Climate change will bring extreme conditions to much of Earth’s surface without immediate action. (Image is in the public domain: CC0 1.0 Universal)

Human activities may promote speciation

We applaud the vital work to save species at risk. However, it is a truism (if not a law) of biology, that all species will eventually go extinct. With that sobering thought, can we ask what level of effort should be expended to save those plants and animals that are inevitably doomed? With his new book, Inheritors of the Earth, Chris Thomas, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of York inspired me to consider an alternative view. He argues that many plants and animals benefit from human activities. For example, many species have expanded their geographic ranges. According to evolutionary biology theory, increasing fragmentation and niche availability drive species diversification. Indeed, Thomas argues that human activities are “increasing the rate at which new species are formed, perhaps to the highest level in Earth’s history.”

Embrace neobiodiversity

Thus, rather than the depressing notion that conservation is fighting a losing battle, we can view some kinds of human activity as actually promoting biodiversity in the long run. This positive view will provoke controversy. However, if we embrace the idea of a new paradigm for maximizing biodiversity, which we can call “neobiodiversity,” conservationists can start to turn toward the most serious threat facing life on Earth: climate change.

Climate change is the biggest threat

Indeed, earlier this month, the IPCC released yet another climate change report again sounding loud warning bells. Just this week, the Washington Post reported on a study published in PNAS showing “massive loss” of insect abundance in pristine rainforest. The researchers identified climate change as the culprit in driving the precipitous decline. Without action, we’re undoubtedly facing environmental catastrophe. Many scientists warn that we may soon reach a variety of tipping points. Beyond these, runaway global warming and its effects are unstoppable. Extreme conditions will prevail across large swathes of Earth. At this point, it won’t matter what species we have saved. They will disappear anyway, and humans along with them. Earth may be uninhabitable but for a few extremophiles.

Conservationists must shift focus to deal with climate change

Given this urgency, we should heed Professor Thomas’s message to “re-examine humanity’s relationship with nature.” We must be done with business as usual. Treating “Earth as a faded masterpiece that we need to restore” is no longer a luxury we can afford. Instead, global conservation must focus on taking all and any steps necessary to combat global warming. At the same time, such measures may include reforestation, which may benefit legacy species, but species-focused conservation may be a priority that no longer takes center stage in a long-term strategy to save life on Earth.

REFERENCES

1. 2018 IPCC Report: Global Warming of 1.5 °C http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
2. Lister, BC & A. Garcia (2018) Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1722477115

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A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. That may be true! Today we’re swamped with information. Images can say a lot with a little. That said, we’re in the digital revolution. So now we’re flooded with zillions of photos and memes. We like and tag images on social media. News websites have photos of current events. We share our own lives with selfies, food or pet pictures.

In today’s firehose of images are powerful stories about nature. Facts and figures are vital. But to connect with the widest audience we must nature’s story. Visual media are the most effective way to do that. Images transcend language. They evoke emotions in ways that words and data cannot. Human devastation, and our natural world’s fragility and beauty are best shown through biodiversity images like the ones you see here. Together they show human impacts on biodiversity, wildlife, the environment, and natural resources. Threats include global warming, deforestation, pollution and wildlife exploitation.

Help to tell the story of biodiversity

To help you share these stories, we’ve put together ten amazing images and graphics. We encourage you to share these images as widely as possible (including appropriate credit). It’s vital now more than ever to tell the story of biodiversity. It’s the only way we’re truly going to make a difference.

In all cases, we have strived to provide appropriate credit to the creators and copyright holders. Please contact us if you recognize an image and additional or alternative attribution is required.

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Evidence synthesis for environmental management

The Foundation for Research on Biodiversity has the pleasure of hosting the 2nd International Collaboration for Environmental Evidence conference in France in 2018. The methods of CEE evidence synthesis (systematic reviews, systematic mapping, etc.) and the results of these syntheses will be presented in different domains such as Health and Environment, Forests, Fisheries, Agriculture, Ecotoxicology, and many others. Training workshops will also help to familiarize oneself with the latest tools and methodological advances.

The CEE 2018 conference aims at effectively promoting an evidence-based approach to environmental management by facilitating the conduct and dissemination of high quality syntheses of evidence. Such synthesis will inform decision making to better conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services for global benefit. To accomplish this, the conference will cover scientific and policy-oriented topics and practice. Topics may be of interest at various scales, from local to global.

You are invited to join us in Paris at CEE2018. The calls for training events, sessions, and abstracts have gone out and can be found on the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence website.

The conference will be held in Paris, France at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, Champs sur Marne, Paris, France from April 16-20th 2018. More information can be found on the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence conference website.

For more information please contact: Barbara Livoreil & Ludivine Boursier cee2018@fondationbiodiversite.com

Important dates:

• Deadline for submitting a session proposal: November 15th 2017
• Deadline for submitting a training event proposal: November 15th 2017
• Notification of acceptance of sessions and training events: December 1st 2017
• Deadline for submission of abstracts (talks and posters): December 15th 2017
• Notification of acceptance of talks and posters: January 10th< 2018
• Registration opens: December 2017
• Deadline for early bird registration: February 2018

Follow us on Twitter at @EnvEvidence and @FRBiodiv

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Citizen Science Coordinator Caitlin Kenney, a Student Conservation Association (SCA) intern, poses with an amphibian in the backcountry of Mount Rainier National Park. (Photo courtesy of NPS)

1. Citizen scientists help increase project reach

With the potential to amass millions of citizen scientists from around the globe, the amount of data that can be collected is unimaginable. Having so many individuals in the field at varying times may lead to exotic or innovative discoveries. “Enlisting input from a network of volunteer citizen scientists expands the reach of a project, sometimes beyond what scientists can imagine,” says National Geographic writer Karen de Seve.

2. Citizen science helps to stretch limited funding

Citizen scientists allow far greater amounts of data to be collected at little to no cost. Such economies of scale free up funds. Researchers have more time to be spent on data analysis. Andrea Korte reported in an AAAS article, “The work of the 2.3 million volunteer citizen scientists who contribute to biodiversity research have an economic value of up to $2.5 billion per year.”

3. Citizen scientists help raise local and governmental awareness

There’s no doubt that when enough people start to ask questions, others start to listen. Engaging citizens spreads the word of shrinking biodiversity. According to the European Environment Agency, “Involving people in monitoring gives them a basic understanding of the underlying threat to biodiversity…” Furthermore, such involvement “…can facilitate a willingness to contribute to solving the problem.” World-changing movements always start with people’s passionate interest in a problem. Impassioned citizen scientists have the power to alter the world around them. They can bring problems to the attention of people with the ability to enact change.

4. Citizen scientists may experience transformative learning

TD Jakes said it best, “There is nothing as powerful as a changed mind.” When an individual momentarily exits their busy lifestyle, taking time to study the world around them, what they learn can change their life. Many people are unaware of how their choices affect the world around them. The clothing they wear, the food they eat, their mode of transportation can all impact their local environment. A citizen scientist can help biodiversity by changing the way they live and inspiring those around them.

5. Citizen science can help to prevent extinctions

The loss of many species populations goes largely unnoticed until it is far too late. UCLA recently called for greater public participation in citizen science. According to their report, monitoring by citizen scientists can lead to “early detection of species decline.” Identifying a problem is the first step towards rectification. Training citizen scientists to participate in conservation research increases the efficiency of our work to protect biodiversity.

We see the potential for citizen science in such initiatives as Bioblitzes. Conservationists must now take advantage. Here is their opportunity to conduct more research—cheaper and faster—while at the same time connecting people across the world in a common purpose. We, as members of the human race, all share the responsibility to be stewards of our planet’s biodiversity for economic, aesthetic and moral reasons. Climate is changing. Human population is increasing. Cities expand while species vanish into extinction. It is now more important now than ever to take action.

The post 5 Reasons Citizen Science Can Help To Save Biodiversity appeared first on Biodiversity Professionals.

State Vegetation Type Map for New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The map shows color-coded Plant Community Types (PCTs). Click for the full size image.

To better manage our native vegetation, the New South Wales government is delivering a comprehensive and complete state-wide baseline for the extent and distribution of the different groupings or types of vegetation – the State Vegetation Type Map (SVT Map).

The SVT is based on site surveys, a standard classification system and high resolution spatial representation. With a complete vegetation type map for NSW, for the first time government, business and the community will be able to see what we currently know about the distribution of Plant Community Types for all of NSW. This approach will provide a wide-ranging basis to set conservation priorities instead of just localized and incomplete information.

Plant Community Types (PCTs) are the agreed foundation level for classifying vegetation in NSW and are intended to provide the most ecologically relevant grouping of plant species for a range of purposes not just mapping. For example, site assessments will use this classification unit to describe the vegetation present and compare their current condition with related benchmarks.

Plant communities are complex and dynamic entities that can be challenging to map or even recognize on the ground especially where they have been significantly modified through clearing or logging. Some closely related PCTs can share common species or differ by a particular layer. Boundaries between types are not always distinct. Our understanding of PCTs will continue to change as more site survey data is collected especially in poorly sampled areas.

With the support of the NSW Environmental Trust, a major project was initiated to accelerate the creation of a complete and consistent reference layer for the extent and distribution of the approximately 1300 (PCTs) in NSW–the State Vegetation Type Map.

The State Vegetation Map cannot be expected to be a perfect and timeless representation of the landscape. Rather, it is designed to provide a common basis for vegetation information in NSW that can be readily updated without the need for producing entirely new maps. The underlying skeleton can more easily incorporate new site information and more detailed special-purpose vegetation maps (where compatible) to continuously improve the state wide picture.

For more information about vegetation information please visit our website at: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/vegetation/vinfo.htm

Bob Denholm
Senior Team Leader Vegetation Mapping
Native Vegetation Information Science Branch
Science Division
Office of Environment and Heritage

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This article serves to introduce biodiversity professionals to contemporary environmental philosophy. It is a discipline that could play an important role in (re)shaping the objectives conservation organisations set for themselves. It deals with complex questions that cannot be disregarded if we aim for conservation to stand the test of time.

Lessons from history

Nature conservation in any of its forms can only be effective if there is consensus on what nature is, and how we want to conserve it. This seems no difficult job: most people we know would associate ‘true’ nature with concepts such as ‘pristine land’, ‘undisturbed areas’ or ‘wilderness’.

Similarly, the important Wilderness Act of 1964 (USA) considers wilderness ‘untrammelled by man’ and ‘where man is a visitor who does not remain’. Although such definitions speak to the imagination of lovers of nature, many critics now agree that they are ethnocentric. What was defined as ‘untrammelled by man’ in North America, had long been home to millions of indigenous North Americans. By excluding them from the definition applied to these lands, the removal of Native Americans from their homelands was further facilitated.

This might seem a merely historical argument, but unfortunately it is still relevant: practices like these continued, sad examples being the nomadic Penans in Malaysia and the African Masai tribes. It is highly ironic how some large Western conservation organisations fail to put a stop to the destruction of the remnants of biodiversity hotspots in industrialised Europe, but sometimes accuse various ‘primitive’ populations of being a threat to an endangered species in Third World countries. Fortunately, many other organisations have realised the importance of striking a balance between nature conservation and the rights of indigenous people.

Contemporary problems related to the definition of nature

Wilderness paradoxes still occur to this day. For example: conservation organisations often clear woodland, in order to restore the land to its ‘original state’. For example, in Belgium and the Netherlands, these are often heathland restoration projects. But what exactly is the ‘original state’ of the land? Heathland used to be abundant exactly because of the clearing of woodland in order to make room for agriculture. Thus, heathland is by definition nothing like wilderness. Many would rightly argue that making room for both woodlands and heathland benefits biodiversity. However, do we want to pursue higher biodiversity if it is not strictly natural?

Surely, we rather not have ourselves to be the ‘architects of nature’, establishing nature in a way linked to the highest possible biodiversity. Is leaving natural succession to swallow up a large number of heathlands a good alternative then? Only because that is how it would be without human intervention, we would risk the loss of species typical of these biotopes. This does not seem like a good idea either.Important as the concept is, we have to avoid biodiversity to become a dogma of nature conservation. It is not up to us to protect or restore the biodiversity of nature no matter what. It is up to us to prohibit or reverse excessive human impact upon nature: human impact that is often accompanied by the decline of biodiversity.

Reversing our past impacts on nature?

But even if we agree that we ought to reverse human impact, the question rises to what extent we should. Do we try to reverse the huge changes we have forced upon the land since the industrial evolution? Or do we go further back, and try to restore nature to the way it was before agriculture was widespread? This choice could imply the sacrifice of large areas of biodiverse heathland to natural succession. One might even argue that we should support the development of ‘de-extinction’ technologies? After all, animals like the woolly mammoth and sabre-toothed cats might have gone extinct due to human hunting activities.

This is one of only many difficult questions investigated in the field of environmental philosophy. It handles questions that can be complex and often have no unambiguous answer. Still, the ways in which we answer them shapes the practice of nature conservation.

–Merijn van den Bosch

Sources

Much of the content of ‘Lessons from history’ is found in:
-Callicott, J.B and Nelson, M.P., The Great New Wilderness Debate. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1998, 697 p.
-Callicott, J.B and Nelson, M.P., The Wilderness Debate Rages On. Continuing the Great New Wilderness Debate. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2008, 723 p.

The post How our definition of nature shapes conservation efforts appeared first on Biodiversity Professionals.

(Image credit: BAM Construction and CIRIA)

With construction and development essential for continued economic growth, it is crucial that the current upward trend does not come at the expense of the natural environment. Further awareness of the relationship between natural systems and a strong economy has led to organisations developing plans and strategies that integrate both economic and environmental targets.

An essential part of an organisation meeting environmental targets is to ensure that biodiversity becomes an integrated part of construction planning and projects. At present there is still some uncertainty surrounding incorporating biodiversity into projects with many viewing it as a topic only suited to technical experts.

This is where the BIG Biodiversity Challenge plays a unique role, allowing organisations to reach environmental targets whilst raising awareness and training members of staff. The challenge has a simple message of ‘do one thing’ for biodiversity which demonstrates that enhancements can be simple, affordable and achievable. These biodiversity enhancements can range from installing bat boxes and bug hotels through to detailed action plans and management strategies.

Now in its third year the challenge has continued to grow with new award categories launched to reflect the dynamic nature of the industry and focusing on the core areas of infrastructure, urban development and mineral extraction.

The 2016 award categories include:

• Client Award
• Community Engagement Award
• Large Scale Permanent Award
• Medium Scale Permanent Award
• Small Scale Permanent Award
• Maintenance & Management Award
• Pollinator Award
• Temporary Award

The BIG Biodiversity Challenge is free to enter and the deadline is August 8, with the 2016 awards ceremony taking place on September 15 in a central London venue. There are also fantastic sponsorship opportunities for organisations wanting to be involved in this year’s Awards ceremony. For further information on how to enter, and to be inspired by last year’s entries, please click to visit www.bigchallenge.info

Michael Small, Project Manager, CIRIA

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Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden.

CEE is an open collaboration with a global mission to provide the best available evidence to inform decision making in the environmental sector. We are witnessing the beginning of a new age—the Anthropocene. Whether you are a scientist, policy maker, activist or concerned citizen, the challenges we are facing are enormous. Evidence about what works and what doesn’t in environmental management is needed to meet these challenges and CEE has developed to collate, synthesize and disseminate reliable evidence to meet this need.

We hope that this conference serves to raise awareness and facilitate increased adoption among policy makers, scientists, donor agencies, and concerned citizens of the work of CEE and the knowledge we currently have.

So who is this conference for? Anyone who believes that information about what works and what doesn’t. Better evidence is needed for people to make informed choices. Better decisions are needed about how to create a better environment, making the world a better place.

We hope that this conference will be the start of an ongoing conversation between CEE and the diverse actors at the science-policy interface and will raise awareness about methods used in obtaining high-level evidence as well as the value of evidence-informed decision-making.

Full details of the conference can be found at www.environmentalevidence.org/meetings

Please print out the flyer below and post on your notice boards and in your office.

First Announcement CEE Conference (PDF)

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The list will be useful for the following:

• Biodiversity professionals looking for positions
• Scientists who want to collaborate on projects
• Individuals interested in biodiversity resources in their own region or country
• Organizations looking for potential partnership or joint venture opportunities
• Funding agencies who need reputable organizations to evaluate projects
• Organizations or institutions looking for biodiversity expertise for consulting or research

The database presently includes only basic information about each organization:

• Name of institution
• Institution website URL
• Institution home country
• Institution year of founding

Currently, the list includes 34 organizations. Please note the list does not include academic departments or commercial organizations conducting biodiversity research. This catalog documents organizations whose primary mission is related to biodiversity research and conservation.

The data is organized in a Google spreadsheet and members of the LinkedIn Biodiversity Professionals Group are invited to add information about their institution.

Click here to see the current list: BIODIVERSITY INSTITUTE DIRECTORY CURRENT DATA

To add information on your institution please complete the form with the information mentioned above. CLICK TO ENTER INFORMATION INTO THE BIODIVERSITY INSTITUTE DIRECTORY

Please contact Biodiversity Professionals if you have any suggestions or ideas about this directory or how it may be used by professionals for networking or research,

The post A directory of biodiversity institutes worldwide appeared first on Biodiversity Professionals.

The dodo is perhaps the most famous victim of human-caused extinction. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Estimating the current rate of extinction

Part of the problem is that biodiversity, and therefore the current rate of extinction, is so poorly understood. Estimates of the total number of species range from 5±3 million to 11 million animal species worldwide. Given this uncertainty, the authors grapple with quantifying the natural, or background, rate of extinction. This number gives a baseline against which to evaluate the increased rate of extinction due to human activities. Using a metric of extinctions per million species-years (E/MSY), data from various sources indicate that present extinction rates are at least ~100 E/MSY, or a thousand times higher than the background rate of 0.1 E/MSY, estimated from fossil evidence.

Using technology to prioritize conservation

The good news is that scientists know more than ever before about areas where at-risk species are located, and that new technologies are helping scientists to discover new species and monitor populations, and therefore focus conservation actions more efficiently.

Combining data from bird species with small ranges and significant threats shows scientists where to prioritize conservation efforts. (Click for full size image. Courtesy of Dr. Clinton Jenkins, www.biodiversitymapping.org)

The Science article will appear online Thursday May 29, with an official publication date of Friday, May 30.

CITATION: “The Biodiversity of Species and Their Rates of Extinction, Distribution, and Protection,” by Stuart L. Pimm, Clinton N. Jenkins, Robin Abell, Tom M. Brooks, John. L. Gittleman, Lucas N. Joppa, Peter. H. Raven, Callum. M. Roberts, and Joe O. Sexton. Published May 30, 2014, in Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1246752

References
Explanation of extinctions per million species-years
Where the threatened wild things are (New Scientist maps)

Update
June 20, 2014 — A link to a free PDF of the original Science paper is available on Clinton Jenkins’ website. Click here for the PDF.

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