Psychological toll of being a sustainability scientist

8 12 2014

depressed scientistLike many academics, I’m more or less convinced that I am somewhere on the mild end of the autism spectrum. No, I haven’t been diagnosed and I doubt very much that my slight ‘autistic’ tendencies have altered my social capacity, despite my wife claiming that I have only two emotions – angry or happy. Nor have they engendered any sort of idiot savant mathematical capability.

But I’m reasonably comfortable with mathematics, I can do a single task for hours once it consumes my attention, and I’m excited about discovering how things work. And I love to code. Rather than academics having a higher innate likelihood of being ‘autistic’, I just think the job attracts such personalities.

In the past few years though, my psychological state is probably less dictated by the hard-wiring of my ‘autidemic’ mind and more and more influenced by the constant battery of negative information my brain receives.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, corruption, deforestation, ecological literacy, ecology, environmental policy, environmental science, exploitation, extinction, habitat loss, health, human overpopulation, logging, pollution, population dynamics, poverty, research, science, threatened species, toxicology

InvaCost – estimating the economic damage of invasive insects

7 11 2014

insectinvasionThis is a blosh (rehash of someone else’s blog post) of Franck Courchamp‘s posts on an exciting new initiative of which I am excited to be a part. Incidentally, Franck’s spending the week here in Adelaide.

Don’t forgot to vote for the project to receive 50 000 € public-communication grant!

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Climate change will make winters milder and habitats climatically more suitable year-round for cold-blooded animals like insects, but there are many questions remaining regarding whether such insects will be able to invade other regions as the climate shifts. There are many nasty bugs out there.

For example, the Asian predatory wasp is an invasive hornet in Europe that butchers pollinating insects, especially bees, thereby affecting the production of many wild and cultivated plants. I hope that we all remember what Einstein said about pollinators:

If bees were to disappear, humans will disappear within a few years.

(we all should remember that because it’s one of the few things he said that most of us understood). The highly invasive red fire ant is feared for its impacts on biodiversity, agriculture and cattle breeding, and the thousands of anaphylactic shocks inflicted to people by painful stings every year (with hundreds of deaths). Between the USA and Australia, over US$10 billion is spent yearly on the control of this insect alone. Tiger mosquitoes are vectors of pathogens that cause dengue fever, chikungunya virus and of about 30 other viruses. We could go on.

Most of these nasty creatures are now unable to colonise northern regions of Europe or America, or southern regions of Australia, for example, because they cannot survive cold temperatures. But how will this change? Where, when and which species will invade with rising temperatures? What will be the costs in terms of species loss? In terms of agricultural or forestry loss? In terms of diseases to cattle, domestic animals and humans? What will be the death toll if insects that are vectors of malaria can establish in new, highly populated areas?

We’ve proposed to study these and others from a list of 20 of the worst invasive insect species worldwide, and we got selected (i.e., financed!) by the Fondation BNP Paribas. In addition, the Fondation BNP Paribas has selected five scientific programmes on climate change and will give 50,000 € (that’s US$62,000) to the one selected by the public, for a communication project on their scientific programme. This is why we need you to vote for our project: InvaCost. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : agriculture, alien species, bioclimatic envelope, cattle, citizen science, climate change, climate shift, conservation, disease, ecology, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental economics, Europe, food, health, invasive species, management, research, science, science communication

Human population size: speeding cars can’t stop quickly

28 10 2014

Stop breeding cartoon-Steve Bell 1994Here at ConservationBytes.com, I write about pretty much anything that has anything remotely to do with biodiversity’s prospects. Whether it is something to do with ancient processes, community dynamics or the wider effects of human endeavour, anything is fair game. It’s a little strange then that despite cutting my teeth in population biology, I have never before tackled human demography. Well as of today, I have.

The press embargo has just lifted on our (Barry Brook and my) new paper in PNAS where we examine various future scenarios of the human population trajectory over the coming century. Why is this important? Simple – I’ve argued before that we could essentially stop all conservation research tomorrow and still know enough to deal with most biodiversity problems. If we could only get a handle on the socio-economic components of the threats, then we might be able to make some real progress. In other words, we need to find out how to manage humans much more than we need to know about the particulars of subtle and complex ecological processes to do the most benefit for biodiversity. Ecologists tend to navel-gaze in this arena far too much.

So I called my own bluff and turned my attention to humans. Our question was simple – how quickly could the human population be reduced to a more ‘sustainable’ size (i.e., something substantially smaller than now)? The main reason we posed that simple, yet deceptively loaded question was that both of us have at various times been faced with the question by someone in the audience that we were “ignoring the elephant in the room” of human over-population.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : anthropocene, Asia, conservation, demography, economics, ecosystem services, endemism, environmental policy, famine, health, human overpopulation, modelling, population dynamics, science, threatened species

If biodiversity is so important, why is Europe not languishing?

17 03 2014

collapseI don’t often respond to many comments on this blog unless they are really, really good questions (and if I think I have the answers). Even rarer is devoting an entire post to answering a question. The other day, I received a real cracker, and so I think it deserves a highlighted response.

Two days ago, a certain ‘P. Basu’ asked this in response to my last blog post (Lose biodiversity and you’ll get sick):

I am an Indian who lived in Germany for quite a long period. Now, if I am not grossly mistaken, once upon a time Germany and other west european countries had large tracts of “real” forests with bears, wolves, foxes and other animals (both carnivore and herbivore). Bear has completely disappeared from these countries with the advent of industrialization. A few wolves have been kept in more or less artificially created forests. Foxes, deer and hares, fortunately, do still exist. My question is, how come these countries are still so well off – not only from the point of view of economy but also from the angle of public health despite the loss of large tracts of natural forests? Or is it that modern science and a health conscious society can compensate the loss of biodiversity.

“Well”, I thought to myself, “Bloody good question”.

I have come across this genre of question before, but usually under more hostile circumstances when an overtly right-wing respondent (hell, let’s call a spade a spade – a ‘completely selfish arsehole’) has challenged me on the ‘value of nature’ logic (I’m not for a moment suggesting that P. Basu is this sort of person; on the contrary, he politely asked an extremely important question that requires an answer). The comeback generally goes something like this: “If biodiversity is so important, why aren’t super-developed countries wallowing in economic and social ruin because they’ve degraded their own life-support systems? Clearly you must be wrong, Sir.”

There have been discussions in the ecological and sustainability literature that have attempted to answer this, but I’ll give it a shot here for the benefit of CB.com readers. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, Asia, Australia, biodiversity, Central America, China, conservation, decline, deforestation, disease, economics, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, extinction debt, food, habitat loss, health, human overpopulation, pollution, poverty, South America, tropical

Biowealth: all creatures great and small

4 12 2013

Curious Country flyer“So consider the crocodiles, sharks and snakes, the small and the squirmy, the smelly, slimy and scaly. Consider the fanged and the hairy, the ugly and the cute alike. The more we degrade this astonishing diversity of evolved life and all its interactions on our only home, the more we expose ourselves to the ravages of a universe that is inherently hostile to life.”

excerpt from ‘Biowealth: all creatures great and small’ The Curious Country (C.J.A. Bradshaw 2013).

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I’ve spent the last few days on the east coast with my science partner-in-crime, Barry Brook, and one of our newest research associates (Marta Rodrigues-Rey Gomez). We first flew into Sydney at sparrow’s on Monday, then drove a hire car down to The ‘Gong to follow up on some Australian megafauna databasing & writing with Bert Roberts & Zenobia Jacobs. On Tuesday morning we then flitted over to Canberra where we had the opportunity to attend the official launch of a new book that Barry and I had co-authored.

The book, The Curious Country, is an interesting experiment in science communication and teaching dreamed up by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb. Realising that the average Aussie has quite a few questions about ‘how stuff works’, but has little idea how to answer those questions, Ian engaged former Quantum star and science editor, Leigh Dayton, to put together a short, punchy, topical and easily understood book about why science is good for the country.

Yes, intuitive for most of you out there reading this, but science appreciation isn’t always as high as it should be amongst the so-called ‘general public’. Ian thought this might be one way to get more people engaged.

When honoured with the request to write an interesting chapter on biodiversity for the book, I naturally accepted. It turns out Barry was asked to do one on energy provision at the same time (but we didn’t know we had both been asked at the time). Our former lab head, Professor David Bowman, was also asked to write a chapter about fire risk, so it was like a mini-reunion yesterday for the three of us.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, carbon, climate change, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, extinction debt, fish, fisheries, food, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, health, marine protected area, research, science, science communication, scientific writing, threatened species

Ecology: the most important science of our times

12 07 2013

rocket-scienceThe title of this post is deliberately intended to be provocative, but stay with me – I do have an important point to make.

I’m sure most every scientist in almost any discipline feels that her or his particular knowledge quest is “the most important”. Admittedly, there are some branches of science that are more applied than others – I have yet to be convinced, for example, that string theory has an immediate human application, whereas medical science certainly does provide answers to useful questions regarding human health. But the passion for one’s own particular science discipline likely engenders a sort of tunnel vision about its intrinsic importance.

So it comes down to how one defines ‘important’. I’m not advocating in any way that application or practicality should be the only yardstick to ascertain importance. I think superficially impractical, ‘blue-skies’ theoretical endeavours are essential precursors to all so-called applied sciences. I’ll even go so far as to say that there is fundamentally no such thing as a completely unapplied science discipline or question. As I’ve said many times before, ‘science’ is a brick wall of evidence, where individual studies increase the strength of the wall to a point where we can call it a ‘theory’. Occasionally a study comes along and smashes the wall (paradigm shift), at which point we begin to build a new one. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, conservation biology, ecology, ecosystem services, food, health, human overpopulation, mathematics, modelling, research, science

Global Ecology postgraduate opportunities

12 08 2012

I should have published these ages ago, but like many things I have should have done earlier, I didn’t.

I also apologise for a bit of silence over the past week. After coming back from the ESP Conference in Portland, I’m now back at Stanford University working with Paul Ehrlich trying to finish our book (no sneak peaks yet, I’m afraid). I have to report that we’ve completed about about 75 % it, and I’m starting to feel like the end is in sight. We hope to have it published early in 2013.

So here they are – the latest 9 PhD offerings from us at the Global Ecology Laboratory. If you want to get more information, contact the first person listed as the first supervisor at the end of each project’s description.

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1. Optimal survey and harvest models for South Australian macropods (I’ve advertised this before, but so far, no takers):

The South Australia Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR) is custodian of a long-term macropod database derived from the State’s management of the commercial kangaroo harvest industry. The dataset entails aerial survey data for most of the State from 1978 to present, annual population estimates, quotas and harvests for three species: red kangaroo (Macropus rufus), western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus), and the euro (Macropus robustus erubescens).

DEWNR wishes to improve the efficiency of surveys and increase the precision of population estimates, as well as provide a more quantitative basis for setting harvest quotas.

We envisage that the PhD candidate will design and construct population models:

  • to predict population size/densities with associated uncertainty, linking fluctuations to environmental variability (including future climate change projections)
  • to evaluate the efficiency of spatially explicit aerial surveys
  • to estimate demographic parameters (e.g., survival rate) from life tables and
  • to estimate spatially explicit sustainable harvest quotas

 Supervisors: me, A/Prof. Phill Cassey, Dr Damien Fordham, Dr Brad Page (DEWNR), Professor Michelle Waycott (DEWNR).

2. Correcting for the Signor-Lipps effect

The ‘Signor-Lipps effect’ in palaeontology is the notion that the last organism of a given species will never be recorded as a fossil given the incomplete nature of the fossil record (the mirror problem is the ‘Jaanusson effect’, where the first occurrence is delayed past the true time of origination). This problem makes inference about the timing and speed of mass extinctions (and evolutionary diversification events) elusive. The problem is further complicated by the concept known as the ‘pull of the recent’, which states that the more time since an event occurred, the greater the probability that evidence of that event will have disappeared (e.g., erased by erosion, hidden by deep burial, etc.).

In a deep-time context, these problems confound the patterns of mass extinctions – i.e., the abruptness of extinction and the dynamics of recovery and speciation. This PhD project will apply a simulation approach to marine fossil time series (for genera and families, and some individual species) covering the Phanerozoic Aeon, as well as other taxa straddling the K-T boundary (Cretaceous mass extinction). The project will seek to correct for taphonomic biases and assess the degree to which extinction events for different major taxa were synchronous.

The results will also have implications for the famous Sepkoski curve, which describes the apparent logistic increase in marine species diversity over geological time with an approximate ‘carrying capacity’ reached during the Cenozoic. Despite recent demonstration that this increase is partially a taphonomic artefact, a far greater development and validation/sensitivity analysis of underlying statistical models is needed to resolve the true patterns of extinction and speciation over this period.

The approach will be to develop a series of models describing the interaction of the processes of speciation, local extinction and taphonomic ‘erasure’ (pull of the recent) to simulate how these processes interact to create the appearance of growth in numbers of taxa over time (Sepkoski curve) and the abruptness of mass extinction events. The candidate will estimate key parameters in the model to test whether the taphonomic effect is strong enough to be the sole explanation of the apparent temporal increase in species diversity, or whether true diversification accounts for this.

Supervisors: me, Prof. Barry Brook

3. Genotypic relationships of Australian rabbit populations and consequences for disease dynamics

Historical evidence suggests that there were multiple introduction events of European rabbits into Australia. In non-animal model weed systems it is clear that biocontrol efficacy is strongly influenced by the degree of genetic diversity and number of breed variants in the population.

The PhD candidate will build phylogenetic relationships for Australian rabbit populations and develop landscape genetic models for exploring the influence of myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) on rabbit vital rates (survival, reproduction and dispersal) at regional and local scales. Multi-model synthesis will be used to quantify the relative roles of environment (including climate) and genotype on disease prevalence and virulence in rabbit populations.

Supervisors: A/Prof Phill Cassey, Dr Damien Fordham, Prof Barry Brook Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : alien species, Australia, conservation, conservation biology, disease, environmental science, health, invasive species, kangaroo, mathematics, niche model, population dynamics, science, South Australia, The University of Adelaide

The invisible hand of ecosystem services

4 08 2012

I’ve just spent nearly an entire week trying to get my head around ecosystem services (ES).

You’d think that would have been a given based on my experience, my research, my writings and the fact that I’ve just spent the last week with 400 ES specialists from around the world at the 5th international Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) Conference in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Well, prior to this week I thought I knew what ES were, but now I think I’m just a little more confused.

Of course, I’m not talking about the concept of ES or what they are (hell, I’ve written enough about them on this blog and in my papers); my problem is understanding how we as society end up valuing them in a practical, sensible and feasible way.

So I’m going to describe the ESP Conference as I saw it, and not necessarily in chronological order.

First up is the term ‘ecosystem services’ itself – horrible name, and something rammed home again after attending the conference. Most people on the planet that are not scientists (that would be nearly everyone) just might have the most tenuous and ethereal of grasps of ‘ecosystem’ in the first place, and I’d bet that 99 % of most undergraduate students couldn’t provide a comprehensive description. This is because ecosystems are mind-bogglingly, chaotically and awesomely complex. Just ask any ecosystem ecologist.

The second part of the term – services – is particularly offensive in its presumption and arrogance. It’s not like you ring up an ecosystem and get it to clean your carpets, or fill your water tank or gas cylinder. No, the natural world did not evolve to pamper humanity; we are merely part of it (and bloody efficient at modifying it, I might add).

So try to sell this ‘incredibly complex thingy’ that is ‘there to do some (intangible) shit for us’ to the public, policy makers and politicians, and you mostly get a dog’s regurgitated breakfast and some blank, slack-jawed stares. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : agriculture, alien species, biocarbon, biosequestration, carbon, carbon trading, conference, conservation, deforestation, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental economics, environmental policy, fisheries, flood, food, harvest, health, invasive species, investment, logging

When the cure becomes the disease

6 02 2012

I’ve always barracked for Peter Kareiva‘s views and work; I particularly enjoy his no-bullshit, take-no-prisoners approach to conservation. Sure, he’s said some fairly radical things over the years, and has pissed off more than one conservationist in the process. But I think this is a good thing.

His main point (as is mine, and that of a growing number of conservation scientists) is that we’ve already failed biodiversity, so it’s time to move into the next phase of disaster mitigation. By ‘failing’ I mean that, love it or loathe it, extinction rates are higher now than they have been for millennia, and we have very little to blame but ourselves. Apart from killing 9 out of 10 people on the planet (something no war or disease will ever be able to do), we’re stuck with the rude realism that it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

This post acts mostly an introduction to Peter Kareiva & collaborators’ latest essay on the future of conservation science published in the Breakthrough Institute‘s new journal. While I cannot say I agree with all components (especially the cherry-picked resilience examples), I fundamentally support the central tenet that we have to move on with a new state of play.

In other words, humans aren’t going to go away, ‘pristine’ is as unattainable as ‘infinity’, and reserves alone just aren’t going to cut it. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, deforestation, ecological triage, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, governance, habitat loss, health, human overpopulation, preservationist, prioritisation

Know thy threat

9 06 2011

Here’s another great guest post by Megan Evans of UQ – her previous post on resolving the environmentalist’s paradox was a real hit, so I hope you enjoy this one too.

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The reasons for the decline of Australia’s unique biodiversity are many, and most are well known. Clearing of vegetation for urban and agricultural land uses, introduced species and changed fire patterns are regularly cited in State of the Environment reports, recovery plans and published studies as major threats to biodiversity. But, while these threats are widely acknowledged, little has been done to quantify them in terms of the proportion of species affected, or their spatial extent at a national, state or local scale. To understand why such information on threats may be useful, consider for instance how resources are allocated in public health care1.

Threat knowledge

Conditions such as cancer, heart disease and mental health are regarded as National Health Priority Areas in Australia, and have been given special attention when prioritising funds since the late 1980s. The burden of disease in these priority areas are quantified according to the incidence or prevalence of disease or condition, and its social and economic costs. Estimates of burden of disease and their geographic distribution (often according to local government areas) can assist in communicating broad trends in disease burden, but also in prioritising efforts to achieve the best outcomes for public health. An approach similar to that used in healthcare could help to identify priorities for biodiversity conservation – using information on the species which are impacted by key threats, the spatial distributions of species and threats, and the costs of implementing specific management actions to address these threats. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : alien species, Australia, biodiversity, conservation, deforestation, environmental policy, extinction, fire, fox, habitat loss, harvest, health, invasive species, planning, threatened species

Humans 1, Environment 0

27 09 2010

© flickr.com/photos/singapore2010

While travelling to our Supercharge Your Science workshop in Cairns and Townsville last week (which, by the way, went off really well and the punters gave us the thumbs up – stay tuned for more Supercharge activities at a university near you…), I stumbled across an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the state of Australia.

That Commonwealth purveyor of numbers, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), put together a nice little summary of various measures of wealth, health, politics and environment and their trends over the last decade. The resulting Measures of Australia’s Progress is an interesting read indeed. I felt the simple newspaper article didn’t do the environmental components justice, so I summarise the salient points below and give you my tuppence as well. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Australia, carbon, conservation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, fish, fisheries, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, IUCN, logging, mammal, pollination, Red List

Global erosion of ecosystem services

14 09 2010

A few months ago I was asked to give a lecture about erosion of ecosystem services to students in the University of Adelaide‘s Issues in Sustainable Environments unit. I gave that lecture last week and just uploaded a slidecast of the presentation (with audio) today.

I’ve reproduced the lecture here for your viewing pleasure. I hope you find the 45-minute presentation useful. Note that the first few minutes cover me referring to the Biodiversity film short that I posted not too long ago.

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CJA Bradshaw


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Categories : anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, carbon, climate change, coasts, coral reefs, deforestation, disease, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, fire, fisheries, flood, fragmentation, governance, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, illegal fishing, kelp, logging, marine protected area, MPA, pollination, predator, protected area, Red List, seagrass, shark, The University of Adelaide, threatened species, water

Webinar: Modelling water and life

27 08 2010

Another quick one today just to show the webinar of my recent 10-minute ‘Four in 40’ talk sponsored by The Environment Institute and the Department for Water. This seminar series was entitled ‘Modelling as a Tool for Decision Support’ held at the Auditorium, Royal Institution Australia (RiAus).

“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


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Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, biogeography, connectivity, conservation, conservation biology, deforestation, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, habitat loss, health, island biogeography, management, marine protected area, mathematics, minimum viable population, modelling, protected area, research, The University of Adelaide, threatened species

100 actions to slow biodiversity loss

19 08 2010

I received an email a few days ago from Guillaume Chapron of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet) asking me to promote his ‘Biodiversity 100‘ campaign on ConservationBytes.com. I think it’s an interesting initiative, and so I’ll gladly spread the word.

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: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : biodiversity, carbon, carbon trading, climate change, conservation, deforestation, environmental policy, environmental science, fisheries, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, marine protected area, protected area, restoration

Killing us slowly

6 07 2010

I’m currently attending the 2010 International Congress for Conservation Biology in Edmonton, Canada. I thought it would be good to tweet and blog my way through on topics that catch my attention. This is my second post from the conference.

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I silently scoffed inside when the plenary speaker was being introduced. It was boldly claimed that we were about to hear one of the best presentations any of us had ever seen at a scientific conference before.

I cannot say for certain whether it was indeed ‘the best’, but bloody hell, it was excellent.

Our speaker is certainly well-known in the endocrinology world (very well published), is a bane to certain chemical industries and is revered as a scientist who puts his money where is mouth is.

Professor Tyrone Hayes of the University of California Berkeley is an ‘eco-endocrinologist’ who blew the lid on the devastating health effects of the most available and ubiquitous agricultural herbicide in use today – evil atrazine. As my readers know, I am certainly pushing the empirical basis for the link between environmental degradation and deterioration of human health (my talk here at the ICCB on Wednesday will be on this very topic), so this topic interests me greatly.

It’s no secret that atrazine has devastating feminising effects on amphibians (and many other taxa), and has been linked convincingly to increasing the risk of cancer in humans. It’s banned in Europe, but still widely used pretty much everywhere else. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conference, conservation, conservation biology, environmental policy, frog, health, propaganda, toxicology

A world of hurt

21 04 2010

Given it’s only a little under 3 weeks away, I thought I’d advertise an upcoming free public lecture I’m giving for the University of Adelaide‘s highly popular Research Tuesdays programme.

The Research Tuesdays team have done a fantastic job of putting together the associated promotional material, so I’m more or less going to reproduce it here.

The topic is about the global-scale evidence for declining human health from environmental degradation – it’s new research that I haven’t yet published, and so it’ll be exciting to start disseminating the amazing results my colleagues and I have found in a public forum.

So join us on 11 May at the University of Adelaide for what I promise will be an interesting (if not frightening) public lecture. Details below. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : conservation, deforestation, habitat loss, health, The University of Adelaide

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