How can a knowledge of the past help to conserve the future? Biodiversity conservation and the relevance of long-term ecological studies

↓ Direkt till sidans innehåll
↓ Direkt till sidans sekundära innehåll (sidomenyn)

Search: (WFRF:(Blanca Miguel)) > How can a knowledge...

Details
MARC

Willis, Katherine J. (author)

How can a knowledge of the past help to conserve the future? Biodiversity conservation and the relevance of long-term ecological studies

Article/chapterEnglish2007

Publisher, publication year, extent ...

2007-01-09
The Royal Society,2007
printrdacarrier

Numbers

LIBRIS-ID:oai:DiVA.org:uu-22283
https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-22283URI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1977DOI

Supplementary language notes

Language:English
Summary in:English

Part of subdatabase

SwePubSwePub

Classification

Subject category:ref swepub-contenttype
Subject category:art swepub-publicationtype

Notes

This paper evaluates how long-term records could and should be utilized in conservation policy and practice. Traditionally, there has been an extremely limited use of long-term ecological records (greater than 50 years) in biodiversity conservation. There are a number of reasons why such records tend to be discounted, including a perception of poor scale of resolution in both time and space, and the lack of accessibility of long temporal records to non-specialists. Probably more important, however, is the perception that even if suitable temporal records are available, their roles are purely descriptive, simply demonstrating what has occurred before in Earth's history, and are of little use in the actual practice of conservation. This paper asks why this is the case and whether there is a place for the temporal record in conservation management. Key conservation initiatives related to extinctions, identification of regions of greatest diversity/threat, climate change and biological invasions are addressed. Examples of how a temporal record can add information that is of direct practicable applicability to these issues are highlighted. These include (i) the identification of species at the end of their evolutionary lifespan and therefore most at risk from extinction, (ii) the setting of realistic goals and targets for conservation ‘hotspots’, and (iii) the identification of various management tools for the maintenance/restoration of a desired biological state. For climate change conservation strategies, the use of long-term ecological records in testing the predictive power of species envelope models is highlighted, along with the potential of fossil records to examine the impact of sea-level rise. It is also argued that a long-term perspective is essential for the management of biological invasions, not least in determining when an invasive is not an invasive. The paper concludes that often inclusion of a long-term ecological perspective can provide a more scientifically defensible basis for conservation decisions than the one based only on contemporary records. The pivotal issue of this paper is not whether long-term records are of interest to conservation biologists, but how they can actually be utilized in conservation practice and policy.

Subject headings and genre

NATURVETENSKAP Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap hsv//swe
NATURAL SCIENCES Earth and Related Environmental Sciences hsv//eng
conservation practice and policy
long-term ecology
extinctions
Red Data List
biodiversity hotspots
climate change
Earth sciences
Geovetenskap

Added entries (persons, corporate bodies, meetings, titles ...)

Miguel B. Araújo, Miguel B. (author)
Bennett, KeithUppsala universitet,Paleobiologi(Swepub:uu)keitbenn (author)
Blanca Figueroa-Rangel, Blanca (author)
Froyd, Cynthia A. (author)
Myers, Norman (author)
Uppsala universitetPaleobiologi (creator_code:org_t)

Related titles

In:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences: The Royal Society362:1478, s. 175-1860962-84361471-2970

Internet link

Find in a library

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences (Search for host publication in LIBRIS)

To the university's database

Find more in SwePub

By the author/editor: Willis, Katherin ...; Miguel B. Araújo ...; Bennett, Keith; Blanca Figueroa- ...; Froyd, Cynthia A ...; Myers, Norman

About the subject

NATURAL SCIENCES: NATURAL SCIENCES; and Earth and Relate ...

Articles in the publication: Philosophical Tr ...

By the university: Uppsala University

Search outside SwePub

Extend your search to:: Google; Google Book Search; Google Scholar

Kungliga biblioteket hanterar dina personuppgifter i enlighet med EU:s dataskyddsförordning (2018), GDPR. Läs mer om hur det funkar här.
Så här hanterar KB dina uppgifter vid användning av denna tjänst.

LIBRIS.kb.se