© Floog
A short post about a small letter that recently appeared in the latest issue of Conservation Biology – the dangers of REDD.
REDD. What is it? The acronym for ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’, it is the idea of providing financial incentives to developing countries to reduce forest clearance by paying them to keep them standing. It should work because of the avoided carbon emissions that can be gained from keeping forests intact. Hell, we certainly need it given the biodiversity crisis arising mainly from deforestation occurring in much of the (largely tropical) developing world. The idea is that someone pollutes, buys carbon credits that are then paid to some developing nation to prevent more forest clearance, and then biodiversity gets a helping hand in the process. It’s essentially carbon trading with an added bonus. Nice idea, but difficult to implement for a host of reasons that I won’t go into here (but see Miles & Kapos Science 2008 & Busch et al. 2009 Environ Res Lett).
Venter and colleagues in their letter entitled Avoiding Unintended Outcomes from REDD now warn us about another potential hazard of REDD that needs some pretty quick thinking and clever political manoeuvring to avoid.
While REDD is a good idea and I support it fully with carefully designed implementation, Venter and colleagues say that without good monitoring data and some well-planned immediate policy implementation, there could be a rush to clear even more forest area in the short term.
Essentially they argue that when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, there could be a 2-year gap when forest loss would not be counted against carbon payments, and its in this window that countries might fell forests and expand agriculture before REDD takes effect (i.e., clear now and avoid later penalties).
How do we avoid this? The authors suggest that the implementation of policies to reward early efforts to reduce forest clearance and to penalise those who rush to do early clearing need to be put in place NOW. Rewards could take the form of credits, and penalties could be something like the annulment of future REDD discounts. Of course, to achieve any of this you have to know who’s doing well and who’s playing silly buggers, which means good forest monitoring. Satellite imagery analysis is probably key here.
CJA Bradshaw
Oscar Venter, James E.M. Watson, Erik Meijaard, William F. Laurance, & Hugh P. Possingham (2010). Avoiding Unintended Outcomes from REDD Conservation Biology, 24 (1), 5-6 DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01391.x
© Ferahgo the Assassin
Not an easy task, measuring extinction. For the most part, we must use techniques to estimate extinction rates because, well, it’s just bloody difficult to observe when (and where) the last few individuals in a population finally kark it. Even Fagan & Holmes’ exhaustive search of extinction time series only came up with 12 populations – not really a lot to go on. It’s also nearly impossible to observe species going extinct if they haven’t even been identified yet (and yes, probably still the majority of the world’s species – mainly small, microscopic or subsurface species – have yet to be identified).
So conservation biologists do other things to get a handle on the rates, relying mainly on the species-area relationship (SAR), projecting from threatened species lists, modelling co-extinctions (if a ‘host’ species goes extinct, then its obligate symbiont must also) or projecting declining species distributions from climate envelope models.
But of course, these are all estimates and difficult to validate. Enter a nice little review article recently published online in Biodiversity and Conservation by Nigel Stork entitled Re-assessing current extinction rates which looks at the state of the art and how the predictions mesh with the empirical data. Suffice it to say, there is a mismatch.
Stork writes that the ‘average’ estimate of losing about 100 species per day has hardly any empirical support (not surprising); only about 1200 extinctions have been recorded in the last 400 years. So why is this the case?
As mentioned above, it’s difficult to observe true extinction because of the sampling issue (the rarer the individuals, the more difficult it is to find them). He does cite some other problems too – the ‘living dead‘ concept where species linger on for decades, perhaps longer, even though their essential habitat has been destroyed, forest regrowth buffering some species that would have otherwise been predicted to go extinct under SAR models, and differing extinction proneness among species (I’ve blogged on this before).
Of course, we could just all be just a pack of doomsday wankers vainly predicting the end of the world ;-)
Well, I think not – if anything, Stork concludes that it’s all probably worse than we currently predict because of extinction synergies (see previous post about this concept) and the mounting impact of rapid global climate change. If anything, the “100 species/day” estimate could look like a utopian ideal in a few hundred years. I do disagree with Stork on one issue though – he claims that deforestation isn’t probably as bad as we make it out. I’d say the opposite (see here, here & here) – we know so little of how tropical forests in particular function that I dare say we’ve only just started measuring the tip of the iceberg.
Stork, N. (2009). Re-assessing current extinction rates Biodiversity and Conservation DOI: 10.1007/s10531-009-9761-9
A new book that I’m proud to have had a hand in writing is just about to come out with Oxford University Press called Conservation Biology for All. Edited by the venerable Conservation Scholars, Professors Navjot Sodhi (National University of Singapore) and Paul Ehrlich (Stanford University), it’s a powerhouse of some of the world’s leaders in conservation science and application.
The book strives to “…provide cutting-edge but basic conservation science to a global readership”. In short, it’s written to bring the forefront of conservation science to the general public, with OUP promising to make it freely available online within about a year from its release in early 2010 (or so the rumour goes). The main idea here is that those in most need of such a book – the conservationists in developing nations – can access the wealth of information therein without having to sacrifice the village cow to buy it.
I won’t go into any great detail about the book’s contents (mainly because I have yet to receive my own copy and read most of the chapters!), but I have perused early versions of Kevin Gaston‘s excellent chapter on biodiversity, and Tom Brook‘s overview of conservation planning and prioritisation. Our chapter (Chapter 16 by Barry Brook and me), is an overview of statistical and modelling philosophy and application with emphasis on conservation mathematics. It’s by no means a complete treatment, but it’s something we want to develop further down the track. I do hope many people find it useful.
I’ve reproduced the chapter title line-up below, with links to each of the authors websites.
As you can see, it’s a pretty impressive collection of conservation stars and hard-hitting topics. Can’t wait to get my own copy! I will probably blog individual chapters down the track, so stay tuned.
I’ve decided to blog this a little earlier than I would usually simply because the COP15 is still fresh in everyone’s minds and the paper is now online as an ‘Accepted Article’, so it is fully citable.
The paper published in Conservation Letters by Strassburg and colleagues is entitled Global congruence of carbon storage and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems is noteworthy because it provides a very useful answer to a very basic question. If one were to protect natural habitats based on their carbon storage potential, would one also be protecting the most biodiversity (and of course, vice versa)?
Turns out, one would.
Using a global dataset of ~ 20,000 species of mammal, bird and amphibian, they compared three indices of biodiversity distribution (species richness, species threat & range-size rarity) to a new global above- and below-ground carbon biomass dataset. It turns out that at least for species richness, the correlations were fairly strong (0.8-ish, with some due to spatial autocorrelation); for threat and rarity indices, the correlations were rather weaker (~0.3-ish).
So what does this all mean for policy? Biodiversity hotspots – those areas around the globe with the highest biodiversity and greatest threats – have some of the greatest potential to store carbon as well as guard against massive extinctions if we prioritise them for conservation. Places such as the Amazon, Borneo Sumatra and New Guinea definitely fall within this category.
However, not all biodiversity hotspots are created equal; areas such as Brazil’s Cerrado or the savannas of the Rift Valley in East Africa have relatively lower carbon storage, and so carbon-trading schemes wouldn’t necessarily do much for biodiversity in these areas.
The overall upshot is that we should continue to pursue carbon-trading schemes such as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) because they will benefit biodiversity (contrary to what certain ‘green’ organisations say about it), but we can’t sit back and hope that REDD will solve all of biodiversity’s problems world wide.
Strassburg, B., Kelly, A., Balmford, A., Davies, R., Gibbs, H., Lovett, A., Miles, L., Orme, C., Price, J., Turner, R., & Rodrigues, A. (2009). Global congruence of carbon storage and biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems Conservation Letters DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00092.x
Way back in 1989, Jared Diamond defined the ‘evil quartet’ of habitat destruction, over-exploitation, introduced species and extinction cascades as the principal drivers of modern extinctions. I think we could easily update this to the ‘evil quintet’ that includes climate change, and I would even go so far as to add extinction synergies as a the sixth member of the ‘evil sextet’.
But the future could hold quite a few more latent threats to biodiversity, and a corresponding number of potential solutions to its degradation. That’s why Bill Sutherland of Cambridge University recently got together with some other well-known scientists and technology leaders to do a ‘horizon scanning’ exercise to define what these threats and solutions might be in the immediate future. It’s an interesting, eclectic and somewhat enigmatic list, so I thought I’d summarise it here. The paper is entitled A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2010 and was recently published online in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
In no particular order or relative rank, Sutherland and colleagues list the following 15 ‘issues’ that I’ve broadly divided into ‘Emerging Threats’ and ‘Potential Solutions’:
Emerging Threats
Potential Solutions
Certainly some interesting ideas here and worth a thought or two. I wonder if the discipline of ‘conservation biology’ might even exist in 50-100 years – we might all end up being climate or agricultural engineers with a focus on biodiversity-friendly technology. Who knows?
Sutherland, W., Clout, M., Côté, I., Daszak, P., Depledge, M., Fellman, L., Fleishman, E., Garthwaite, R., Gibbons, D., & De Lurio, J. (2009). A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2010 Trends in Ecology & Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.003
© R. Harcourt
Quite some time ago my colleague and (now former) postdoctoral fellow, Iain Field, and I sat down to examine in gory detail the extent of the threat to global populations of sharks, rays and chimaeras (chondrichthyans). I don’t think we quite realised the mammoth task we had set ourselves. Several years and nearly a hundred pages later, we have finally achieved our goal.
Introducing the new paper in Advances in Marine Biology entitled Susceptibility of sharks, rays and chimaeras to global extinction by Iain Field, Mark Meekan, Rik Buckworth and Corey Bradshaw.
The paper covers the following topics:
- Niche breadth
- Age and growth
- Reproduction and survival
- Fishing
- Beach meshing
- Habitat loss
- Pollution and non-indigenous species
- Drivers of threat risk in chondrichthyans and teleosts
- Global distribution of threatened chondrichthyan taxa
- Ecological, life history and human-relationship attributes
- Threat risk analysis
- Relative threat risk of chondrichthyans and teleosts
- Ecosystem roles of predators
- Predator loss in the marine realm
- Ecosystem roles of chondrichthyans
- Role of fisheries in future chondrichthyan extinctions
- Climate change
- Extinction synergies
- Research needs
As mentioned, quite a long analysis of the state of sharks worldwide. Bottom line? Well, as most of you might already know sharks aren’t doing too well worldwide, with around 52 % listed on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. This compares interestingly to bony fishes (teleosts) that, although having only 8 % of all species Red-Listed, are generally in higher-threat Red List categories. We found that body size (positively) and geographic range (negatively) correlated with threat risk in both groups, but Red-Listed bony fishes were still more likely to be categorised as threatened after controlling for these effects.
In some ways this sort of goes against the notion that sharks are inherently more extinction-prone than other fish – a common motherhood statement seen at the beginning of almost all papers dealing with shark threats. What it does say though is that because sharks are on average larger and less fecund than your average fish, they tend to bounce back from declines more slowly, so they are more susceptible to rapid environmental change than your average fish. Guess what? We’re changing the environment pretty rapidly.
We also determined the spatial distribution of threat, and found that Red-Listed species are clustered mainly in (1) south-eastern South America; (2) western Europe and the Mediterranean; (3) western Africa; (4) South China Sea and South East Asia and (5) south-eastern Australia.
© W. White
Now, what are the implications for the loss of these species? As I’ve blogged recently, the reduction in predators in general can be a bad thing for ecosystems, and sharks are probably some of the best examples of ecosystem structural engineers we know (i.e., eating herbivores; ‘controlling’ prey densities, etc.). So, we should be worried when sharks start to disappear. One thing we also discovered is that we still have a rudimentary understanding of how climate change will affect sharks, the ways in which they structure ecosystems, and how they respond to coastal development. Suffice it to say though that generally speaking, things are not rosy if you’re a shark.
We end off with a recommendation we’ve been promoting elsewhere – we should be managing populations using the minimum viable population (MVP) size concept. Making sure that there are a lot of large, well-connected populations around will be the best insurance against extinction.
I.C. Field, M.G. Meekan, R.C. Buckworth, & C.J.A. Bradshaw (2009). Susceptibility of Sharks, Rays and Chimaeras to Global Extinction Advances in Marine Biology, 56, 275-363 : 10.1016/S0065-2881(09)56004-X
Here’s a little story for you about how a casual chat over a glass of wine (or many) can lead to great scientific endeavours.
A few years ago I was sitting in the living room of my good friends Noel Preece and Penny van Oosterzee in Darwin chatting about life, the universe, and everything. They rather casually mentioned that they would be selling their environmental consulting company and their house and moving to the Queensland rain forest. Ok – sounded like a pretty hippy thing to do when you’re thinking about ‘retiring’ (only from the normal grindstone, at least). But it wasn’t about the easy life away from it all (ok, partially, perhaps) – they wanted to do something with their reasonably large (181 ha), partially deforested (51-ha paddock) property investment. By ‘something’, I mean science.
So they asked me – how would we go about getting money to investigate the best way to reforest a tropical rain forest? I had no idea. As it turns out, no one really knows how to restore rain forests properly. Sure, planting trees happens a lot, but the random, willy-nilly, unquantified ways in which it is done means that no one can tell you what the biggest biodiversity bang for your buck is, or even if it can compete on the carbon sequestration front.
Why carbon sequestration? Well, in case you’ve had your head up your bum for the last decade, one of the major carbon mitigating schemes going is the offset idea – for every tonne of carbon you emit as a consumer, you (or more commonly, someone else you pay) plant a certain number of trees (because trees need carbon to grow and so suck it out of the atmosphere). Nice idea, but if you deforest native ecosystems just to bash up quick-growing monoculture plantations of (usually) exotic species with little benefit to native biota, biodiversity continues to spiral down the extinction vortex. So, there has to be a happy medium, and there has to be a way to measure it.
So I said to Penny and Noel “Why don’t we bash together a proposal and get some experts in the field involved and submit it to the Australian Research Council (ARC) for funding?” They thought that was a smashing idea, and so we did.
Fast forward a few years and … success! The Thiaki Project was born (‘Thiaki’ is the name of the Creek flowing through the property north of Atherton – seems to be of Greek origin). We were extremely lucky to find a new recruit to the University of Queensland, Dr. Margie Mayfield (who worked previously with Paul Ehrlich), who was not only an expert in the area of tropical reforestation for biodiversity, she also had the time and energy to lead the project. We garnered several other academic and industry partners and came up with a pretty sexy experiment that is just now getting underway thanks to good old Mr. ARC.
The project is fairly ambitious, even though the experiments per se are fairly straight forward. We’re using a randomised block design where we are testing 3 tree diversity treatments (monoculture, 1 species each from 6 families, and 5 species each from those same 6 families) and two planting densities (high and low). The major objective is to see what combination of planting density and native tree species provides the most habitat for the most species. We’re starting small, looking mainly at various insects as they start to use the newly planted blocks, but might expand the assessments (before planting and after) to reptiles, amphibians and possibly birds later on.
But we’re not stopping there – we were fortunate enough to get get a clever soil scientist, Dr. David Chittleborough of the University of Adelaide, involved so we could map the change in soil carbon during the experiment. Our major challenge is to find the right combination of tree species and planting techniques that restore native biodiversity the most effectively, all the while maximising carbon sequestration from the growing forest. And of course, we’re trying to do this as most cost-effectively as we can – measuring the relative costs will give landowners contemplating reforestation the scale of expenditures expected.
I’m pretty proud of what Margie, Noel, Penny and the rest of the team have accomplished so far, and what’s planned. Certainly the really exciting results are years away yet, but stay tuned – Thiaki could become the model for tropical reforestation worldwide. Follow the Thiaki Project website for regular updates.
I’d also love to recreate the Thiaki Project in southern Australia because as it turns out, no one knows how to maximise biodiversity and carbon sequestration for the lowest cost in temperate reforestation projects either. All we need is a few hundred hectares of deforested land (shouldn’t be hard to find), about $1 million to start, and a bit of time. Any takers?
© C. Madden
A quick post to talk about a subject I’m more and more interested in – the direct link between environmental degradation (including biodiversity loss) and human health.
To many conservationists, people are the problem, and so they focus naturally on trying to maintain biodiversity in spite of human development and spread. Well, it’s 60+ years since we’ve been doing ‘conservation biology’ and biodiversity hasn’t been this badly off since the Cretaceous mass extinction event 146-64 million years ago. We now sit squarely within the geological era more and more commonly known as the ‘Anthropocene’, so if we don’t consider people as an integral part of any ecosystem, then we are guaranteed to fail biodiversity.
I haven’t posted in a week because I was in Shanghai attending the rather clumsily entitled “Thematic Reference Group (TRG) on Environment, Agriculture and Infectious Disease’, which is a part of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/World Health Organization Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) (what a mouthful that is). What’s this all about and why is a conservation ecologist (i.e., me) taking part in the group?
It’s taken humanity a while to realise that what we do to the planet, we eventually end up doing to ourselves. The concept of ecosystem services1 demonstrates this rather well – our food, weather, wealth and well-being are all derived from healthy, functioning ecosystems. When we start to bugger up the inter-species relationships that define one element of an ecosystem, then we hurt ourselves. I’ve blogged about this topic a few times before with respect to flooding, pollination, disease emergence and carbon sequestration.
Our specific task though on the TRG is to define the links between environmental degradation, agriculture, poverty and infectious disease in humans. Turns out, there are quite a few examples of how we’re rapidly making ourselves more susceptible to killer infectious diseases simply by our modification of the landscape and seascape.
Some examples are required to illustrate the point. Schistosomiasis is a snail-borne fluke that infects millions worldwide, and it is on the rise again from expanding habitat of its host due to poor agricultural practices, bad hygiene, damming of large river systems and climate warming. Malaria too is on the rise, with greater and greater risk in the endemic areas of its mosquito hosts. Chagas (a triatomine bug-borne trypanosome) is also increasing in extent and risk. Some work I’m currently doing under the auspices of the TRG is also showing some rather frightening correlations between the degree of environmental degradation within a country and the incidence of infectious disease (e.g., HIV, malaria, TB), non-infectious disease (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease) and indices of life expectancy and child mortality.
I won’t bore you with more details of the group because we are still drafting a major World Health Organization report on the issues and research priorities. Suffice it to say that if we want to convince policy makers that resilient functioning ecosystems with healthy biodiversity are worth saving, we have to show them the link to infectious disease in humans, and how this perpetuates poverty, rights injustices, gender imbalances and ultimately, major conflicts. An absolute pragmatist would say that the value of keeping ecosystems intact for this reason alone makes good economic sense (treating disease is expensive, to say the least). A humanitarian would argue that saving human lives by keeping our ecosystems intact is a moral obligation. As a conservation biologist, I argue that biodiversity, human well-being and economies will all benefit if we get this right. But of course, we have a lot of work to do.
1Although Bruce Wilcox (another of the TRG expert members), who I will be highlighting soon as a Conservation Scholar, challenges the notion of ecosystem services as a tradeable commodity and ‘service’ as defined. More on that topic soon.
Here’s a nice little review from the increasingly impressive Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment which seems to be showcasing a lot of good conservation research lately.
© USGS
As we know, the world’s oceans are under huge threat, with predictions of 70 % loss of coral reefs by 2050, decline in kelp forests, loss of seagrasses, over-fishing, pollution and a rapidly warming and acidifying physical environment. Given all these stressors, it is absolutely imperative we spend a good deal of time thinking about the right way to impose restrictions on damage to marine areas – the simplest way to do this is via marine protected areas (MPA).
The science of MPA network design has matured over the last 10-20 years such that there is a decent body of literature now on what we need to do (now the policy makers just have to listen – some progress there too, but see also here). McLeod and colleagues in the latest issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment have published a review outlining the best, at least for coral reefs, set of recommendations for MPA network design given available information (paper title: Designing marine protected area networks to address the impacts of climate change). Definitely one for the Potential list.
Here’s what they recommend:
Size
Shape
Representation
Replication
Spread
Critical Areas
Connectivity
Ecosystem Function
Ecosystem Management
Of course, this is just a quick-and-dirty list as presented here – I highly recommend reading the review for specifics.
McLeod, E., Salm, R., Green, A., & Almany, J. (2009). Designing marine protected area networks to address the impacts of climate change Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7 (7), 362-370 DOI: 10.1890/070211
An intended pun from James Balog in another classic TED talk. If you thought climate change was merely a prediction from mathematical models, think again. The biodiversity implications are staggering.
“We have a problem of perception… Not enough people really get it yet.” J. Balog
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A good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Clive McMahon, is visiting Adelaide for the next few weeks from Darwin. We’re attacking a few overdue manuscripts and sampling a few of Adelaide’s better drops of value-added grape juice, so I asked him to do a guest post on ConservationBytes.com about his work. So here it is, something perhaps even few Australians know much about, let alone overseas folks. If you can recall that very strange scene in the film Crocodile Dundee where the old croc hunter casts a gestured spell over a horned beast, then you’ll probably appreciate this post.
Yes, there are plenty of them in northern Australia
Invasive and feral species can be important drivers of biodiversity loss. Australia, like many other isolated islands has developed an ancient, unique and diverse ecosystem. This unique ecosystem has been under extreme pressure ever since humans arrived around 40000-60000 years ago. One of the more damaging and economically important introduced species in Australia is the Asian swamp buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Ironically, swamp buffalo are listed as Endangered by the IUCN, and current estimates suggest that there are probably less than 4000 in their native habitats in Asia.
© B. Salau, Kakadu National Park
The first 16 buffalo were introduced to Australia in 1826 on Melville Island, and then to the mainland at Cobourg Peninsula a year later from Kupang (now West Timor, Indonesia). Another 18 buffalo were obtained from Kisar Island (northeast of modern Timor-Leste) and introduced to the Cobourg. In 1843, another 49 were introduced. When the first Cobourg settlement was abandoned in 1849, all the buffalo were released, and the population spread rapidly throughout the Northern Territory. Over the next 65 years, numbers and distribution increased to an estimated 350000 in the 1960s and 1970s and densities exceeded 25 km-2 in ‘prime’ habitat. However, the population was severely reduced during the 1980s and 1990s in parts of its range under the Brucellosis-Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC). Although largely successful in eradicating buffalo from pastoral lands in the short term, there was no ongoing broad-scale management of numbers and the present-day population of free-ranging buffalo has recovered to former densities in some areas.
© C. Speed
Buffalo were then and still are major problem in Australia due mainly to the environmental damage they cause, such as saltwater intrusion of wetlands and trampling of sensitive habitats, their potential threat to Australia’s livestock industry as hosts for disease, and the danger they pose to human safety. Given these ecological, economic and social impacts, there is an urgent need to manage buffalo numbers.
An important step to inform management of introduced and invasive species is to determine the history of introduction and quantify the rate of spread from introduction sites. Contemporary genetic techniques in conjunction with demographic and life history information are useful tools for understanding the dynamics, population structure, biology and colonisation dynamics of plants and animals, including invasive species such as buffalo.
We are currently in the final stages of providing the first detailed analysis of the buffalo population structure (demographic and genetic) to (1) establish the rate and most probable history of spread using detailed genetic information sampled from 8 sub-populations, (2) quantify the genetic distance and mixing rates between populations and (3) describe the age structure and therefore the demographic performance of this very successful invasive species.
Firstly to get an idea of genetic structure and relatedness, we collected a total of 430 small skin biopsies from buffalo across the Northern Territory, representing eight geographically distinct populations. To determine what has made the buffalo such a successful invader it is important to know the survival and breeding performance; we also constructed seven life tables based on culled samples at different densities and in different environments to work out what are the critical components of the population – i.e., where management intervention would be most successful.
As expected from a bottlenecked population, genetic variation is low compared to the that found in swamp buffalo from India and South East Asia. Despite this reduced genetic variation, the Australian population has thrived and spread outwards from introduction sites and into culled sites at high rates over the last 160 years (covering ~ 224 000 km2 in that time).
Although buffalo in Australia experienced two major periods of population reduction since their introduction, a small proportion (estimated at ~ 20 %) escaped the BTEC reduction in the eastern part of its north Australian range. BTEC did not operate with uniformity across the entire range of buffalo, concentrating its destocking efforts in a general area from the western coast of the Northern Territory to west of the Mann River in Arnhem Land, and south roughly to Kakadu National Park’s southern border. Coincidently and not surprisingly, it is in this area that we observe most migration activity.
The subpopulation structure detected here suggests that each population, while connected over generational time scales, generally remains in its immediate vicinity over the course of management-tractable periods. Therefore, management aimed at protecting Australia’s lucrative livestock industry trading under Australia’s disease-free status will benefit directly from this knowledge. For example, the localised introduction and subsequent rapid detection of disease could be efficiently managed from local culls because short-term movements of long-distance are less likely. Our results showcase how management of animals for disease control can be effectively informed via genetic studies and so avoid the need for expensive broad-scale intervention.
Our analyses of the age structure of buffalo reveals that buffalo have the capacity to recover swiftly after control because of high survival and fertility rates. Survival in the juvenile age classes was consistently the most important modifier of population growth. In populations where juvenile animals are harvested annually, fertility determined rebound potential. Thus, management aimed at long-term control of densities should focus primarily on the sustained culling of adult females and their offspring.
Given that numbers of buffalo are increasing and that buffalo are extremely well-adapted to the monsoonal tropics (unlike cattle, buffalo can maintain body condition and positive growth during times of food shortages), they are vulnerable to extended periods of harsh conditions. Climate change predictions herald increasing rainfall in the region, thereby potentially reducing the pressure on juvenile survival. As such, buffalo population growth could conceivably increase, making future management much more difficult. In essence, we need a large, evidence-based density reduction programme in place soon to prevent the worst ecological damage to Australia’s sensitive and unique ecosystems.
Check back here for announcements of upcoming publications arising from our work.
© F. O'Connor
This ‘In Depth‘ Science Opinion piece from the ABC couldn’t have come at a better time. Written by Ian Gordon of the CSIRO, this opinion piece was written off the back of the special session on mammalian extinctions held at the recent International Congress of Ecology in Brisbane. Three previous ConservationBytes.com blogs in August (here, here and here) were devoted to specific talks at the Congress, including one about John Woinarksi’s gloomy tale of dwindling mammal populations in the Top End (which is especially frightening considering its also going on in our so-called ‘protected’ areas such as Kakadu, Litchfield and Garig Gunak Barlu National Parks!).
So, I recommend you have a read of my blog post on the shocking continued loss of Australian mammals, then read Ian’s piece copied below. Bottom lines – stop burning the shit out of our forests and encourage dingo population recovery and expansion.
Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions.
Over the last two hundred years 22 mammal species have become extinct, and over 100 are now on the threatened and endangered species list, compiled as part of the federal government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Evidence suggests Australia is on the cusp of another wave of mammal extinctions with a reduction in the abundance of some species and alarmingly, their range.
This is undoubtedly one of the major biodiversity conservation issues affecting Australia. It’s crucial we focus on the management solutions required to stop these species falling into extinction.
A South American success story
Working as a zoologist has allowed me to be involved in projects across the globe, looking at species at risk of extinction due to over-exploitation by humans.
Earlier this year I edited a book on the South American vicuña‘s comeback from the brink of extinction. Once abundant in the Andes, this wild relative of the llama suffered a sharp population drop in the 1960s due to international demand for its fleece.
An international moratorium on the sale of vicuña fleece in 1969 saw populations recover enough by 1987 for Andean communities to be able to harvest the fibre in a sustainable way. Population numbers of vicuña have remained healthy ever since, making it one of the few success stories of wildlife conservation worldwide.
Australia’s mammal extinction crisis
However Australia’s medium-sized mammals have had to deal with a different range of issues to the vicuña: the introduction of feral animals, particularly cats and foxes; increased grazing pressure; altered fire regimes; the clearing of habitat for development and production; and now, the effects of climate change.
It isn’t that any of these pressures are particularly important by themselves, but the fact that many of them act in concert has had a significant impact on causing the crashes in population numbers, and increasing the risk of species becoming extinct.
For example, the crescent nailtail wallaby was once an abundant and widespread macropod of central and western Australia. The pressures of feral cats and foxes coupled with clearing for agriculture and grazing, and altered fire regimes pushed this little species over the edge and it is now classified as extinct.
The problem is also more far-reaching than we first assumed. Many people may think that animals are becoming extinct in the south of Australia where habitat destruction is quite evident.
But the populations of iconic species in the north of Australia such as the northern quoll, golden bandicoot and the Carpentarian rock-rat are also collapsing. In our lifetime populations of some species have greatly reduced in number, and others have completely disappeared in landscapes that are considered to be in excellent condition.
The golden bandicoot, listed as a vulnerable species, used to be found across much of the north of Australia. It is now only found in very small populations in the Northern Territory and on the isolated Burrow Island off the coast of Western Australia.
Time to bring back the dingo?
Further research on the impacts of fire, grazing, invasive species and climate change on Australian mammals would be extremely valuable, but ecologists recognise that crucial management decisions need to be made now.
We’ve found ourselves in a position where we have identified the threats to Australian mammal species and documented the loss of these species, the role of science must turn more directly to identifying the opportunities for assisting the survival of these mammals.
In August I chaired a panel with Professor Chris Johnson from James Cook University at the International Congress of Ecology, to discuss what management could be put in place now to help beleaguered populations of small mammals recover.
Johnson’s main focus is to bring back the top-order predator.
He believes there is now good evidence that a stable population of dingoes suppresses the numbers and activity of foxes and cats, and some other feral animal species as well.
He argues that the effect of using a top predator like the dingo to hold down populations of foxes and cats is that the total intensity of predation on smaller native mammals can be reduced.
Bringing back the dingo has many sheep and cattle farmers raising their eyebrows because the wild dogs are known to kill stock. But guardian sheepdogs can protect stock herds by fighting off dingoes if they come too close. This still allows the dingoes to have a beneficial effect in the ecosystem.
Current trials of Maremma dogs, a type of sheepdog, at Dunluce sheep station in northwest Queensland demonstrate that they can be effective dingo deterrents in a pastoral zone.
This is just one potential solution that may work in some areas. Reinstating mosaic fire regimes, where patches of land are burnt at different times to allow the land to recover in stages, and controlling grazing around sensitive habitat of endangered mammals are other potential solutions that are currently under trial in various parts of the country.
Working together
Even though science doesn’t have all the answers I believe that it is more important than ever for land managers and scientists to work together to put new management regimes on the ground.
Our scientific knowledge can provide guidelines for land managers to reduce the pressures on our biodiversity. Through monitoring how species and ecosystems respond to on-ground management we can then learn and adapt our advice to meet future challenges facing Australia’s threatened species.
We need to act now: the international community is watching Australia and we have an opportunity to show how we can apply science through collaborative agreements with land managers to reduce the threats and protect endangered species.
We’ll then be able to add Australian animals to the short list of species, like the vicuña, that have been brought back from the brink of extinction.
© energyportal.eu
I have the dubious pleasure today of introducing a recently published paper of ours that was at the same time both intellectually stimulating and demoralising to write. I will make no apologies for becoming emotionally involved in the scientific issues about which my colleagues and I write (as long as I can maintain with absolute sincerity that the data used and conclusions drawn are as objectively presented as I am capable), and this paper probably epitomises that stance more than most I’ve written during my career.
The topic is especially important to me because of its subtle, yet potentially disastrous consequences for biodiversity and climate change. It’s also a personal issue because it’s happening in a place I used to (many, many years ago) call home.
Despite comprising about a third of the world’s entire forested area and harbouring some of the lowest human densities anywhere, the great boreal forest that stretches across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and a huge chunk of Russia is under severe threat.
Surprised that we’re not talking about tropical deforestation for once? Surprised that so-called ‘developed’ nations are pilfering the last great carbon sink and biodiversity haven left on the planet? If you have read any of the posts on this blog, you probably shouldn’t be.
The paper today appeared online in Trends in Ecology and Evolution and is entitled Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity (by CJA Bradshaw, IG Warkentin & NS Sodhi). It’s essentially a review of the status of the boreal forest from a biodiversity perspective, and includes a detailed assessment of the degree of its fragmentation, species threat, climate- and human-influenced disturbance regime, and its carbon sequestration/emission status. I’ll summarise some of the main findings below:
© NASA
Warmer temperatures have predisposed coniferous forest in western Canada to a severe outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) extending over > 13 M ha. © BC Ministry For Range/L. Maclaughlan
Those include the main take-home messages. I invite you to read the paper in full and contact us (the authors) if you have any questions.
Full reference: Bradshaw, CJA, IG Warkentin, NS Sodhi. 2009. Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity. Trends in Ecology and Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.03.019
© Discovery Channel/W. Sloss
The latest edition of Conservation Letters is now out. Click here for full access (yes, all articles are still free!).
Papers in this issue:
This week a mate of mine was conferred her degree at the University of Adelaide and she invited me along to the graduation ceremony. Although academic graduation ceremonies can be a bit long and involve a little too much applause (in my opinion), I was fortunate enough to listen to the excellent and inspiring welcoming speech made by the University of Adelaide’s Dean of Science, Professor Bob Hill.
Professor Hill is a world-renown expert in plant evolution, systematics and ecophysiology, and he gave a wonderful outline of the importance of Darwin’s legacy for today’s burgeoning problem solvers. I am reproducing Prof. Hill’s speech here (with his permission) as a gift to readers of ConservationBytes.com. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, distinguished guests, members of staff, friends and family of graduates, and, most importantly of all, the new graduates, I am very pleased to have been asked to speak to you today, because 2009 marks one of the great anniversaries that we will see in our lifetimes. 200 years ago, on February 12th 1809, Charles Robert Darwin was born. To add to the auspicious nature of this year, 150 years ago, John Murray published the first edition of Darwin’s most famous book, titled On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, better known to us all today as The Origin of Species.
I believe that from a modern perspective, Darwin was the most influential person who has ever lived. Darwin’s impact on how we think and work is much more profound than most people realise. He changed the entire way in which we go about living. Today, I want to talk to you briefly about how Darwin had this impact.
Darwin was a great observer and a great writer, but above all he was a great critical thinker. He became a scientist by a round about route, planning to be a doctor and a minister of religion along the way, although his passion was always natural history. He was not a great undergraduate student, but he benefited enormously from contact he had with University staff outside the formal classroom. His potential must have been obvious, because he was strongly recommended at a relatively young age, to take the position of naturalist and gentleman companion to Captain Robert Fitzroy on his famous five year voyage of the Beagle. Following this voyage, Darwin never physically left Britain again, but intellectually he roamed far and wide. Darwin was one of the great letter writers. He wrote thousands of letters to contacts all over the world, requesting specimens, data and opinions, and he worked relentlessly at analysing what he received back.
Over many years as a practising scientist I have met a lot of people with a passion for natural history, some of them trained scientists like Darwin, some of them gifted amateurs. There is a very obvious distinction between those with and without formal scientific training at a Tertiary level, but it took me a long time to work out what that distinction is. Let me digress slightly before I explain it.
In today’s terminology we talk a lot about graduate attributes. For some graduates, it is reasonably simple to define the kinds of attributes you expect them to have. I prefer engineers whose bridges don’t fall down, lawyers who keep me out of jail unnecessarily, accountants who can add up and doctors who do their best to keep me alive and healthy. However, the key attributes we expect of Science graduates are not so simple to define. You will all have one or more specialities where you have more knowledge than those who did not do the relevant courses, but if you are anything like I was when I was sitting out there waiting to graduate, you probably think you did what you had to do in order to pass your exams and you now think you have forgotten most of what you were taught. I can assure you that you haven’t, but I can also assure you that specific knowledge of a scientific subject is not the most important thing you have been taught here.
So what is that special something that separates out a professional scientist? It is the capacity for critical scientific thinking. You are now ready to work as professionals in many fields, and employers will actively seek to hire you because they know you have been trained here to apply a particular approach to problem solving. That approach is not easily obtained and has been taught to you in the most subtle way over the full breadth of what you have been exposed to during your time here. I suspect most of you don’t even know that you now have this skill, but you do. Darwin had it in the most sublime fashion.
When Darwin published the Origin of Species it was the culmination of decades of data gathering, backed up by meticulous analysis. Darwin never swayed from that rigorous approach, which strongly reflected the training he received as a student.
When you are exposed to a new problem, you will approach the solution in a similar way to Darwin. Let me consider the example of climate change. There is a remarkable parallel between the public reaction to the publication of the Origin of Species and the current public reaction to climate change. Darwin suffered a public backlash from people who were not ready to accept such a radical proposition as evolution by means of natural selection and this was reinforced by a significant number of professional scientists who were willing to speak out against him and his theory. As time went by, professional scientists were gradually won over by the weight of evidence, to the point where mainstream science no longer considers evolution as a theory but as scientific fact.
The reality of climate change and its potential impacts has not had a single champion like Darwin, but it has involved a similar slow accumulation of data and very careful analysis and critical thinking over the implications of what the data tell us. Initially, there were many scientists who spoke against the human-caused impact on climate change, but their number is diminishing. Most significantly, the critical analysis undertaken by thousands of mainstream scientists has gained broad political acceptance, despite the best efforts of special interest lobbyists. I suspect Darwin would be fascinated by the way this debate has developed.
Lobbyists who write stern words about how scientists as a whole are engaged in some conspiracy theory to alarm the general population simply do not understand or choose to ignore how scientists work. The world needs the critical and analytical thinking that scientists bring more than ever before. We live on a wonderful, resilient planet, that will, in the very long run, survive and thrive no matter what we do to it. But we are an extremely vulnerable species, and our survival in a manner we would consider as acceptable, is nowhere near as certain. That is the legacy of my generation to yours. I have faith that your generation will be wiser than mine has been, and I know that good science will lead the charge towards providing that wisdom.
Charles Darwin was the greatest scientist of all, and that is partly because he was a great observer and a great writer. But most of all, Darwin was the consummate critical thinker – he collected masses of data himself and from colleagues all over the world and he fashioned those data into the most relevant and elegant theory of all. I will conclude with a brief and well known passage from the first edition of the Origin of Species, which clearly demonstrates the power of Darwin’s writing:
“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.“
I hope that the next Charles Darwin is sitting amongst you today. I know that at the very least I am standing in front of a group of people who have all the attributes necessary to be great contributors to the well-being of society and the planet. Be confident of your training and use your skills well. You have a grand tradition to uphold.
I bang on a bit about human over-population and how it drives biodiversity extinctions. Yet, it isn’t always hordes of hungry humans descending on the hapless species of this planet – Australia is a big place, but has few people (just over 20 million), yet it has one of the higher extinction rates in the world. Yes, most of the country is covered in some fairly hard-core desert and most people live in or near the areas containing the most species, but we have an appalling extinction record all the same.
A paper that came out recently in Conservation Biology and was covered a little in the media last week gives some telling figures for the Oceania region, and more importantly, explains that we have more than enough information now to implement sound, evidence-based policy to right the wrongs of the past and the present. Using IUCN Red List data, Michael Kingsford and colleagues (paper entitled Major conservation policy issues for biodiversity in Oceania), showed that of the 370 assessed species in Australia, 80 % of the threatened ones are listed because of habitat loss, 40 % from invasive species and 30 % from pollution. As we know well, it’s mainly habitat loss we have to control if we want to change things around for the better (see previous relevant posts here, here & here).
Kingsford and colleagues proceed to give a good set of policy recommendations for each of the drivers identified:
Habitat loss and degradation
Invasive species
Climate change
Overexploitation
Pollution
Disease
Implementation
A very good set of recommendations that I hope we can continue to develop within our governments.
© R. Ballen
Sounds really disgusting a little rude, doesn’t it? Well, if you think losing species because of successive bottlenecks from harvesting, habitat loss and genetic deterioration is rude, then the title of this post is appropriate.
I’m highlighting today a paper recently published in Conservation Biology by Kristensen and colleagues entitled Linking inbreeding effects in captive populations with fitness in the wild: release of replicated Drosophila melanogaster lines under different temperatures.
The debate has been around for years – do inbred populations have lower fitness (e.g., reproductive success, survival, dispersal, etc.) than their ‘outbred’ counterparts? Is one of the reasons small populations (below their minimum viable population size) have a high risk of extinction because genetic deterioration erodes fitness?
While there are many species that seem to defy this assumption, the increasing prevalence of Allee effects, and the demonstration that threatened species have lower genetic diversity than non-threatened species, all seem to support the idea. Kristensen & colleagues’ paper uses that cornerstone of genetic guinea pigs, the Drosophila fruit fly, not only to demonstrate inbreeding depression in the lab, but also the subsequent fate of inbred individuals released into the wild.
What they found was quite amazing. Released inbred flies only did poorly (i.e., weren’t caught as frequently meaning that they probably were less successful in finding food and perished) relative to outbred flies when the temperature was warm (daytime). Cold (i.e., night) releases failed to show any difference between inbred and outbred flies.
Basically this means that the environment interacts strongly with the genetic code that signals for particularly performances. When the going is tough (and if you’re an ectothermic fly, extreme heat can be the killer), then genetically compromised individuals do badly. Another reasons to be worried about runaway global climate warming.
Another important point was that the indices of performance didn’t translate universally to the field conditions, so lab-only results might very well give us some incorrect predictions of animal performance when populations reach small sizes and become inbred.
A few months ago I was asked to do an online interview about ConservationBytes at The Reef Tank. I previously made mention of the interview (see post), but I think it’s time I reproduce it here.
The effects of pollution, carbon build up in the ocean, extinction, loss of coral reefs, over-fishing, and global warming is increasingly becoming more detrimental to our marine life and marine world.
Fortunately our marine ecosystems have Corey Bradshaw on their side. As a conservation ecologist, Corey studies these ecosystems with a passion, trying to understands the interactions between plants and animals that make up these ecosystems as well as what human activity is doing to them.
He has realised long ago that conservation and awareness is crucial to the survival of these living things and carries on the long tradition of studying and trying to understand these ecosystems at the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.
He also avidly blogs about these pertinent issues at ConservationBytes.com, because he felt a need that these marine conservation issues needed to be heard. And he was more then right.
We were lucky enough to grab some time with Corey Bradshaw and he was kind enough to answer some important marine conservation questions, which are important in our desire: to make the marine world a better place.
What is your background in science and conservation?
I have a rather eclectic background in this area. I originally started my university education in general ecology, with a focus on plant ecology in particular (this was the strength of my undergraduate institution). There was no real emphasis on conservation per se until I started my postgraduate studies, although even then I was more interested in the empirical side of theoretical ecology than on conservation itself. It was more or less a gradual process that as I realised just how much we as a species have changed the planet in our (relatively) short time here, I became more and more dedicated to quantifying the links between species loss and how it affects human well-being.
After completing my MSc, PhD and first postdoctoral fellowship in New Zealand and Australia, I had the good fortune to work alongside a few excellent conservation ecologists specialising in extinction dynamics. This is where my mathematical bent and conservation interests really took off and eventually set the stage for most of my research today.
Your blog is ConservationBytes.com. Why the urge to start a blog on conservation only?
It may seem odd that I resisted blogging for many years because I thought it was a colossal time-waster that would take me away from my main scientific research. However, several things convinced me of its need and utility. First, it’s a wonderful vehicle to engage non-scientists about the research one does – let’s face it, most people don’t read scientific journals. Second, it’s interactive; people can ask questions or comment directly online. Third, it overcomes the strict language and technical rigour of most scientific publications and gets to the heart of the issue (it also allows me to express some opinions and speculations that are otherwise forbidden in scientific writing). Fourth, I realised there was a real lack of understanding about basic conservation science among the populace, so providing a vehicle for conservation science dissemination online appeared to be a good idea – there simply wasn’t anything like it when I started only a year ago. Finally, an effective, policy-changing scientist must advertise his/her research through the popular media to be recognised, so it obviously has career benefits.
Tell me about the conservation topics you cover?
ConservationBytes.com covers pretty much any topic that conforms to at least one of the following criteria:
It concerns research (previous, ongoing, planned) that is designed to improve the fate of biodiversity, whether locally, regionally or internationally
It concerns policy studies, actions or ideas that will have positive bearing on biodiversity conservation
It concerns demonstrations of the role biodiversity plays in providing humans with essential ecosystem services
I even have a section I call ‘Toothless’ that highlights ineffective conservation research or policy. Other areas include: exposés of well-known conservation scientists, a collection of links to conservation science journals, and my personal information (publications, CV, media attention).
What is your take on marine conservation? What does marine conservation include?
Given that I have worked in both marine and terrestrial realms from the tropics to the Antarctic, I really see little distinction in terms of conservation. True, the marine realm probably presents more challenges to conservation in some respects because it’s generally much more difficult and expensive to collect meaningful data, and it’s more difficult to control or mitigate people’s behaviour (especially in international waters), but the ecological patterns are the same (although I admit they may operate over different spatial and temporal scales).
Current ‘hot’ topics in marine conservation include the global degradation and loss of coral reef ecosystems (and what to do about it), terrestrial run-off of pollutants and nutrients affecting marine communities, over-fishing and better fishing management strategies, the design of effective marine protected areas, the socio-economic implications of moving people away from direct exploitation to behaviours and economic activities that promote longer-term biological community stability and resilience, and of course, how climate change (via acidification, hypercapnia, temperature change, storm intensification, seal level rise and modified current structure) might exacerbate the systems that are already stressed by the aforementioned problems.
Have you done any work, research in the area of marine conservation?
Yes, quite a bit. Some salient areas include
The grey nurse shark Carcharias taurus was the world’s first shark species to receive legislative protection when the east Australian population was listed under the 1984 New South Wales Fisheries Management Act. It has since been listed as globally Vulnerable by the IUCN in 1996 and the east Australian population was declared Critically Endangered in 2003. Previously, we constructed deterministic, density-independent PVA models for the east Australian population that suggested dire prospects for its long-term persistence without direct and immediate intervention. However, deterministic models might be overly optimistic because they do not incorporate stochastic fluctuations that can drive small populations extinct, whereas failing to account for density feedback can predict overly pessimistic. We recently completed a study demonstrating that the most effective measure to reduce extinction risk was to legislate the mandatory use of offset circle hooks in both recreational and commercial fisheries. The increase in dedicated marine reserves and shift from bather protection nets to drumlines had much lower effectiveness.
The global extent of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is valued from US$10-23.5 billion per year, representing between 11 and 26 million tonnes of fish killed annually beyond legal commercial catches. In northern Australia, IUU fishing has advanced as a ‘protein-mining’ wave starting in the South China Sea in the 1970s and now penetrates consistently into the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone. We have documented the extent of this wave and the implications for higher-order predators such as sharks, demonstrating that IUU fishing has already depleted large predators in Australian territorial waters. Given the negative relationship between IUU fishing takes and governance quality, we propose that deterring invading fishers will need substantially greater investment in border protection, and international accords to improve governance in neighbouring nations, if the tide of extinction is to be effectively mitigated.
Determining the extinction risk of the world’s shark and ray species – some work I’ve done recently with colleagues is to examine the patterns of shark biodiversity globally and determine which groups are most at risk of extinction. Not a surprise, but it turns out that the largest species of shark that reproduce the slowest are the most endangered (including all those bitey ones that frighten people).
Finally, I’m doing a lot of work now examining how the structure of coral reefs affects fish biodiversity patterns and long-term resilience. It turns out that basic biogeographic predictors (e.g., reef size and relative isolation from other reefs) really do dictate how temporally stable fish populations remain. And as we know, the more variable a population in time and space, the more likely it will go extinct (on average). The practical implication is that we can identify those coral reefs most likely to maintain their fish communities simply by measuring their size and position.
You’re from Australia, correct? What kind of marine conservation is going on there?
I’m originally from Canada, but I’ve spent most of my adult life in Australia (mostly in Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and now, Adelaide in South Australia). I did my PhD in the deep south of New Zealand (Otago University, Dunedin). In Australia, all the aforementioned ‘hot’ areas of marine conservation are in full swing, with greater and greater emphasis on climate change research. I think this aspect is pre-occupying most serious marine ecologists in Australia these days. For example, the southeast of Australia has already experienced some of the fastest warming in the Southern Hemisphere, with massive regional shifts in many species of fish, invertebrates, macroalgae and plankton.
What’s your take on ocean acidification? Do you think people need to be aware of this issue?
I used to believe ocean acidification was THE principal marine conservation issue facing us today, but now I think it’s just another stressor in a cornucopia of stressors. The main issue here is that we still understand so little of its implications for marine biodiversity. Sure, you lower the pH and up the partial CO2 (pCO2) of seawater, and many organisms don’t do so well (in terms of survival, reproduction and growth). However, it’s considerably more complex than this. pH and pCO2 vary substantially in space and time, and we have yet to quantify these patterns or how they are changing for most of the marine realm. Therefore, it’s difficult to simulate ‘real’ and future conditions in the lab.
Another issue is that temperature is changing must faster and so far exposure experiments indicate that it generally has a much more pronounced effect on marine organisms than acidification per se. However, like many climate change issues, a so-called ‘tipping point’ could be just around the corner that makes many marine communities collapse. It’s a frightening prospect, but one that needs a lot more dedicated research.
Can a person own an aquarium and still be considered a marine conservationist in your opinion?
Of course, provided one is cognisant of several important issues. First, most aquarists rely on the importation of non-native species. Lack of vigilance and carelessness has resulted in a suite of alien species being released into naïve ecosystems, resulting in the extinction or reduction of many native fish and invertebrates. Another issue is the transport cost – think how much carbon you are emitting by flying that tropical clownfish to your local pet shop in Norway. Third, do you know from which populations your displayed fish come? Were they harvested sustainably, or were they the last individuals plucked from a dying reef? A good knowledge of an animal’s origin is essential for the responsible aquarist. In my view one should play it safe. I think having aquaria filled with local species that are easily acquired, don’t cost the Earth to transport and pose no risk to native ecosystems is the most responsible way to go. You can also be a lot more certain of sustainable harvest if you live close by the source.
What is your take on climate change and its effect on marine life? Is being aware and educated on this particular topic and how it affects the marine world make someone a marine conservationist?
Awareness is only the first and most basic step. I’d say most of the world is ‘aware’ to some extent. It’s really the change in human behaviour that’s required before we make any true leaps forward. Some of the issues described above get to the heart of behavioural change. To use an analogy, it’s not enough to recognise that you’re an alcoholic, you have to stop drinking too to prevent the damage.
What can we do to raise awareness of the importance of marine conservation and conservation in general?
My personal take on this, and it applies to ALL biodiversity conservation (i.e., not just marine) is that people won’t take it seriously until they see how its loss affects their lives negatively. For example, let’s say we lose all commercially exploitable fish – not having access to delicious and healthy fish protein will mean people change the way fishing is done; that is, they’ll try to force fishers to fish sustainably and consumers to demand responsibly. The same can be said for more esoteric ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, oxygen production, water purification, pollination, waste detoxification, etc. if, and only if, we understand the economic and health benefits of keeping ecosystems intact. We need more research that makes the biodiversity-human benefit link so that people ultimately get the message. Destroying biodiversity means destroying yourself.
As I said before, awareness is only the first step.
© Wiley-Blackwell
A paper recently posted online in Conservation Letters caught my eye as a Potential on ConservationBytes.com.
Gary Luck and colleagues’ paper Protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity in the world’s watersheds is a novel approach to an admittedly problematic aspect of conservation biology – global prioritisation schemes. While certainly coming in as a Conservation Classic, the first real global conservation prioritisation scheme (Myers and colleagues’ global biodiversity hotspots) was rather subjective in its approach, and many subsequent schemes have failed to reproduce the same kinds of priorities (the congruency problem). I’m certainly not knocking biodiversity hotspots because I believe it was one of the true paradigm shifts in conservation biology, but I am cognisant of its limitations.
Another big problem with conservation prioritisation schemes is that they are a hard sell to governments – how do you convince nations (especially poor ones) to forgo the immediate gains of resource exploitation to protect what many (incorrectly and short-sightedly) deem as irrelevant centres of biotic endemism?
Well, Luck and colleagues have taken us one step closer to global acceptance of conservation prioritisation schemes by basing this latest addition on ecosystem services. In their paper they divided the world by catchments (watersheds) and then estimated the services of water provision, flood prevention and carbon storage that each provides to humanity. Water provision was a estimated as a complex combination of variables that together can be interpreted as the capacity of ecosystems to regulate water flows and quality that benefit humans (e.g., influencing seasonal water availability or nutrient levels). Flood mitigation was estimated as the system’s capacity to reduce the impact of floods on communities, and carbon storage was estimated as the system’s capacity to uptake carbon in soils and vegetation.
In general, the catchments in need of the highest priority protection were found in the poorest areas (namely, South East Asia and Africa) because their protection would be the least costly and benefit the most people. Luck and colleagues are therefore the first to incorporate cost–benefit trade-offs explicitly in developing global priorities for protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity. I take my hat off to them for a modern and highly relevant twist on an old idea. Great paper and I hope people take notice.
CJA Bradshaw
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ConservationBytes.com 