Climate change, conservation and management: an assessment of the peer-reviewed scientific journal literature |
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Authors: | Adam Felton Joern Fischer David B Lindenmayer Rebecca Montague-Drake Arianne R Lowe Debbie Saunders Annika M Felton Will Steffen Nicola T Munro Kara Youngentob Jake Gillen Phil Gibbons Judsen E Bruzgul Ioan Fazey Suzi J Bond Carole P Elliott Ben C T Macdonald Luciana L Porfirio Martin Westgate Martin Worthy |
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Institution: | (1) Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, W.K. Hancock Building #43, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia;(2) Department of Biological Sciences, Gilbert Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 9305, USA;(3) Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales, Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, SY23 3AL, UK |
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Abstract: | Recent reviews of the conservation literature indicate that significant biases exist in the published literature regarding
the regions, ecosystems and species that have been examined by researchers. Despite the global threat of climatic change,
similar biases may be occurring within the sub-discipline of climate-change ecology. Here we hope to foster critical thought
and discussion by considering the directions taken by conservation researchers when addressing climate change. To form a quantitative
basis for our perspective, we assessed 248 papers from the climate change literature that considered the conservation management
of biodiversity and ecosystems. We found that roughly half of the studies considered climate change in isolation from other
threatening processes. We also found that the majority of surveyed scientific publications were conducted in the temperate
forests of Europe and North America. Regions such as Latin America that are rich in biodiversity but may have low adaptive
capacity to climate change were not well represented. We caution that such biases in research effort may be distracting our
attention away from vulnerable regions, ecosystems and species. Specifically we suggest that the under-representation of research
from regions low in adaptive capacity and rich in biodiversity requires international collaboration by those experienced in
climate-change research, with researchers from less wealthy nations who are familiar with local issues, ecosystems and species.
Furthermore, we caution that the propensity of ecologists to work in essentially unmodified ecosystems may fundamentally hamper
our ability to make useful recommendations in a world that is experiencing significant global change. |
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Keywords: | Global warming Biodiversity Climate change Conservation priorities |
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