Dec | 2016 | ConservationBytes.com

Vote for the 2016 Environmental Arsehat of the Year

20 12 2016

In March 2016 I requested nominations for the Environmental Arsehat of the Year, and you happily complied by providing many excellent suggestions.

I now request that you vote on these nominations using the polling widget that follows a brief description of each nominee and why they’ve been suggested by the CB.com community. Once the votes are tallied, I’ll post the ‘winner’ (loser) in a new post in early 2017. Happy voting!

The nominations (in no particular order)

Dennis Lowe, Barbados Minister of Environment and Drainage: Nominated for intentionally destroying the last mangrove on the island. Despite being privately protected and offered for donation to the national park system, the Minister would prefer to destroy the wetland by preventing inflow of saltwater and dumping raw sewage into it.
The Norwegian Government approved wolf shooting in that country, with more than 11,000 Norwegian hunters lining up for shooting permits. In Norway, sheep run free everywhere and farmers strongly refuse to use electrified paddocks.
Matt Ridley has a PhD and is a popular science writer. He is also a fervent climate change denialist (writing for the Times and guesting elsewhere). He preaches a brand of conservation optimism and neoliberalism that is not borne out by facts.
Greg Hunt, former Australian Minister of the Environment, for rolling back environmental protection in Australia by decades, and actually believing that he did a great job.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: arsehat, clearing, Coal, deforestation, energy, environment, governance, government, nuclear energy, policy, pollution, shooting, wolves
Categories : conservation

Influential conservation ecology papers of 2016

16 12 2016

As I have done for the last three years (2015, 2014, 2013), here’s another retrospective list of the top 20 influential conservation papers of 2016 as assessed by experts in F1000 Prime.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: Anthropocene, bees, biodiversity, carbon, carbon storage, China, climate change, climatic debt, community ecology, competition, coral reefs, decline, defauntation, deforestation, ecosystem services, ecosystems, extinction, Fertiliser, forests, microbes, microbial diversity, mutualism, neonicotinoids, nutrient loading, nutrients, plant diversity, pollination, Soil, species loss, Species richness, sustainability, time series
Categories : conservation

ConservationBytes.com Leaving the University of Adelaide

12 12 2016

In reality, ConservationBytes.com isn’t going anywhere. But Corey Bradshaw is.

You’ll still be able to read the regular posts on ConservationBytes.com without having to change a thing; I’ll just be writing them from a different office across the city.

Yes, I’m staying in beautiful Adelaide in South Australia, but my time at the University of Adelaide has come to an end. I’m excited to report that as of 16 January 2017 I’ll be occupying the new position of Matthew Flinders Fellow in Global Ecology at Flinders University in the School of Biological Sciences.

I thank my colleagues at the University of Adelaide for the productive time I’ve had here.

On to bigger and better things.

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: Flinders University
Categories : conservation

Genetic Management of Fragmented Animal and Plant Populations

10 12 2016

That is the title of a new textbook that will be available mid-2017.

After almost 6 years work, authors Dick Frankham, Jonathan Ballou, Katherine Ralls, Mark Eldridge, Michele Dudash, Charles Fenster, Bob Lacy & Paul Sunnucks have produced an advanced textbook/research monograph that aims to provoke a paradigm shift in the management of small, isolated population fragments of animals and plants.

One of the greatest unmet challenges in conservation biology is the genetic management of fragmented populations of threatened animal and plant species. More than a million small, isolated, population fragments of threatened species are likely suffering inbreeding depression, loss of evolutionary potential, and elevated extinction risks (genetic erosion). Re-establishing gene flow between populations is required to reverse these effects, but managers very rarely do this. On the contrary, molecular genetic methods are mainly being used to document genetic differentiation among populations, with most studies concluding that genetically differentiated populations should be managed separately (i.e., kept isolated), thereby dooming many populations to eventual extinction.

The need for a paradigm shift in genetic management of fragmented populations has been highlighted as a major issue in conservation. The rapidly advancing field of molecular genetics is continually providing new tools to measure the extent of population fragmentation and its genetic consequences. However, adequate guidance on how to use these data for effective conservation is still lacking, and many populations are going extinct principally for genetic reasons. Consequently, there is now urgent need for an authoritative textbook on the subject.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: conservation genetics, evolutionary potential, fragmentation, genetic erosion, inbreeding depression, textbook
Categories : Allee effect, biodiversity, conservation, conservation biology, DNA, extinction, extinction debt, fragmentation, genetic diversity, genetics, threatened species

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XL

7 12 2016

That’s ’40’, of course. Six more biodiversity cartoons, and the last for 2016. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

—