[Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value

Fri Jun 11 20:13:19 CDT 2010

John,
Try 4 levels: ecosystems, communities, species, populations.
Robin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Shuey" <jshuey at TNC.ORG>
To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value


>
>
> Michael,
>
> Biodiversity per say has many definitions but most revolve around 
> biological organization at three levels – communities, species and 
> populations. But you will have to tell me what “biodiversity value is! It’s 
> a concept that is foreign to the conservation community (at least on this 
> side of the world)! Like I said before, most planning efforts are defined 
> to identify a system of complimentary reserves that protect all habitats 
> (aka ecosystems, communities etc) in a region – so that all of them can be 
> conserved.
>
> The work I’ve been involved with over the years assumes no relative values 
> per say – setting out the premise that all evolutionary lineages should be 
> preserved. No “value” judgments invoked. Just working towards a systematic 
> approach to conserving biodiversity (as above) in a way that is likely to 
> actually conserve a significant portion of it.
>
> What I’ve been saying is - while many people like to talk about assigning 
> these values – I’ll ask you to show me any tangible global efforts (or 
> even regional) that actually use them in a conservation scheme that has 
> been implemented. I’m going to guess you’ll come up blank. I’m sure your 
> work is very good, but unless you can place it in a global context (both 
> taxonomically and geographically) it’s had to incorporate into systematic 
> planning.
>
> There are exceptions of course – but like I said, these are generally 
> species centric organizations like zoos and WWF that get caught up in 
> these efforts to save a few “big furry creatures”. If you want to see 
> species conservation limited to zoos, seed banks and arboretums – that’s 
> certainly a great way to go. (apologies to WWF – they really do a great 
> job of supporting their targets in native habitats). But if you want to 
> see examples of all the World’s ecosystems safeguarded – I wouldn’t start 
> telling people that my species is better than your species….
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this email
> ________________________________________
> John A Shuey, Ph.D.
> Director of Conservation Science
>
> jshuey at tnc.org
> 317.829.3898 - direct
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> 317.917.2478 - Fax
>
> nature.org
>
> The Nature Conservancy
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>
>
>
>
> From: Michael Heads [mailto:michael.heads at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 5:50 PM
> To: John Shuey
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value
>
> Hi John,
>
> What is biodiversity? How do you calculate the biodiversity value of an 
> area? Many authors now agree that it is more than just a raw species 
> number and there is an extensive literature on 'phylogenetic diversity'. 
> There are 1900 hits on Google scholar for papers on pd published since 
> 2009 and many of these papers discuss the conservation implications. I 
> don't think it's fair to say that biodiversity values calculated for taxa 
> and areas are simply subjective or that conservation based on biodiversity 
> value would be 'weirdly screwed'. If conservation agencies are not using 
> this new information yet, perhaps they could have a look at it.
>
> Michael Heads
>
> Wellington, New Zealand.
>
> My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0
>
> --- On Sat, 12/6/10, John Shuey <jshuey at tnc.org> wrote:
>
> From: John Shuey <jshuey at tnc.org>
> Subject: [Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Received: Saturday, 12 June, 2010, 2:55 AM
>
>
> A few notes to clarify my rambling post from my dimly lit back porch last 
> night.
>
> The entities that implement conservation don’t really ponder the 
> evolutionary “uniqueness” of individual target species. Value as you are 
> discussing it, is subjective and biased by personal experience – the 
> resulting conservation agenda would be weirdly screwed by all this bias. 
> Value as defined by the conservation community is a cold, hard evaluation 
> of resource allocation – how do you maximize conservation bang for the 
> buck. Your time spent pondering ”phylogentic conservation value” might 
> better be spent counting angels on pin heads (sorry – couldn’t resist!).
>
> To follow-up on horseshoe crabs – ironically there is quite a bit of 
> conservation interest pointed in their direction at the moment – but is 
> has nothing to do with their odd evolutionary history. As it turns out, 
> their seasonal mass spawning – the release of hurdreds of tons of eggs 
> each night – is a critical resource that migrating shore birds on the East 
> Coast depend upon. If crab stocks are reduced below a critical threshold, 
> it could have a ripple through impact on shore birds and the ecosystems 
> they influence in North and South America.
>
> And Curtis states the obvious about great apes. I’d like to “claim” that 
> they are treated just like every other species. That their habitats are 
> identified as critical for inclusion in a complementary scheme of 
> conservation sites. And that the actual site designs and strategies for 
> specific conservation areas simply include them as an “area sensitive 
> species”, so that great apes (and big cats for a more typical example) can 
> maintain viable populations for the foreseeable future. The reality is 
> that they ARE GREAT APES – and almost everyone interjects personal bias in 
> prioritizing them for conservation.
>
> Again, sorry about the "angels on a pinhead thing" - but there are things 
> you could be worrying about that would have a more tangible impact on 
> conservation.
>
> John Shuey
>
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