Quantifying the Indicator Power of an Indicator Species

Abstract:  Biodiversity indicator species are needed for classifying biotopes and sites for conservation, and a number of methods have been developed for determining indicator species for this purpose. Nevertheless, in addition to site classification, there is sometimes a need to define an indicator species that indicates the occurrence of another species. For example, when a species of interest (target species) is difficult to detect or identify, a reliable indicator species can function as a tool that saves time and money. We derived a method that provides a quantitative measure of the indicator power (IP) of an indicator species for the target species or any species assemblage. We calculated the measure of IP from a presence–absence matrix that covered several sites. The method provided a list of indicator species, the presence of which reliably indicated the presence of another species (e.g., a threatened or rare species in a given area). The IP of the species was highest when the number of shared occurrences between the indicator species and the target species was high and, simultaneously, when the indicator species and the target species occurred separately in only a few cases. The IP was also positively influenced by the number of sites with no occurrences of either the indicator or the target species. Our method can also be used to quantify different types of species occurrence indications. We refer to these types as presence–presence, presence–absence, absence–presence, and absence–absence indications. To clarify the use of the method, we examined the situation with red-listed polypores in White-backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos) habitats in Fennoscandia and found some suitable indicator species. Our method provides a new, objective way to evaluate the IP of an indicator species.     

A Standard Lexicon for Biodiversity Conservation: Unified Classifications of Threats and Actions

Abstract: An essential foundation of any science is a standard lexicon. Any given conservation project can be described in terms of the biodiversity targets, direct threats, contributing factors at the project site, and the conservation actions that the project team is employing to change the situation. These common elements can be linked in a causal chain, which represents a theory of change about how the conservation actions are intended to bring about desired project outcomes. If project teams want to describe and share their work and learn from one another, they need a standard and precise lexicon to specifically describe each node along this chain. To date, there have been several independent efforts to develop standard classifications for the direct threats that affect biodiversity and the conservation actions required to counteract these threats. Recognizing that it is far more effective to have only one accepted global scheme, we merged these separate efforts into unified classifications of threats and actions, which we present here. Each classification is a hierarchical listing of terms and associated definitions. The classifications are comprehensive and exclusive at the upper levels of the hierarchy, expandable at the lower levels, and simple, consistent, and scalable at all levels. We tested these classifications by applying them post hoc to 1191 threatened bird species and 737 conservation projects. Almost all threats and actions could be assigned to the new classification systems, save for some cases lacking detailed information. Furthermore, the new classification systems provided an improved way of analyzing and comparing information across projects when compared with earlier systems. We believe that widespread adoption of these classifications will help practitioners more systematically identify threats and appropriate actions, managers to more efficiently set priorities and allocate resources, and most important, facilitate cross‐project learning and the development of a systematic science of conservation.     

Economics of Grassland Conversion to Cropland in the Prairie Pothole Region

Abstract: Much of the remaining grassland, particularly in North America, is privately owned, and its conversion to cultivated cropland is largely driven by economics. An understanding of why landowners convert grassland to cropland could facilitate more effective design of grassland‐conservation programs. We built an empirical model of land‐use change in the Prairie Pothole Region (north‐central United States) to estimate the probability of grassland conversion to alternative agricultural land uses, including cultivated crops. Conversion was largely driven by landscape characteristics and the economic returns of alternative uses. Our estimate of the probability of grassland conversion to cultivated crops (1.33% on average from 1979 to 1997) was higher than past estimates (0.4%). Our model also predicted that grassland‐conversion probabilities will increase if agricultural commodity prices continue to follow the trends observed from 2001 to 2006 (0.93% probability of grassland conversion to cultivated crops in 2006 to 1.5% in 2011). Thus, nearly 121 million ha (30 million acres) of grassland could be converted by 2011. Conversion probabilities, however, are spatially heterogeneous (range 0.2% to 3%), depending on characteristics of a parcel (e.g., soil quality and economic returns). Grassland parcels with relatively high‐quality land for agricultural production are more likely to be converted to cultivated crops than lower‐quality parcels and are more responsive to changes in the economic returns on alternative agricultural land uses (i.e., conversion probability increases by a larger magnitude for high‐quality parcels when economics returns to alternative uses increase). Our results suggest that grassland conservation programs could be proactively targeted toward high‐risk parcels by anticipating changes in economic returns, such as could occur if a new biofuel processing plant were to be built in an area.     

Conservation Planning with Multiple Organizations and Objectives

Abstract: There has been a dramatic increase in the number of conservation organizations worldwide. It is now common for multiple organizations to operate in the same landscape in pursuit of different conservation goals. New objectives, such as maintenance of ecosystem services, will attract additional funding and new organizations to conservation. Systematic conservation planning helps in the design of spatially explicit management actions that optimally conserve multiple landscape features (e.g., species, ecosystems, or ecosystem services). But the methods used in its application implicitly assume that a single actor implements the optimal plan. We investigated how organizational behavior and conservation outcomes are affected by the presence of autonomous implementing organizations with different objectives. We used simulation models and game theory to explore how alternative behaviors (e.g., organizations acting independently or explicitly cooperating) affected an organization's ability to protect their feature of interest, and investigated how the distribution of features in the landscape influenced organizations’ attitudes toward cooperation. Features with highly correlated spatial distributions, although typically considered an opportunity for mutually beneficial conservation planning, can lead to organizational interactions that result in lower levels of protection. These detrimental outcomes can be avoided by organizations that cooperate when acquiring land. Nevertheless, for cooperative purchases to benefit both organizations’ objectives, each must forgo the protection of land parcels that they would consider to be of high conservation value. Transaction costs incurred during cooperation and the sources of conservation funding could facilitate or hinder cooperative behavior.     

Understanding behaviour to inform water supply management in developed nations – A review of literature, conceptual model and research agenda

Water is a scarce resource in many parts of the developed world. Two solutions are possible to address water scarcity: conservation of existing resources, or the further production of water from new sources e.g. through recycling of wastewater or desalination of seawater. However, the main hurdle to implementation of many of these solutions is often viewed as a lack of public willingness to adopt these alternative water behaviours. Research in this area is therefore crucial. Yet, and possibly due to the interdisciplinary nature of such research, there is currently no comprehensive overview of what has been done before. This study fills this gap by (1) choosing a general consumer behaviour perspective as a starting point, (2) developing a conceptual model of research required in the area of water-related public acceptance studies, (3) identifying eight key water-related behaviours which require future research attention, and (4) reviewing which areas of the conceptual model have been investigated in the past by conducting an extensive literature review of water-related social science research.The review established that the majority of work which has been conducted is located at the cross-roads of personal characteristics and behavioural intentions. Significant gaps exist in relation to researching the adoption of a wide range of demand-side water behaviours. This indicates a dominance of supply-side solutions in social-research exploration. The review identifies a number of research needs including: the exploration of actual adoption of water-related behaviours (rather than behavioural intentions); and to widen the scope of water behaviour enquiry to include more demand-side solutions. Given the increasing scarcity of water in many areas of the world, addressing these identified gaps will be of significant importance. Thus our model informs the social-research agenda for water policy.     

Conservation Focus on Europe: Major Conservation Policy Issues That Need to Be Informed by Conservation Science

Abstract:  Europe is one of the world's most densely populated continents and has a long history of human-dominated land- and seascapes. Europe is also at the forefront of developing and implementing multinational conservation efforts. In this contribution, we describe some top policy issues in Europe that need to be informed by high-quality conservation science. These include evaluation of the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 network of protected sites, implications of rapid economic and subsequent land-use change in Central and Eastern Europe, conservation of marine biodiversity and sustainability of fisheries, the effect of climate change on movement of species in highly fragmented landscapes, and attempts to assess the economic value of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Broad policy issues such as those identified are not easily amenable to scientific experiment. A key challenge at the science–policy interface is to identify the research questions underlying these problem areas so that conservation science can provide evidence to underpin future policy development .     

Ecological Efficiency of Voluntary Conservation of Boreal-Forest Biodiversity

Abstract: Current networks of protected areas are biased in many countries toward landscapes of low productivity. Voluntary conservation incentives have been suggested as a socially acceptable way to supplement existing networks with more productive, privately owned areas of high priority for nature conservation. The limited resources committed to nature conservation demand cost‐efficiency. Efficiency, however, depends not only on costs incurred to society from alternative ways of maintaining biodiversity but also on ecological values that can be captured. We examined the ecological efficiency of the new market‐based voluntary program to preserve forest habitats on private land in southwestern Finland. We compared sites that have become protected (10‐year contracts) in the program with managed forests, with sites that have been negotiated for protection for which no contract has been signed, and with the most ecologically valuable privately owned sites in the region that have not been offered for protection by forest owners. We surveyed sites for the amount of dead wood, wood‐decomposing fungi, and epiphytic lichens to evaluate their ecological quality. Contracted sites had more features important for overall biodiversity than managed forests and negotiated sites with no contract. These results indicate that procedures used during site selection and negotiations were appropriate and not opportunistic. The contracted sites were also as valuable in ecological terms as the best, still‐unprotected, privately owned forests in the region that have not been offered for protection. We conclude that voluntary conservation programs have the potential to yield ecologically valuable sites for protection if the site‐selection procedures are appropriate. Reliance on completely voluntary programs, however, may entail uncertainties and inadequacies, for example, in terms of spatial configuration and persistence of the ecological values. Thus, such programs may often need to be supplemented with alternative methods such as land purchase to achieve an ecologically effective network of protected sites.     

Using Expert Opinion Surveys to Rank Threats to Endangered Species: A Case Study with Sea Turtles

Abstract: Little is known about how specific anthropogenic hazards affect the biology of organisms. Quantifying the effect of regional hazards is particularly challenging for species such as sea turtles because they are migratory, difficult to study, long lived, and face multiple anthropogenic threats. Expert elicitation, a technique used to synthesize opinions of experts while assessing uncertainty around those views, has been in use for several decades in the social science and risk assessment sectors. We conducted an internet‐based survey to quantify expert opinion on the relative magnitude of anthropogenic hazards to sea turtle populations at the regional level. Fisheries bycatch and coastal development were most often ranked as the top hazards to sea turtle species in a geographic region. Nest predation and direct take followed as the second and third greatest threats, respectively. Survey results suggest most experts believe sea turtles are threatened by multiple factors, including substantial at‐sea threats such as fisheries bycatch. Resources invested by the sea turtle community, however, appear biased toward terrestrial‐based impacts. Results from the survey are useful for conservation planning because they provide estimates of relative impacts of hazards on sea turtles and a measure of consensus on the magnitude of those impacts among researchers and practitioners. Our survey results also revealed patterns of expert bias, which we controlled for in our analysis. Respondents with no experience with respect to a sea turtle species tended to rank hazards affecting that sea turtle species higher than respondents with experience. A more‐striking pattern was with hazard‐based expertise: the more experience a respondent had with a specific hazard, the higher the respondent scored the impact of that hazard on sea turtle populations. Bias‐controlled expert opinion surveys focused on threatened species and their hazards can help guide and expedite species recovery plans.     

Socio-economic predictors of domestic wood use in an Atlantic forest area (north-east Brazil): a tool for directing conservation efforts

Given the excessive use pressure on forests, characterisation of the major users of forest resources can help guide conservation efforts. This study examines whether socio-economic variables explain domestic wood use in an area of Atlantic forest in the community of Três Ladeiras (Pernambuco, north-east Brazil). Socio-economic data were collected from 62 households, and geometric measurements of wood products in each household were taken to calculate the wood volume. An informant in each household indicated the average replacement time for each type of wood use. Data were analysed for static volume (wood volume found at the time of the visit) and dynamic volume (rate of wood consumption, calculated as the ratio between volume and replacement time). Multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the relationships between wood volume (static and dynamic) and the number of species used; independent variables including monthly family income, number of residents, average age of heads of the household, age of oldest household member, average residence time of heads of the household, average education level of heads of the household and education level of the most educated household member. Monthly income was inversely related to the static wood volume (adjusted R ² = 17.6%, p < 0.001), rate of wood consumption (adjusted R ² = 23.0%, p < 0.001) and number of species used (adjusted R ² = 22.3%, p < 0.001) and was the most important predictive variable for these three outcomes. Other factors such as average education level and average age of heads of the household were also explanatory variables of the total rate of wood consumption, as these two variables, together with monthly family income, explain 31.3% of the total dynamic volume. Given the high importance of income in our study, we suggest that future conservation strategies give special attention to the poorest members of the community.