[Taxacom] Biodiversity and Species Value

Fri Jun 11 20:53:29 CDT 2010

If we are talking about a particular area where there has been no land 
clearing, burning, logging or farming, and where say 300 species of spiders 
exist, and it becomes evident that this assemblage of spider species is 
found nowhere else, and the species are ones that at the 85-90% level are 
ones found north of the Wisconsinan glaciation, can we say that this group 
of species is, and represents, an ancient assemblage?
Can we consider the age of the community, in this case, a community of 
spiders, as one more organizational level?  Certainly the older the 
community is, the more complex and diverse it is, and the more likely it is 
an older or ancient community! Is this fair dink?
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
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>
> 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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