Page - 179 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

179 DM); seven were excluded primarily because they did not assess biodiversity, mental health, mental well-being, physical activity or social cohesion. In total, 16 articles were identified (see Table  9.1). 9.2.2 Characteristics of  the  Recent Literature To describe the recently published literature on biodiversity and mental health and well-being, a standardised data extraction form was used to record relevant informa- tion from the 16 studies: country of origin, participants, theoretical position, biodi- versity indicators, outcome measures, contact with biodiverse environment, moderators, mediators and results. Biodiversity indicators were classified on the basis of biodiversity levels identi- fied by Botzat et  al. (2016)  – namely, ecosystems/habitats (e.g. parks, forests); spe- cies communities (e.g. plants, birds, butterflies); or single species. Within the species community level, both species richness (e.g. the number of different bird species) and abundance of a specific taxonomic group irrespective of species (e.g. the num- ber of all birds) were identified. Both variables have been shown to have differential effects (Hedblom et  al. 2017). Abundance may be more important to mental health or mental well-being than the number of different species (Dallimer et  al. 2012). Fig. 9.1 Process of literature review and identified relevant articles 9 Review of  the  Mental Health and  Well-being Benefits of  Biodiversity