Correcting common misconceptions to inspire conservation action in urban environments

Despite repeated calls to action, proposals for urban conservation are often met with surprise or scepticism. There remains a pervasive narrative in policy, practice, and the public psyche that urban environments, although useful for engaging people with nature or providing ecosystem services, are of little conservation value. We argue that the tendency to overlook the conservation value of urban environments stems from misconceptions about the ability of native species to persist within cities and towns and that this, in turn, hinders effective conservation action. However, recent scientific evidence shows that these assumptions do not always hold. Although it is generally true that increasing the size, quality, and connectivity of habitat patches will improve the probability that a species can persist, the inverse is not that small, degraded, or fragmented habitats found in urban environments are worthless. In light of these findings we propose updated messages that guide and inspire researchers, practitioners, and decision makers to undertake conservation action in urban environments: consider small spaces, recognize unconventional habitats, test creative solutions, and use science to minimize the impacts of future urban development.     

Defining the balance point between conservation and development

In the face of the current global ecological crisis and the threats it poses to human survival and security, the fundamental solution is to resolve the deep contradiction between conservation and economic development. We considered the 3 key and basic questions of why to protect, how much to protect, and where to protect natural areas. Human survival depends on functioning ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide. In this regard, conserving core biodiversity conservation priority areas (BCPAs) can provide maximum conservation benefit. The goals of protected area (PA) systems globally and nationally must be clearly defined so as to sustain the survival and development of people and to coordinate and balance other objectives with this goal at the center. There is an urgent need to study, calculate, and define the extent of the natural world to ensure the well-being of people. We call this area over which natural areas of land and sea extend across the world or a country nature proportion (N%). Especially, a minimum area that ensures human survival should be protected, and we suggest that this area should cover core BCPAs so that it can achieve the maximum conservation benefit. These recommendations could be applied at global or national levels. The Chinese government proposes “developing a protected-area system composed mainly of national parks,” and it has unified the administration of PAs into a central management authority. At this key time in the reform of the PA system, should this proposal be adopted, conservation will garner the greatest social consensus and support, and planning at the national level for BCPA coverage will be improved. We believe these recommendations are critical for China and other countries and extremely important for the world because they will pave the way toward a balance between nature conservation and human development as the projected human population reaches 10 billion by 2050.     

A Bayesian-weighted approach to predicting the number of newly discovered rare species

In natural ecological communities, most species are rare and thus susceptible to extinction. Consequently, the prediction and identification of rare species are of enormous value for conservation purposes. How many newly found species will be rare in the next field survey? We took a Bayesian viewpoint and used observed species abundance information in an ecological sample to develop an accurate way to estimate the number of new rare species (e.g., singletons, doubletons, and tripletons) in an additional unknown sample. A similar method has been developed for incidence-based data sets. Five seminumerical tests (3 abundance cases and 2 incidence cases) showed that our proposed Bayesian-weight estimator accurately predicted the number of new rare species with low relative bias and low relative root mean squared error and, accordingly, high accuracy. Finally, we applied the proposed estimator to 6 conservation-directed empirical data sets (3 abundance cases and 3 incidence cases) and found the prediction of new rare species was quite accurate; the 95% CI covered the true observed value very well in most cases. Our estimator performed similarly to or better than an unweighted estimator derived from Chao et al. and performed consistently better than the naïve unweighted estimator. We recommend our Bayesian-weight estimator for conservation applications, although the unweighted estimator of Chao et al. may be better under some circumstances. We provide an R package RSE (r are s pecies e stimation) at https://github.com/ecomol/RSE for implementation of the estimators.     

A moral panic over cats

Some conservationists believe that free-ranging cats pose an enormous risk to biodiversity and public health and therefore should be eliminated from the landscape by any means necessary. They further claim that those who question the science or ethics behind their arguments are science deniers (merchants of doubt) seeking to mislead the public. As much as we share a commitment to conservation of biodiversity and wild nature, we believe these ideas are wrong and fuel an unwarranted moral panic over cats. Those who question the ecological or epidemiological status of cats are not science deniers, and it is a false analogy to compare them with corporate and right-wing special interests that perpetrate disinformation campaigns over issues, such as smoking and climate change. There are good conservation and public-health reasons and evidence to be skeptical that free-ranging cats constitute a disaster for biodiversity and human health in all circumstances. Further, there are significant and largely unaddressed ethical and policy issues (e.g., the ethics and efficacy of lethal management) relative to how people ought to value and coexist with cats and native wildlife. Society is better served by a collaborative approach to produce better scientific and ethical knowledge about free-ranging cats.     

Microclimate effects of wind farms on local crop yields

This paper considers a novel spillover effect of wind farms - microclimate impacts on neighboring crop yields. Using US county-level crop and wind capacity data, I examine the effects of wind energy development on crop yields, controlling for time-invariant county characteristics and state-level annual shocks. I find robust evidence that counties with increased wind power development have also experienced increased corn and other crop yields, such that an additional 100 MW of wind capacity increases county yields by roughly 1%. At recent prices, this implies a more than $5 dollar per megawatt-hour local benefit, corresponding to several hundred million dollars in annual benefits.     

中国自然保护区对生物多样性保护的贡献

自然保护区建设是保护生物多样性的最有效途径。至１９９３年底，我国共建立各类型自然保护区７６３个，总面积６６１．８万ｈｍ２，约占国土面积的６．８％。本文在总结我国自然保护区建设成就的基础上，概述了自然保护区对各类自然生态系统、野生生物、驯化物种、野生亲缘种及种质资源保护的现状，包括为保护生物多样性各组分已建自然保护区的数量、面积、分布及管理；评价了自然保护区对生物多样性各组分保护的效果；分析了存在问题并提出加强生物多样性就地保护的措施。     

生物多样性在路域植被养护中的应用

公路路域植被进入养护期以后，管护的经费开始减少，而植物演化刚刚开始，如还是按照原来的管护方式，势必造成植物群落的逆向演替，使其有可能再次回到裸露状态。因此，需要从生态学的原理出发，利用生物多样性对现有的群落进行改造，使其形成一个结构合理、稳定、防护效果突出的植物群落。     

无量山自然保护区周边社区生物多样性保护意识评价

介绍了无量山自然保护区周边社区生物多样性保护意识调查研究方法,讨论和评价了研究结果,为环境教育的实施提供了依据。     

景观生态学在生物多样性保护中的作用

生物多样性是人类赖以生存的物质基础,随着人类的发展,生物多样性受到了严重的威胁,并得到全世界的关注。多样性保护的途径主要分为两个,一个是以物种为中心的传统保护途径,另一个是以生态系统为中心的景观生态保护途径。景观生态学的发展为生物多样性的保护提供了新的理论与方法。本文论述了生物多样性保护中景观生态学原理的运用,并简要介绍了目前景观生态学在生物多样性保护中的作用,旨在为生物多样性的保护提供理论依据。     

城市湿地水生植物对附生轮虫多样性的影响

于2021年6~10月对海珠湿地连通水系水区及三类水生植物体表附生的轮虫群落结构开展研究,分析水生植物附生轮虫多样性及群落动态特征.研究期间共记录轮虫70种,其中水生植物水区最多,记录47种.水生植物均有大量轮虫附生,变化范围在108~5826ind./gdw之间,且附生轮虫丰度呈现沉水植物>浮叶植物>挺水植物的变化趋势.水生植物附生群落、无植物水区和水生植物栽培区3种生境轮虫群落物种组成差异明显.水生植物附生群落中游动能力较弱的腔轮虫、镜轮虫、鞍甲轮虫等敏感类群占据优势,而无水生植物区和水生植物水区群落中以游泳能力较强的多肢轮属、龟纹轮属和臂尾轮属等耐污类群占据优势.3类型水生植物附生轮虫群落Shannon-Weiner多样性指数与Pielou’s均匀性指数均显著高于无植物栽培水区(P<0.05).3类水生植物均为轮虫提供了生境支持,有效提高城市湿地生态系统生物多样性.