[Taxacom] Biodiversity and Species Value

Fri Jun 11 23:18:03 CDT 2010

oops... seven levels... forgot the 'individual' or 'specimen'...

I'm a specimen/species kinda guy...  that where it all starts and
where the 'real' action is... given a choice of starting methodically
at one end or the other, years of study of the 'taxacomic method' (tm)
has taught me to adopt a subjective personal position and defend it
against all criticism and against all evidence...  and it works
really, really well... :)

...

In my youth I used to collect 'specimens' and was very proud of them
as things of beauty and a joy forever...  a string of botanical sages
tried to convince me that truth, righteousness and the science way
required that I sample 'populations'.  This was fine and dandy for
minute herbs, but was a pain in the butt for forest trees... :( ...
so, I rightly rejected this wisdom...

If I had known how to collect nucleotides in those days I could have
saved a lot of angst...  and learnt and appreciated nothing...

The context/perception stuff is really interesting.  Used to do field
work with a quaternary vegetation ecologist.  I would set off in the
morning and walk up a mountain or into the next valley in search of
plants and after returning in a day or so he'd ask 'what did you
see?', to which I'd reply, very knowledgeably, 'oh, this species, and
that species, and this thing I have never seen before, and...'  'No,
no, no! What was the vegetation like?'.  'Sh1t, I don't know... it had
plants in it...'   Go figure...

jim

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Robin Leech <releech at telusplanet.net> wrote:
> Jim,
>
> So the hierarchy in your view goes:
>
> ecosystem; community; species; population; gene; nucleotide?
> or
> nucleotide; gene; population; species; community; ecosystem?
>
> Robin
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Croft" <jim.croft at gmail.com>
> To: "Robin Leech" <releech at telusplanet.net>
> Cc: "John Shuey" <jshuey at tnc.org>; <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 7:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value
>
>
> 6 levels - genes, nucleotides.  an ecosystem is just a nucleotide's
> way of making another nucleotide... or so I'm told... :)
>
> jim
>
> On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Robin Leech <releech at telusplanet.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>> 317.951.8818 - front desk
>>> 317.917.2478 - Fax
>>>
>>> nature.org
>>>
>>> The Nature Conservancy
>>> Indiana Field Office
>>> 620 E. Ohio St.
>>> Indianapolis, IN 46202
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 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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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
> 'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
> of doubtful sanity.'
> - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
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-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
 - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Please send URIs, not attachments:
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