[Taxacom] Biodiversity and Species Value

[Karl Magnacca]

On Fri, June 11, 2010 7:00 am, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> But this could lead to absurdities like letting the
> horseshoe crab go extinct while one tries to save some relative
> "gondola" species of Hawaiian Drosophila (there is nothing
> intrinsically less worth saving about Hawaiian Drosophila, only that
> there are hundreds of very close species, so providing most of them
> are doing well it isn't a problem).

Not to oppose horseshoe crab conservation, but in defense of my
target taxon, the problem with Hawaiian Drosophila is that most of
them are doing very poorly.  Of the 113 species in the picture-wing
group (the ones that everyone cares about), about 70 are vanishingly
rare; at least 10 are almost certainly extinct based on destruction
of their former habitat and lack of other potential sites.  Some can
be found in moderate numbers, but in much reduced ranges compared to
30 years ago.  Optimistically, about 20 species could be said to be
"doing well".  I suspect that the same goes for most of the other
species groups, but they're more difficult to sample.

Karl