Conservation biogeography

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contributing authors

Part 1. Roots, Relevance, Aims and Values

The Roots of Conservation Biogeography

What is conservation biogeography?

The emergence of conservation biology and conservation biogeography

The scope of conservation biogeography

To what ends?

Outline of the following chapters

Suggested reading

Social Values and Conservation Biogeography

Many values, many goals

The origins and values of different protected area types

Sacred sites

Resource and game reserves

State and country parks

Nature monuments and nature reserves

Wildlife sanctuaries and refuges

Wilderness areas

National parks

Community conservation areas

Reserve designations from international conventions

An international system for categorizing protected areas

Social values and conservation practice

Attitudes to non-native species

Restoration and rewilding

Concluding remarks

For discussion

Suggested reading

Baselines, Patterns and Process

Introduction

Ecosystem composition and function

Balance versus flux

Understanding ecosystems in flux

Defining and using baselines

Baselines derived from relict pristine systems

Baselines derived from long-term ecology

Rewilding

The challenge of rapid environmental change

Adaptive ecosystem management

For discussion

Suggested reading

Part 2. The Distribution of Diversity: Challenges and Applications

Basic Biogeography: Estimating Biodiversity and Mapping Nature

Introduction

Our incomplete knowledge of biodiversity

Why do we map?

Three knowledge shortfalls

The Linnean shortfall

The Wallacean shortfall

The extinction estimate shortfall

The fundamental taxonomic units of conservation biogeography

Species versus other genetically-based conservation units

Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs)

Other conservation units

Spatial distributions: from genes to biogeographical regions

Mapping species individually and collectively

Phylogeography

Endemism

Biogeographical regions

Mapping function

Biomes, ecosystems and communities

Ecoregions

Natural units in the marine realm

For discussion

Suggested reading

The Shaping of the Global Protected Area Estate

Origins

Typology of frameworks

Spatial classification of approaches contiguous areas, landscape units and habitat islands

Biogeographical (compositional) versus Ecological (functional) approaches

Strategic goals composition, function, numbers and attributes

Terrestrial protected area schemes

IUCN Biogeographical Regions (Dasmann-Udvardy) scheme

Endemic Bird Areas

Conservation International's hotspots

The WWF Ecoregions scheme

Important Bird Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas

Marine protected areas

Status of the marine realm

Origins and expansion of the marine protected area estate

A global representative system of marine protected areas

Reefs at risk hotspots/threatspots

Large Marine Ecosystems

WWF Global 200 The marine perspective

Coastal Zone Management and critical seascapes

High seas protected areas

Current trends and future directions

For discussion

Suggested reading

Systematic conservation Planning: Past, Present and Future

Introduction

What is systematic conservation planning and why use it?

Concepts and principles

Representativeness

Persistence (adequacy)

Efficiency

Flexibility

Developing a systematic conservation plan

Achieving representation

Achieving persistence

Achieving efficiency

Achieving flexibility

Decision support tools to identify and prioritize new protected areas

Consultation and implementation of systematic conservation plans

What does the future of systematic conservation planning hold?

Conservation planning is a dynamic problem

Conservation assets change through time

A mix of conservation actions could occur at any site

Better economics and socio-economics

Dealing with uncertainty

Properly accounting for threats

Persistence attainable goal or impractical utopia?

How much should we invest in improving a conservation plan?

For discussion

Suggested reading

Part 3. Conservation Planning in a Changing World

Planning for Persistence in a Changing World

Introduction

Using the past to understand the present and predict the future

Predicting future ecosystem responses to changing conditions

Interpreting recent trends in their historical context

Geographical range collapse

Predicting biodiversity change

Modelling the current distributions of species, habitats and biomes

Modelling range shifts

What do we do about it? Dynamic conservation planning

Incorporating dynamic biotic and abiotic processes into conservation plans

Changes in socio-economic factors

Climate change, conservation planning and assisted migration

Closing remarks

For discussion

Suggested reading

Applied Island Biogeography

Introduction

Implications of habitat loss and fragmentation: from theory to evidence

The use of species-area relationships in conservation

Relaxation and the extinction debt

Ecosystem collapse and threshold responses in habitat islands

Species incidence

Minimum viable populations, minimum areas and incidence functions

Metapopulation dynamics

Nestedness

Edge effects

Habitat corridors

Landscape context matrix effects

Emergent guidelines for conservation

For discussion

Suggested reading

Biological Invasions and the Homogenization of Faunas and Floras

The biogeography of species invasions

The invasion process

Human-assisted versus prehistoric invasions

Economic and ecological impacts of invasion

Biotic homogenization

The process of biotic homogenization

Different manifestations of biotic homogenization

Patterns of biotic homogenization

Fishes

Birds

Plants

Mammals

Environmental and human drivers of biotic homogenization

Biotic homogenization and conservation

Novel assemblages

For discussion

Suggested reading

Part 4. Future Directions

Prospects and Challenges

Why we need conservation biogeography

The challenges

Filling the Wallacean and Linnean shortfalls

Improving models, simulations and forecasts

Turning theory into practice

Education, communication and public engagement

Reconciliation ecology and a biogeography of the countryside

Looking to the future

Glossary of terms

References

Index.