More recently, I attended the 2010 International Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) in Bali where I gave a 30-minute talk about the chapter, and I was overwhelmed with positive responses from the audience. The only problem was that 30 minutes wasn’t even remotely long enough to talk about all the topics we covered in the chapter, and I had to skip over a lot of material.

So…, I’ve blogged about the book, and now I thought I’d blog about the chapter.

The topics we cover are varied, but we really only deal with the ‘biological’ part of conservation biology, even though the field incorporates many other disciplines. Indeed, we write:

“Conservation biology” is an integrative branch of biological science in its own right; yet, it borrows from most disciplines in ecology and Earth systems science; it also embraces genetics, dabbles in physiology and links to veterinary science and human medicine. It is also a mathematical science because nearly all measures are quantified and must be analyzed mathematically to tease out pattern from chaos; probability theory is one of the dominant mathematical disciplines conservation biologists regularly use. As rapid human-induced global climate change becomes one of the principal concerns for all biologists charged with securing and restoring biodiversity, climatology is now playing a greater role. Conservation biology is also a social science, touching on everything from anthropology, psychology, sociology, environmental policy, geography, political science, and resource management. Because conservation biology deals primarily with conserving life in the face of anthropogenically induced changes to the biosphere, it also contains an element of economic decision making.”

And we didn’t really cover any issues in the discipline of conservation planning (that is a big topic indeed and a good starting point for this can be found by perusing The Ecology Centre‘s website). So what did we cover? The following main headings give the general flavour:

1. Measuring and comparing biodiversity
2. Mensurative and manipulative experimental design
3. Abundance time series
4. Predicting risk
5. Genetic Principles and tools

The first section covers biodiversity indices, ecological scale, biological surrogates, similarity/clustering techniques & multivariate approaches. The second deals with hypothesis testing, sample size issues, replication and control, and random sampling. The fourth section covers cross-taxa approaches and population viability analyses.

We also included a number of ‘boxes’ by us and other authors:

1. Cost-effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring
2. Working across cultures
3. Multiple working hypotheses
4. Bayesian inference
5. Functional genetics & genomics
6. Useful textbook guides

Yes, it’s a lot to cover but what I really want to highlight here is something that continues to distress me – why are the majority of conservation biologists (and other conservation scientists) still holding on stubbornly to an archaic, sub-standard, incomplete and often misunderstood statistical paradigm to provide some semblance of objectivity to their observations? I’m talking about the Neyman-Pearson Null Hypothesis Testing (NHT) paradigm where a single ‘null’ hypothesis is rejected or not, based on an arbitrary probability of observing the metric of choice as extreme as the one observed.

It’s important to remember that the hallowed ‘P’ value in the NHT paradigm simply refers to an arbitrary threshold below which we say there is a relationship (i.e., reject the null hypothesis). Let me wax lyrical a little on this little P value to which so many biologists cling desperately – a value of 0.05 (1 chance in 20) has no inherent meaning per se, and is in fact a holdover from the days when statistical tables had to be printed in the back of textbooks. There was traditionally insufficient space to write all manually calculated rejection probabilities for distribution-specific NH tests, so they were often truncated at 0.05. Why therefore, in the age of advanced computing do we still lean on this broken crutch as if it actually meant something? Why 0.05 and not 0.04 or 0.06?

NHT approaches have many other problems. They DO NOT nor CANNOT simultaneously consider other dimensions of the problem, namely, evaluating the relative statistical support for an alternative model. Neither can NH tests evaluate Type II errors (the probability of making an error when failing to reject the null hypothesis).

If you’ve always been confused by the non-intuitive language of the NHT paradigm (e.g., failing to reject the null…, etc.), really want to evaluate multiple models simultaneously, and seek to compare particular models based on relative (bias-corrected) statistical support, then you should be wholeheartedly embracing an approach that’s been around since 1890 – multiple working hypotheses (MWH).

Instead of considering a single (null) hypothesis and testing whether the data can falsify it in favour of some alternative (which is not directly tested), MWH does not restrict the number of models considered. In fact, MHW can specifically accommodate the simultaneous comparison of hypotheses in systems where it is common to find multiple factors influencing the observations made (sounds like most questions in conservation biology to me).

The basic approach is to construct models (mathematical abstractions of complex systems) that represent combinations of hypotheses constructed to explain variation in the metric of interest. Models are then ranked based on relative evidential support using methods that tend to reinforce the principle of parsimony (the simplest combination of factors providing the strongest explanatory power) via their bias correction terms. Many people have heard of Akaike’s or the Bayesian information criterion (AIC or BIC), and these are probably some of the more common ways to compare models. Obtaining bias-corrected model weights even allows the construction of the evidence ratio, which is the relative bias-corrected statistical evidence of one model compared to another (which, as mentioned, NHT cannot do).

I would go so far as to say that there are absolutely no situations in conservation biology where classic NHT ‘significance’ tests are justified – we have much better techniques now. I will admit though that simulation using resampling can provide probabilities of deriving the pattern (metric, etc.) at random, but in these cases the ‘P’ value actually has a specific meaning that doesn’t convolute Type I and II errors as do NHT approaches. Some good references that provide the gory detail our chapter just didn’t have the space to cover include:

• Burnham & Anderson (2002)
• Burnham & Anderson (2004)
• Link & Barker (2006)
• Elliott & Brook (2007)
• Lukacs et al. (2007)

One last word on this issue. The above-mentioned methods can only provide information on the strength of statistical evidence for a pattern or relationship – they do not tell us anything about the strength or magnitude of the effect. You really should be talking about the amount of variation in the response (the thing you’re trying to explain) each model (and each component variable therein) describes. Nothing irks me more (philosophically) when I read something along the lines of: “…we found a strong relationship between x and y (P < 0.01)” – the ‘P’ here says NOTHING of the relationship’s strength!

Well, that’s my little statistical diatribe out of the way – hopefully I’m not either just preaching to the converted or having my words fall on deaf ears. This is extremely important stuff because I firmly believe it makes an important difference in the magnitude and even direction of reported trends and patterns in conservation.

Want a copy of the chapter? Send me a message using the available form and I’ll email you a PDF copy.

CJA Bradshaw

“Four in 40″ is a collaboration between The University of Adelaide and the Department for Water, where 4 speakers each speak for 10 minutes on their research and its implications for policy. The purpose is to build understanding of how best to work with each other, build new business for both organisations and raise awareness of activity being undertaken in water/natural resource management policy and research.

CJA Bradshaw

–

–
CJA Bradshaw

© T. Holub Flickr

Thought that would get your attention ;-)

“More scientists need to be trained in quantitative synthesis, visualization and other software tools.” D. Peters (2010)

In fact, that is part of the title of today’s focus paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution by D. Peters – Accessible ecology: synthesis of the long, deep,and broad.

As a ‘quantitative’ ecologist (modeller, numerate, etc.) whose career has been based to a large degree on the analysis of large ecological datasets, I am certainly singing Peters’ tune. However, it’s much deeper and more important than my career – good (long, deep, broad – see definitions below) ecological data are ESSENTIAL to avoid some of the worst ravages of biodiversity loss over the coming decades and centuries. Unfortunately, investment in long-term ecological studies is poor in most countries (Australia is no exception), and it’s not improving.

But why are long-term ecological data essential? Let’s take a notable example. Climate change (mainly temperature increases) measured over the last century or so (depending on the area) has been determined mainly through the analysis of long-term records. This, one of the world’s most important (yet sadly, not yet even remotely acted upon) issues today, derives from relatively simple long-term datasets. Another good example is the waning of the world’s forests (see posts here, here and here for examples) and our increasing political attention on what this means for human society. These trends can only be determined from long-term datasets.

For a long time the dirty word ‘monitoring’ was considered the bastion of the uncreative and amateur – ‘real’ scientists performed complicated experiments, whereas ‘monitoring’ was viewed mainly as a form of low-intellect showcasing to please someone somewhere that at least something was being done. I’ll admit, there are many monitoring programmes producing data that aren’t worth the paper their printed on (see a good discussion of this issue in ‘Monitoring does not always count‘), but I think the value of good monitoring data has been mostly vindicated. You see, many ecological systems are far too complex to manipulate easily, or are too broad and interactive to determine much with only a few years of data; only by examining over the ‘long’ term do patterns (and the effect of extremes) sometimes become clear.

But as you’ll see, it’s not just the ‘long’ that is required to determine which land- and sea-use decisions will be the best to minimise biodiversity loss – we also need the ‘deep’ and the ‘broad’. But first, the ‘long’.Peters states: “Long-term data are needed to assess the rate and direction of change, to distinguish directional trends from short-term variability, and to determine effects of infrequent, yet extreme events and time lags in response” and “Comparisons of trends in drivers with ecological responses can infer causal relationships.” (I’ll cite my own work there on the inferred effect of deforestation on flood risk and severity as an example). What exactly ‘long’ is is entirely a case-specific question. If the rates of change are rapid, ‘long’ can be a few short years. Generally speaking, however, a long-term dataset will cover many generations of the target organisms to be meaningful.

The limitations of long-term data inference include:

• difficulty in determining process (as opposed to phenomenon)
• sampling frequency and spatial scale can change through time, making standardisation difficult
• data formats can change over time

‘Deep‘ ecological studies are, according to Peters, “Place-based research conducted at one site or within one ecosystem type [that] can provide deep understanding of processes underlying observed patterns.” Often these involve manipulations at the landscape scale, such as adjusting fire frequency and intensity, water availability and food provision. Limitations of ‘deep’ studies include:

• limited generality
• usually insufficient to determine how ecosystems are connected

‘Broad‘ ecological studies are “Observation networks of sites collecting similar data across broad spatial extents.”. One good example is the ‘space-for-time’ concept where spatial gradients (e.g., latitude) are used as a proxy for temporal changes in temperature predicted under climate change. Another good example is the broad-scale taxonomic information available across the species within the Global Population Dynamics Database (which my colleagues and I have used extensively – e.g., Brook & Bradshaw 2006; Brook et al. 2006; Traill et al. 2007, Clark et al. 2010). Limitations include:

• comparison across different observational networks can be challenging
• limited forecasting ability without long-term data for validation

But Peters’ take-home message isn’t that any particular form of ecological investigation is more important than the rest – it’s the combination that really brings understanding and prediction into full light (indeed, this is the mainstay of any major scientific discipline). She therefore presents a framework for synthesis that incorporates the following steps:

1. Data collected from different sources should be assembled into digital formats where they are available to others
2. Source data need to be standardised for integration into a common database
3. Source data need to be condensed into simplified formats using aggregations in time and space
4. Derived data products should be blended with other knowledge sources, new technologies, and approaches
5. New interpretations can inform policies, practices and actions

Peters concludes that “The need for an understanding of scientific data by the public and decision-makers is critical if solutions to environmental problems are to find general acceptance.” Thus, linking different types of ecological studies via smart synthesis is a good step toward that goal, and will hopefully help the politicians who represent us see that we cannot ignore the evidence any longer.

CJA Bradshaw

Peters, D. (2010). Accessible ecology: synthesis of the long, deep, and broad Trends in Ecology & Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2010.07.005

Teaming up with George Monbiot of The Guardian, the Biodiversity 100 campaign seeks to encourage scientists and others to compile a list of 100 tasks that G20 governments should undertake to prove their commitment to tackling the biodiversity crisis.

Dr. Chapron writes:

As researchers in ecology, we strive to publish our results in the best journals, but we also wish them to be useful for advancing biodiversity conservation [my addendum: I've written recently about how little conservation research actually translates into conservation action]. With many governments stressing their strong commitment to science-based environmental policies, we could hope to reverse the biodiversity crisis [my addendum: perhaps 'slow down' rather than reverse - I'm not convinced that we'll ever 'reverse' it]. Still, it does not seem to be happening and, in fact, we often observe that pure political considerations prevail over anything else. Are we unable to reach governments or are governments just not listening?

To find out, I’m building with colleagues a list of 100 actions that if implemented would have an immediate effect to slow down biodiversity loss in G20 countries. This initiative is supported by the newspaper The Guardian and we will present this list to governments and ask them to sign up to them before the next Convention on Biological Diversity summit in October.

We are looking for actions that are

1. A contribution to the safeguard of a particular endangered species or ecosystem
2. Politically costly to implement or opposed by some interest groups
3. Strongly and widely supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence

These actions should also be ‘S.M.A.R.T.’ i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. To maximize our impact, we may also write a scientific article about this initiative, inviting experts having contributed and documented actions making the list.

So, what set of actions would you propose? Some of the interesting ideas proposed so far include:

• heavier fines for poaching/polluting
• global ruling that areas of environmental significance must not be damaged without majority consent of global nations
• compulsory education on role of biodiversity for school children
• create national laws that radically reduce the size and power of multinational corporations
• complete ban on bottom-trawling and industrial-scale fishing
• extend marine conservation zones to include all international waters
• clearly link biodiversity loss to reduction in human well-being
• reduce pesticide use by converting “agrobusiness” to sustainable agriculture
• support sound, scientifically based habitat restoration programmes
• reduce human population growth
• introduce a globally agreed carbon tax
• and so on…

I’ll be the first to admit that the exhaustive list includes a lot of crack-pot, unrealistic, naïve or just plain silly suggestions, but there are nuggets of wisdom peppered throughout.

My opinion? To avoid repeating the obvious, I would say that the only way we can guarantee some long-term persistence of threatened species worldwide is to get a handle on our carbon emissions. The only way I can see to do that realistically is to embrace integral fast reactor technology and go as nuclear as possible. This does not preclude a high(er) penetration of renewable energy sources; however, without nuclear energy, we just won’t make it.

CJA Bradshaw

“…increasing takeover of the ecosystem is the necessary consequence of the physical growth of the macroeconomy“

“…consider telling the economist to go to hell“

Herman Daly

–

© M. Leunig

Last month I had the privilege of listening to Rob Dietz of the Centre for Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) when attending the 2010 International Congress for Conservation Biology. He introduced the CASSE and their mandate – to promote stable or mildly fluctuating levels in population and consumption of energy and materials. This is the steady-state economy.

I’ve hinted before that our essentially linear economy (natural resource exploitation -> transport -> manufacturer -> redistribution -> sale -> consumption/use -> disposal (discussed in a very easy-to-understand way in the Story of Stuff) is not sustainable in the long term because of the finite resource base of the planet (think trees, coal, oil, arable land). My colleagues and I have even shown analyses based on hard data demonstrating that total wealth is the ultimate driver of environmental degradation at the country scale.

So, it is my opinion (and a growing number of others‘) that we need a new way of measuring economic prosperity, or the world will enter a state of permanent financial crisis. The mantra of constant economic growth is simply unrealistic as our human populations continue to expand. This is a very simplistic statement and on the surface an apparently impossible goal; however, people who put together the CASSE believe it is achievable.

It is for this reason that I have been communicating with Rob Dietz and others at CASSE about reposting some of their excellent essays on ConservationBytes.com. Please feel free to comment here on the subject matter because the CASSE people will be monitoring. I hope we can expand the readership and support base, and eventually start to convince politicians that growth will eventually kill us and a good slice of the planet’s biodiversity.

So with that, here’s the first repost by Professor Herman Daly entitled “Opportunity Cost of Growth“:

Economics is about counting costs, and the cost to be counted is “opportunity cost”, arguably the most basic concept in economics. It is defined as the next best alternative to the one chosen, in other words, as the best of the sacrificed alternatives. You chose the best alternative, the opportunity cost is the second best, the alternative that you would choose if the best were unavailable. If there were no scarcity, choice would not be necessary, there would be no opportunity cost, and economics would not exist. More of everything means opportunity cost is zero, and is essentially the denial of economics. Yet “more of everything” is the goal of so-called “growth economics”. When the whole economy grows, the growth economists say that we get more of everything. Is there an opportunity cost to the growth of the whole macroeconomy? Not in the view of mainstream macroeconomists. In their view the economy is the Whole and nature (mines wells, grasslands, fisheries, forests…) are Parts of the economy. Used up parts can be substituted by new parts; natural parts can be substituted by manmade parts; natural resources can be substituted by capital. The whole macroeconomy is not itself seen as a subsystem or part of a larger but finite ecosystem, into which the macroeconomy grows and encroaches. These economists imagine that the macroeconomy grows into the void, not into the constraining biophysical envelope of the ecosystem. Since macroeconomic growth is held to incur no opportunity cost (the displaced void is worthless!), one must conclude that “growth economics” is really not economics – it is almost the negation of economics!

Almost – there is one remaining bit of scarcity. Growth economists recognize that we can’t have more of everything instantaneously. To get more of everything we must invest and wait. The opportunity cost of investment is forgone present consumption. But it is a temporary cost. Later we will have more of everything, and after that still more of everything, etc. Is there no end to this? Not for the standard macroeconomists. In their view it might be possible to grow too fast, but never to get too big. That is, the opportunity cost of investment needed for rapid growth might be too high in terms of forgone present consumption. But that misallocation is temporary and will soon be washed away by growth itself that will give us more of everything in the future – more consumption and more investment. That is the growth economist’s theory.

However, increasing takeover of the ecosystem is the necessary consequence of the physical growth of the macroeconomy [my emphasis]. This displacement is really a transformation of ecosystem into economy in physical terms. Trees are physically transformed into tables and chairs; soil, rain, and sunlight are physically transformed into crops and food and then into people; petroleum is physically transformed into motive force, plastics, and carbon dioxide. Thanks to the law of conservation of matter-energy, the more matter-energy appropriated by the economy, the less remains to build the structures and power the services of the ecosystem that sustains the economy. Thanks to the entropy law, the more dissipative structures (human bodies and artifacts) in the economy, the greater the rates of depletion and pollution of the remaining ecosystem required to maintain the growing populations of these structures against the eroding force of entropy. These are basic facts about how the world works. They could plausibly be ignored by economists only as long as the macroeconomy was tiny relative to the ecosystem, and the encroachment of the former into the latter did not constitute a noticeable opportunity cost. But now we live in a full world, no longer in an empty world – that is, in a finite ecosystem filled up largely by the economy. Remaining ecosystem services and natural capital are now scarce and their further reduction constitutes a significant opportunity cost of growth.

The new economic question is: Are the extra benefits of physically transforming more of the ecosystem into the economy worth the extra opportunity cost of the ecosystem services lost in the transformation? Has the macroeconomy reached, or surpassed, its optimal physical scale relative to its containing and sustaining ecosystem? Is the economy now too big for the ecosystem from the point of view of maximum human welfare? Or from the point of view of all living species and the functioning of the biosphere as we know it? If these questions about the opportunity costs of growth sound too abstract, think of the following concrete examples: wholesale extinction of species, climate change, peak oil, water scarcity, topsoil loss, deforestation, risks from more powerful technologies, a huge military to maintain access to world resources, and an increase in the risk of wars over resources, etc.

As the marginal costs of growth have increased, what has happened to the marginal benefits? Studies in the U.S. and other countries show that, beyond a threshold of sufficiency, growth in real GDP does not increase happiness. In sum, growth has become uneconomic at the margin, making us poorer, not richer. Uneconomic growth leads to less available wealth to share with the poor, not more. And such growth in the U.S. in recent years has been accompanied by increasing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth – that is, the marginal benefits of growth have gone overwhelmingly to the rich (third cars and second homes) while the marginal costs (polluted neighborhoods, unemployment and foreclosures) have gone mainly to the poor.

Surely economists have thought about such simple and basic questions as, Can the economy be too big in its physical dimensions relative to the ecosystem? And, Are the marginal costs of growth now larger than the marginal benefits? Surely economists have good answers to these obvious questions! Well, dear reader, I invite you to ask these questions to your favorite economics professor or pundit. If you get reasonable answers, please share them with me. If you get a lot of obfuscation, consider telling the economist to go to hell. Be open to learn – but also be prepared to show some disrespect when it is deserved!

CJA Bradshaw

“One measure that often meets great resistance from fishermen, but is beloved by conservationists, is the establishment of marine protected or ‘no take’ areas.” Stephen J. Hall (1998)

I’m going to qualify this particular post with a few disclaimers; first, I am not involved in the planning of any marine protected areas (henceforth referred to as ‘marine parks’) in Australia or elsewhere; and second, despite blogging on the issue, I have never published in the discipline of protected area design (i.e, ‘conservation planning’ is not my area of expertise).

That said, it seems to becoming more imperative that I enter the fray and assess not only how marine parks should be designed, but how effective they really are (or can be). I’ve been asked by several conservation NGOs to provide some insight into this, so I thought I should ‘think aloud’ and blog a little mini-review about marine park effectiveness.

Clearly there is a trend to establish more marine parks around the world, and this is mainly because marine conservation lags so far behind terrestrial conservation. Indeed, Spalding et al. (2008) showed that only 4.1 % of continental shelf areas are incorporated within marine parks, and ~ 50 % of all marine ecoregions have less than 1 % marine park coverage across the shelf. Furthermore, marine protection is greatest in the tropical realms, while temperate realms are still poorly represented.

The question of whether marine parks ‘work’ is, however, more complicated than it might first appear. When one asks this question, it is essential to define how the criteria for success are to be measured. Whether it’s biodiversity protection, fisheries production, recreational revenue, community acceptance/involvement or some combination of the above, your conclusion is likely to vary from place to place.

Other complications are, of course, that if you cannot ensure a marine park is adequately enforced (i.e., people don’t respect the rules) or if you don’t actually place the park anywhere near things that need protecting, there will be no real net benefit (for any of the above-mentioned interest groups). Furthermore, most marine parks these days have many different types of uses allowed in different zones (e.g., no fishing, some fishing, recreational diving only, no boat transport, some shipping, etc., etc., etc.), so it gets difficult to test for specific effects (it’s a bit like a cap-and-trade legislation for carbon – too many rules and often no real net reduction in carbon emissions – but that’s another story).

All these conditions aside, I think it’s a good idea to present what the real experts have been telling us about marine park effectiveness from a biodiversity and fishing perspective over the last decade or so. I’ll summarise some of the major papers here and give an overall assessment at the end. I do not contend that this list is even remotely comprehensive, but it does give a good cross-section of the available evidence.

• McClanahan & Mangi (2000): For Kenyan coral reef parks, total wet mass of catches per trap, the mean size of the trapped fish, and the number of fish species caught per trap declined as a function of the distance away from the park edge. This relationship was truncated on the unmanaged side of the park which also had smaller catches, smaller fish, and fewer species than the managed side.
• McClanahan & Kaunda-Arara (2002): In Kenyan coral-reef lagoons on seven reefs over 6 years, most fish species within the park showed recovery after fisher exclusion.
• Gell & Roberts (2003): In a short review, these authors conclude that reserves and fishery closures benefit species as diverse as molluscs, crustaceans and fish of many sizes, life histories and mobilities. Benefits develop within 2-5 years of marine reserve establishment and continue to build for decades. Reserves work in coral reefs, kelp forests, temperate continental shelves, estuaries, seagrass beds, rocky shores and mangroves.
• Halpern (2003): Probably the most comprehensive review of 89 marine park studies concluded that on average, density, biomass, size of organisms, and diversity (except for invertebrate biomass and size) were higher inside reserves compared to outside (or after reserve establishment versus before) for all species and examining each functional group (carnivorous fishes, herbivorous fishes, planktivorous fishes/invertebrate eaters, and invertebrates) separately.
• Mumby et al. (2006): In Caribbean coral reef systems, these authors showed that marine reserves benefit both grazers and their predators, but more so for algal grazers. This, in turn, benefits coral reefs by removing competing algae biomass.
• Shears et al. (2006): In New Zealand marine parks (one with full fisher exclusion, the other with partial exclusion), legal-sized spiny lobster (Jasus edwardsii) were 11x more abundant and biomass 25x higher in the no-take marine park following park establishment, while in the partially protected marine park there was no measurable change in numbers.
• Stelzenmüller et al. (2007): In a Mediterranean reserve system, catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) of total fish and CPUE and length of common pandora (Pagellus erythrinus) increased close to the reserve. CPUE and length of striped red mullet (Mullus surmuletus) slightly increased also near the reserve.
• Stewart et al. (2009): In another comprehensive review of temperate marine parks, these authors found higher density, biomass and species richness in reserves compared to adjacent exploited areas.
• Kellner & Hastings (2009): Demonstrated that displacement of fishing into smaller areas by the establishment of marine parks can facilitate the invasion of marine pests.

So the general conclusion is yes, marine parks benefit biodiversity and help to recover fish populations depleted from fishing (with the possibility of some unintended consequences though for community composition). There are also a host of studies looking at the socio-economic advantages/disadvantages of marine reserves that I won’t attempt to get into. It does seem however from that perspective that marine reserves are generally considered, despite initial resistance, positive components of coastal human communities.

I’ll leave you with some words by Ben Halpern in his 2003 review:

“Despite the popularity of marine reserves as a management tool, few reserves appear to have been created or designed with an understanding of how reserves affect biological factors or how reserves can be designed to meet biological goals more effectively (e.g., attaining sustainable fish populations).”

CJA Bradshaw

McClanahan, T., & Mangi, S. (2000). Spillover of exploitable fishes from a marine park and its effect on the adjacent fishery Ecological Applications, 10 (6), 1792-1805 DOI: 10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[1792:SOEFFA]2.0.CO;2

McClanahan, T., & Kaunda-Arara, B. (1996). Fishery Recovery in a Coral-reef Marine Park and Its Effect on the Adjacent Fishery Conservation Biology, 10 (4), 1187-1199 DOI: 10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10041187.x

Gell, F. (2003). Benefits beyond boundaries: the fishery effects of marine reserves Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18 (9), 448-455 DOI: 10.1016/S0169-5347(03)00189-7

Halpern, B. (2003). The impact of marine reserves: do reserves work and does reserve size matter? Ecological Applications, 13 (sp1), 117-137 DOI: 10.1890/1051-0761(2003)013[0117:TIOMRD]2.0.CO;2

Mumby, P. (2006). Fishing, Trophic Cascades, and the Process of Grazing on Coral Reefs Science, 311 (5757), 98-101 DOI: 10.1126/science.1121129

Shears, N., Grace, R., Usmar, N., Kerr, V., & Babcock, R. (2006). Long-term trends in lobster populations in a partially protected vs. no-take Marine Park Biological Conservation, 132 (2), 222-231 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2006.04.001

Stelzenmuller, V., Maynou, F., & Martin, P. (2007). Spatial assessment of benefits of a coastal Mediterranean Marine Protected Area Biological Conservation, 136 (4), 571-583 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2007.01.002

Stewart, G., Kaiser, M., Côté, I., Halpern, B., Lester, S., Bayliss, H., & Pullin, A. (2009). Temperate marine reserves: global ecological effects and guidelines for future networks Conservation Letters, 2 (6), 243-253 DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00074.x

Kellner, J., & Hastings, A. (2009). A reserve paradox: introduced heterogeneity may increase regional invasibility Conservation Letters, 2 (3), 115-122 DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00056.x

It seems appropriate then to put out a general call for ConservationBytes.com contributions. I’ve had several guest posts now from students (Fishing for conservation, Make your conservation PhD relevant), postdocs (Coming to grips with the buffalo problem) and colleagues (Interview with a social [conservation] scientist, Put the bite back into biodiversity conservation), but these have come to me fairly haphazardly. I’d therefore like to invite short articles from the CB readership to expand the topics covered and provide a more interactive conservation discussion.

So, if you feel you’re up to the task, please feel free to send me a little proposal of what you’d like to cover. Just a few pointers:

1. Remember that ConservationBytes.com is about conservation research that has already made (or has the potential to make) real biodiversity conservation advances. This could be a mini-review of new papers, a discussion of a current research topic, or a new method or some broader issue covering the conservation research-policy interface.
2. Articles should be between 800 and 1500 words in length. Any more or less is a little inappropriate for a quick-digest blog post.
3. Please provide a critique or overview of the topic you are covering. A simple regurgitation of someone else’s opinion is unacceptable.
4. Please avoid nasty or insulting presentations. I won’t accept them.
5. A few good images (preferably your own) should accompany your article.

If you’re game and you have something important to say, ConservationBytes.com could be your (unofficial) discussion medium. Who knows? Maybe your article could lead to something more substantive like a policy brief or even a full scientific paper. Thanks in advance for your future contributions.

CJA Bradshaw

–

Environmental Genomics: PhD and Postdoc opportunities

We are looking for interested postgraduate students who are highly motivated and enjoy independent and unusual research. An interest in environmental biodiversity is a key requirement, and a background in any of the following would be useful: molecular ecology, molecular biology, genetics, bioinformatics, chemistry/biochemistry. The project is for 3 years, and starts in early 2011.

New environmental genomics approaches for biodiversity studies of soils, water, forensics, grasses and Antarctic biota

A number of PhD positions are available in a large-scale project to apply high throughput sequencing approaches to the analysis of environmental samples and develop a new range of methods to perform biodiversity surveys, taxonomic discovery, and environmental impact reports. The project will employ multiplexed PCR, 2nd/3rd gen sequencing, bioinformatics and phylogenetics to develop novel systems for rapid and accurate biodiversity assessment. Key topics within the project are the analysis of Australian soils, natural and re-use water supplies, Australian native grasses, Antarctic biota, and forensic material. A strong molecular biology and/or bioinformatics background is required. The project is a $1M Australian Research Council-industry partnership.

1-2 postdoc positions will also be available for this project, and will carry supervisory responsibilities for the PhD projects. It is anticipated that one position will be oriented towards data generation, and another towards bioinformatics/database analysis.

International Students wishing to study at The University of Adelaide in 2011 should check the available scholarship opportunities as they provide payment of full academic fees plus an annual living allowance of approximately AUD$21,000 tax free.

Note the closing date for international scholarship enrolment 31 August 2010 or 30 October for Australian/NZ applicants.

Both the Australian Department of Immigration and University of Adelaide expect international applicants to meet English Language Proficiency (ELP) requirements. The ELP is based on high scores in IELTS (International English Language Testing System) or TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). For further information please refer to this website and this document.

Expressions of interest from applicants with strong graduate marks, a good TOEFL score, and a background in evolution/bioinformatics/molecular biology are encouraged to apply. Please contact the following supervisors and provide your curriculum vitae:

Prof. Alan Cooper (e-mail)

© smh.com.au

Over the years I’ve collected various conservation biology-related quotes that have caught my attention, for whatever reason. I thought that it would make an interesting blog post (although I agree that quotes are a very weak form of wit). Regardless of their import, I hope you enjoy them and perhaps at least find them interesting, if not wise.

–

It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for – the whole thing – rather than just one or two stars.

David Attenborough, BBC Interview

-

It’s a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.

David Attenborough, BBC Interview

-

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there’s a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.

David Attenborough, BBC Interview

-

The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

-

The more you know about a species, the more you understand about how better to help protect them.

Alan Clark

-

As we race toward the future, we must never forget the fundamental reality of our situation: we are flying blind.

Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski & John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future

-

Just imagine the banner headlines if a marine biologist were to discover a species of dolphin that wove large, intricately meshed fishing nets, twenty dolphin-lengths in diameter! Yet we take a spider web for granted, as a nuisance in the house rather than as one of the wonders of the world. And think of the furore if Jane Goodall returned from Gombe stream with photographs of wild chimpanzees building their own houses, well roofed and insulated, of painstakingly selected stones neatly bonded and mortared! Yet caddis larvae, who do precisely that, command only passing interest.

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

-

Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.

John Dingell, Balancing on the Brink of Extinction: The Endangered Species Act and Lessons for the Future

-

What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing.

Jay Inslee, USA Congressional Record

-

No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.

Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe

-

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades.

James Lovelock, The Guardian

-

If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed – like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese.

Ted Nugent, Kill It and Grill It

-

Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day.

Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation

-

Throughout history, men have tried to play God by moving rabbits, goats, sparrows, mongooses, and a hundred other species to oceanic islands and island continents, and later have wished to God they hadn’t.

Victor B. Scheffer, The Year of the Seal

-

A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.

Adlai E. Stevenson (can’t find source)

-

We’re the only species that have crapped up the planet and the only species that can clean it up.

Dennis Weaver (can’t find source)

-

Most evolving lineages, human or otherwise, when threatened with extinction, don’t do anything special to avoid it.

George C. Williams, A Conversation with George C. Williams

-

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

E. O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

-

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

E. O. Wilson, Biophilia

-

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

Margaret J. Wheatley, It’s An Interconnected World

-

Nature may not feel herself limited by our lack of imagination.

H. Wolda and B. Dennis, Density dependence tests, are they?

-

And my favourite…

Every cent we earn from Crocodile Hunter goes straight back into conservation. Every single cent.

Steve Irwin, interview

(for a little perspective on what I would consider the George W. Bush of conservation biology, Steve Irwin, see a previous post here).

CJA Bradshaw