September 25 2006: Prof. Dr. Stuart Pimm

September 25 2006:

Prof. Dr. Stuart Pimm
(Duke University)  
 
Setting practical, international priorities to protect biodiversity

Abstract

Human actions disproportionately target the centres of biological endemism that, combined, account for about half of all species in only one tenth of the terrestrial land surface.  Tropical moist forest was the original vegetative cover of most of these centres.

In regions where so little forest remains, how much and where is that forest are the deciding factors.  Many priority-setting exercises elsewhere assume that there are choices to make from within existing natural regions, with some areas more important than others.  Other approaches suppose far more habitat that remains, ignoring the problem of mapping habitat.  In severely damaged regions (and all the hotspots are, by definition), ” the sensible first step is to map the remaining habitats.  As natural habitats shrink towards zero, what little remains will be the priority. Mapping habitats will not only be necessary, but sufficient.

One of these centers of endemism, the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil is the subject of my talk.  How useful are the various approaches to the problem of allocating protected areas in the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil?  How much taxonomy do we need to know to set priorities? One approach is (almost) ecology free, begging the question of whether detailed knowledge ”or even more knowledge” is necessary to set conservation priorities. At some level of habitat loss, taxonomic and biogeographical knowledge are not necessary.  The priorities will be the habitats that have been damaged the most; one need not know what species are present within them. If we do need data on species and their distributions are they up to the task?

Relevant publications

Pimm, SL & Jenkins, P. 2005. Sustaining the variety of life. Scientific American September 2005, pages 66-73.
Pimm, SL. 2001 Can We Defy Nature's End? Science September 2001, pages 2207-2208.