Strategies for Protecting Biodiversity

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Strategies for Protecting Biodiversity
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Outline

• Biodiversity Defined
• Reasons for Concern
• Threats
• Strategies for Protection

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Biodiversity The variety and variability among
living organisms, the ecological complexes in
which they naturally occur and the ways in which
they interact with each other and the geosphere.
OTA, 1987
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Meffe Carroll, 1997
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Conservation Biology A response by the
scientific community to the biodiversity
crisis. a crisis discipline -
Soulé
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• Reasons for Concern
• Ethical and aesthetic Biocentric and
  Anthropocentric
• Economic
  Anthropocentric
• food and medicine
• Essential services
  Anthropocentric
• watershed protection
• climate regulation
• pest management
• soil maintenance Raven, 1992

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When the last individual of a race of living
things breathes no more, another heaven and earth
must pass before such a one can be again. -
William Beebe from Meffe, Carroll, et.al., 1997
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Ecosystem service Examples Nutrient
cycling N, P and other
cycles Waste treatment pollution
control/detoxification Pollination
pollinators for plant reproduction Biological
control predator/prey
equilibria Refugia habitat for plant
animal species Food Production
fish, game, crops Raw
materials
lumber, fuel, fodder Genetic resources
sources of medicines, food crops,
biodiversity Recreation ecotourism,
outdoor recreation Cultural aesthetic,
artistic, spiritual
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What are the threats to biodiversity?

• habitat loss, habitat degradation, fragmentation
• invasive species,
• pollution,
• overexploitation and consumption, and
• global climate change.

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Habitat Loss

• Approximately 11 million acres of forest and
  wetland communities lost in the last
• 50 years.

• Still losing about
• 150,000 acres per year
• which is approximately
• 1 per year.

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• About 10 of longleaf pine forests remaining

• and 33 of scrub remaining

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Habitat Fragmentation

• A reduction in patch area
• Increasing isolation of
• remaining patches

(From Curtis, 1956)
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Consequences of Fragmentation

• loss of forest interior and area sensitive
  species

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Consequences of Fragmentation

• Increase in exotic, alien, and
• common species characteristic of
• disturbed environments
• Disruption of ecological
• processes like competition for
• nesting cavities
• nest predation or parasitism

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Strategies for Protection of Biodiversity

• Endangered Species Act 1969/1973
• Gap Analysis late 1980s
• Reserve Design late 1980s to present
• Florida Ecological Network 1994 to present
• Green Infrastructure mid 1990s to present

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Endangered Species Act

• legitimized concern for individual species
• concept of critical habitat
• endangered threatened species
• inadequacy of most parks

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Gap Analysis

• outstanding habitat maps
• replicatable analysis
• strategic planning

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Reserve Design

• Island biogeography principles
• size
• distance
• edge
• time
• Connectivity
• migratory patterns
• ecological processes

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Florida Ecological Network

• used gap-like inventories
• replicatable analysis
• connectivity
• habitat requirements
• a strategic tool

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Basic installations and facilities on which the
continuance and growth of a community depends
-Websters New World
Dictionary
Green Infrastructure

• powerful descriptor
• linked to notion of
• ecosystem services
• essential
• connectivity
• not self-sustaining,
• requires maintenance

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Florida Forever Biodiversity Goals
GOAL B Increase the protection of Floridas
biodiversity at the species, natural community,
and landscape levels. Measure B1 The number of
acres acquired of significant Strategic Habitat
Conservation Areas.

Measure B2 The number of acres acquired of
highest priority conservation areas for Floridas
rarest species.
Measure B3 The
number of acres acquired of significant
landscapes, landscape linkages, and conservation
corridors, giving priority to completing
linkages.

Measure B4 The number of acres
acquired of under-represented native ecosystems.


Measure B5 The number of landscape-sized
protection areas of at least 50,000 acres that
exhibit a mosaic of predominantly intact or
restorable natural communities established
through new acquisition projects, or
augmentations to previous projects.

Measure B6 The percentage increase in the number
of occurrences of endangered species, threatened
species, or species of special concern on
publicly managed conservation areas.