数量的数据；由于此类数据很少，因此可能会少报灭绝债务。