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Twenty landmark papers in biodiversity conservation

13 10 2011

While I can’t claim that this is the first time one of my peer-reviewed papers has been inspired by ConservationBytes.com, I can claim that this is the first time a peer-reviewed paper is derived from the blog.

After a bit of a sordid history of review (isn’t it more and more like that these days?), I have the pleasure of announcing that our paper ‘Twenty landmark papers in biodiversity conservation‘ has now been published as an open-access chapter in the new book ‘Research in Biodiversity – Models and Applications‘ (InTech).

Perhaps not the most conventional of venues (at least, not for me), but it is at the very least ‘out there’ now and freely available.

The paper itself was taken, modified, elaborated and over-hauled from text written in this very blog – the ‘Classics‘ section of ConservationBytes.com. Now, if you’re an avid follower of CB, then the chapter won’t probably represent anything terribly new; however, I encourage you to read it anyway given that it is a vetted overview of possibly some of the most important papers written in conservation biology.

If you are new to the field, an active student or merely need a ‘refresher’ regarding the big leaps forward in this discipline, then this chapter is for you.

The paper’s outline is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Allee effect, biodiversity, biodiversity hotspots, climate change, conservation, demography, ecological triage, ecosystem services, environment, Evil Quartet, extinction debt, extinction synergy, fishing down the web, Genetics, habitat fragmentation, invasional meltdown, island biogeography, IUCN Red List, mesopredator release, minimum viable population size, Navjot Sodhi, shifting baselines, Tragedy of the commons
Categories : biodiversity, climate change, conservation, deforestation, demography, ecosystem services, fish, fisheries

Conservation is all about prioritisation

4 12 2010

Another great guest post from a previous contributor, Piero Visconti.

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Biodiversity conservation is about prioritisation – making difficult choices.

With limited money and so many habitats and species in need of protection, deciding where not to expend resources is as important as deciding where to act. Saying ‘no’ will be crucial for ensuring the persistence of biodiversity and ecosystem services, simply because as individuals who value conservation, we will always be tempted to try and save everything.

In the words of Frederick the Great: “He who defends everything, defends nothing.”

As a result, much recent conservation planning research has focused on offering managers general and flexible tools for deciding which conservation features should be the highest priority. Intuitively, we should direct our resources towards areas that have high biodiversity values, and that are likely to be lost if the forces of conservation do not intervene (the most ‘vulnerable’ land parcels). This approach is known as the ‘minimize loss’ approach. Imagine we are worried about the loss of rare native vegetation in the face of ongoing urban expansion (e.g., Melbourne’s western grasslands). To minimize loss, managers would pre-emptively protect sites that are most likely to be developed. But is this decision to race the bulldozers always the best idea? How much does this choice depend on our assumptions about how land is protected, how land developers behave, and the accuracy of our future predictions? Read the rest of this entry »