Biodiversity loss and the taxonomic bottleneck: emerging biodiversity science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. "Backyard biodiversity", defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of "backyard biodiversity" specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability.     

试论生物多样性保护理论与实践面临的困难及现实出路

保护生物学作为一门新兴的交叉科学,已经在最近的一二十年中迅速发展成为一门独立的学科,然而,人们似乎过分沉湎于保护生物学的理论研究之中,却对这样一个事实置若罔闻;保护生物多样性的实践并未能取得预期的成效,生物多样性的危机不仅远未消除,反而越来越严峻,本文从保护生物多样性的伦理妯,保护生物学的理论,保护生物多样性的实践等多个层面上,分析了生物多样性保护面临的重重困难,着重指出,来自社会人文方面的种种不利因素,尤其是经济方面的驱动力,才是制约生物多样性保护的根源所在,并提出通过人文学科的社会经济,政策,法律等方面与自然学科的技术和理论的密切合作研究,综合地探求解决生物多样性危机的有效途径,应该成为保护生物学研究一个新的重点领域。     

植物保护遗传学研究进展

保护遗传学是过用遗传学的原理和研究手段,以生物多样性尤其是遗传多样性的研究和保护为核心的一门新兴学科,近几十年来,遗传学研究在生物多样性保护的理论和实践中发挥着越来越重要的作用。本文简要回顾了保护遗传学的发展历史,研究方向和涉及的概念,着重介绍了植物保护遗传学研究所取得的一些进展,包括植物系统发育重建和保护单元的确定,遗传多样性与物种和群体适应性之间的关系,群体遗传结构与保护策略的制定以及植物遗传资源的鉴定和利用等方面的内容,并强调保护遗传学研究是未来生物多样性和保护生物学研究中一个亟待加强的研究领域。     

中国生物多样性就地保护的研究与实践

中国是世界上生物多样性最丰富的地区之一,但面临着较大的生态衰退风险。中国生物多样性受到的威胁来自包括人口众多、经济发展模式单一落后、工业化进程加快、气候变化和外来物种入侵等多种因素。生物多样性的就地保护对于维护国家生态安全具有重要意义,同时也是中国可持续发展的需要。本文就中国生物多样性就地保护的研究成果和保护成就进行了回顾,提出了未来应该着重加强的研究领域。中国生物多样性的就地保护研究与实践主要集中在生物多样性资源调查、濒危物种管理和自然保护区建设等方面。中国政府在生物多样性就地保护领域开展了大量卓有成效的工作,发布实施了一系列的保护行动规划,不断提高了生物多样性的保护水平。中国的生物多样性就地保护经过了由数量发展到质量发展的阶段后,未来的研究重点应该集中在生物多样性形成与维持机制、生物多样性受胁原因与响应机制、生物多样性长期监测与评估、自然保护区有效管理和自然保护区立法等方面。     

The business of biodiversity – What is needed for biodiversity markets to work

There has been considerable discussion in Australia about market-based initiatives with the potential to bring effective incentives and greater investment for farmers and other land managers to promote biodiversity conservation. These initiatives include biodiversity trading markets (also termed the nature repair market), stewardship schemes, certification programmes, sustainability frameworks, and natural capital accounting. We welcome these discussions and believe these initiatives would be true advances if they bring much greater investment in conservation and stronger protection and recovery of biodiversity. However, we also have major concerns about the integrity and scientific credibility of some of these initiatives. In this article, we discuss why it is critical that such initiatives both carefully define biodiversity and determine what elements of biodiversity are to be targeted in conservation efforts. We also discuss the fundamental importance of appropriate and agreed biodiversity metrics, as well as the critical need for rigorous, well designed and independent biodiversity monitoring. To ensure that initiatives like biodiversity trading markets, stewardship schemes, certification programmes, sustainability frameworks and natural capital accounting are rigorous, non-corruptible and actually deliver what they are intended to do, they will need to be underpinned by appropriate programme designs. This includes robust and transparent governance structures, high-quality monitoring and timely reporting of key metrics.     

国内外城市生物多样性评价与提升研究综述

城市生物多样性水平是反映人与自然和谐共处水平的重要指标,对促进城市可持续发展有着重要意义。城市及其基础设施的扩张改变了土地原有的生态系统、水文状况和地表结构,不断加快的城市化进程对生物多样性造成了严重影响,城市生物多样性保护已成为当下城市生态建设中重要且紧迫的工作。与传统的生物多样性研究不同,城市生物多样性保护工作以保护生物多样性为前提,争取科学利用生物多样性为城市带来更广泛的经济效益和社会效益。当前城市生物多样性研究成果丰富且涉及层面多元,但仍面临缺乏系统性、整体性评价框架以及跨界、多尺度管理等关键问题。故对国内外城市生物多样性的状况评价、效益评价和提升路径三方面的相关研究进行综述,总结当前城市生物多样性评价的标准与方法,并从城市生物多样性保护面对的主要挑战出发,梳理介绍国际合作、国家政策、城市规划、专项保护以及基于自然的解决方案等角度的城市生物多样性提升路径。讨论了城市生物多样性的关注点与未来研究方向,并对城市生物多样性保护提出政策建议,为各地编制生物多样性保护规划和开展城市生物多样性保护工作提供借鉴,以期促进城市生物多样性保护和人与自然的协调发展。     

Sustainable biodiversity conservation in the Niger Delta: a practical approach to conservation site selection

The rich biodiversity repository of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is under severe threat from diverse sources such as deforestation, inadequate farming practices, invasive alien species, urbanization and oil and gas exploration and development activities. This biodiversity “hot spot” is the second most sensitive environment in Africa. The over 70 Protected Areas (PAs) here have lost substantial portions of their area which translates to loss of biodiversity. The need to select representative sites within each of the ecological zones of the region for effective and sustainable biodiversity conservation is, therefore, essential. Vital site criteria that have ecological, socio-economic and cultural dimensions were selected and assessed through a combination of relevant scientific information, indigenous traditional knowledge and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) to yield Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs).They are significantly different from the site selection criteria and principles used in the UK and to a large extent adopt the critical factors that underscore biodiversity conservation in a largely primary production based economy such as in much of the developing world. The three sites selected for biodiversity conservation through this process yielded not only community buy-in but also participatory action and ownership, which are critical for the sustainability of the biodiversity conservation efforts. Shell Nigeria and World Wide Fund (WWF) representatives are already concluding plans to commence effective conservation projects in the selected sites. This approach is hereby advocated for consideration and adoption for the preservation of the remaining stock of the unique biodiversity in developing countries.     

利用基于自然的解决方案促进生物多样性保护

生物多样性丧失是当今人类面临的重要危机之一,在以“爱知目标”为代表的生物多样性保护目标均未实现的背景下,如何推进变革性转型以遏制和扭转生物多样性丧失趋势成为当务之急。基于自然的解决方案(NbS)因其坚持整体性、系统性、多样性、稳定性、可持续性、权衡性和包容性等原则,成为应对全球危机的重要途径。该文通过分析机理和功能层面生物多样性和NbS的关系,阐明了NbS利用恢复生态系统的复杂性和营养级来指引生物多样性保护的路径,提出了利用NbS促进生物多样性保护的双重内涵,一是以提升生态系统多样性、稳定性、持续性为目标,二是利用自然生态过程。在建立NbS和生物多样性关联认知的基础上,该文进一步梳理了NbS的概念内涵与生物多样性保护目标的一致性,以及NbS在生态空间、农业空间、城镇空间对生物多样性保护的相关方法,归纳了NbS促进生物多样性的国内外实践案例,讨论了NbS协同促进生物多样性保护、应对气候变化和可持续发展的多重效益,展望了NbS纳入生物多样性保护战略规划的愿景,以期为促进《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》等框架履约、推进NbS在生物多样性保护主流化提供参考。     

保护生物学概要

保护生物学的形成是对生物危机的反应和生物科学迅速发展的结果。它是应用科学解决由于人类活动干扰或其它因素引起的物种、群落和生态系统出现的问题的新学科。其”目的是提供保护生物多样性的原理和工具“,其基础科学和应用科学的综合性交叉学科。系统学、生态学、生物地理学和种群生态学的原理和方法是保护生物学重要的理论和实践基础。     

Monitoring land cover changes in African protected areas in the 21st century

Africa is home to some of the most vulnerable natural ecosystems and species on the planet. Around 7000 protected areas seek to safeguard the continent's rich biodiversity, but many of them face increasing management challenges. Human disturbances permeating into the parks directly and indirectly affect the ecological functioning and integrity of protected areas. With the envisaged expansion of the protected area network and further expected population and economic growth in the region, the competition between nature conservation and resources demands is likely to increase. The regular monitoring of land cover in and around protected areas can support the early detection of conservation conflicts. In this paper, we evaluate the use of the annual time series of MODIS Land Cover (LC) type product between 2003 and 2009 to monitor land cover changes at continental scale. We use the mean classification confidence and change frequency as indicators to assess the temporal consistency of the MODIS LC classifier for accurately monitoring land cover changes. We discuss the perspectives and issues for an automated monitoring of land cover changes in African protected areas.     

The potential for large carnivores to act as biodiversity surrogates in southern Africa

Biodiversity in southern Africa is globally extraordinary but threatened by human activities. Although there are considerable biodiversity conservation initiatives within the region, no one has yet assessed the potential use of large carnivores in such actions. Surrogate approaches have often been suggested as one such way of capitalizing on large carnivores. Here we review the suitability of the large carnivore guild (i.e., brown hyaena Hyaena hyaena, spotted hyaena Crocuta crocutta, cheetah Acinonyx jubatus, leopard Panthera pardus, lion Panthea leo and African wild dog Lycaon pictus) to act as surrogate species for biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. We suggest that the guild must be complete for the large carnivores to fully provide their role as ecological keystones. The potential for large carnivores to act as umbrella and indicator species seems limited. However, self-sustaining populations of large carnivores may be useful indicators of unfragmented landscapes. Moreover, diversity within the large carnivore guild may reflect overall biodiversity. Although the global appeal of the large African carnivores makes them important international flagships, we stress that international conservation funding must be linked to local communities for them to be important also locally. In summary, we suggest that the flagship value of these large carnivores should be used to promote biodiversity conservation in the region, and that the suggested relationship between large carnivore diversity and overall biodiversity is empirically tested. Finally we suggest that direct conservation activities should focus on enhancing the keystone values of large carnivores through complete guild conservation and restoration.     

“保护兼容”理念源起、实践与发展

以国内外文献、报告、规划为原始材料,以"保护兼容"一词为核心,结合其使用语境,系统阐述在自然保护话语由"堡垒式"转向"社区保护"时,随着自然保护地功能与管理发生变化,人类活动的保护兼容性如何被重新发现并在自然保护实践中助力生物多样性保护。研究发现,"保护兼容"理念充分体现在景观尺度的土地利用连续体上;在生产性景观视角下乡村土地利用和传统农业系统进入自然保护领域;"保护兼容"理念以土地利用为基础下沉到乡村社区的资源管理、生计发展等多类型活动,以各种保护倡议和项目实现,并在发展中国家和发达国家呈现出不同特征。"保护兼容"理念既进行尺度扩展,探索区域内、跨行政区域乃至国家间多利益相关方参与、多类型土地利用贡献于自然保护扩展,也进行尺度下沉,倡导基于本土价值实现全球价值的保护理念。研究提出,全球在生物多样性保护中要进一步重视生产性景观和农业生物多样性保护,而发展中国家面对全球生物多样性保护紧迫目标时,需要坚持社区主体性和在保护实践中的主动性。     

花背蟾蜍摄食生态的研究

花背蟾蜍摄食生态的研究周立志宋榆钧（东北师范大学生命科学学院,长春１３００２４）ＡＳｔｕｄｙｏｆＦｅｄｉｎｇＥｃｏｌｏｇｙｏｆＢｕｆｏｒａｄｄｅｉ．ＺｈｏｕＬｉｚｈｉ,ＳｏｎｇＹｕｊｕｎ（ＣｏｌｅｇｅｏｆＬｉｆｅＳｃｉｅｎｃｅ,ＮｏｒｔｈｅａｓｔＮｏ...     

Conserving Southeast Asia’s imperiled biodiversity: scientific,management, and policy challenges

Southeast Asia was almost entirely covered by rainforest 8,000 years ago. Today, this region is experiencing the highest relative rates of deforestation and forest degradation in the humid tropics. Every year, millions of hectares of tropical forests are destroyed and degraded. Given the rapid rate of deforestation and the high concentration of endemic species in the region, Southeast Asia could lose 13–42% of local populations by the turn of the next century, at least 50% of which could represent global species extinction. In this Special Issue, we discuss the uniqueness of Southeast Asian biodiversity, drivers of forest destruction, threats to the region’s unique ecosystems and taxa, and key conservation challenges to provide a broad-based review of the science, management and policy issues concerning biodiversity conservation. Overall, we highlight the need for an interdisciplinary and multi-pronged strategy requiring all major stakeholders to work together to achieve the ultimate goal of reconciling biodiversity conservation and human well-being in the region.     

自然保护区学说与麦克阿瑟-威尔逊理论

全球正两临着一场物种灭绝的大危机,自然保护己成为人类面临的重大课题,自然保护区的建立是减缓物种灭绝速率、保护生物多样性的重要途径。岛屿生物地理学为自然保护区理论的产生起了重要的作用。然而,许多研究表明,该学科尚未成熟,尤其在自然保护区方面的应用颇为有限,无疑,现代自然保护区理论应是多学科研究的综合产物。本文概述了岛屿生物地理学的基本内容及其在自然保护方面的影响,并对种群脆性分析和景观生态学途径在自然保护区理论中的作用进行讨论。     

Save the planet: eliminate biodiversity

Recent work in the philosophy of biology has attempted to clarify and defend the use of the biodiversity concept in conservation science. I argue against these views, and give reasons to think that the biodiversity concept is a poor fit for the role we want it to play in conservation biology on both empirical and conceptual grounds. Against pluralists, who hold that biodiversity consists of distinct but correlated properties of natural systems, I argue that the supposed correlations between these properties are not tight enough to warrant treating and measuring them as a bundle. I additionally argue that deflationary theories of biodiversity don’t go far enough, since a large proportion of what we value in the environment falls outside bounds of what could reasonably be called “diversity”. I suggest that in current scientific practice biodiversity is generally an unnecessary placeholder for biological value of all sorts, and that we are better off eliminating it from conservation biology, or at least drastically reducing its role.     

生物多样性管理最小有效面积选取模型与GIS的耦合

人口的增长和自然资源的有限性决定了很难把更多的土地用于生物多样性的保护。通过BMAS(生物多样性管理面积选取)模型与GIS(地理信息系统)的结合,可以用尽可能少的土地资源实现一定水平的生物多样性的保护。该方法初步在西双版纳的勐拉县进行了应用。与现实自然保护区面积的对比,用模型选区自然保护区有显著效果。该方法在保护与发展矛盾尖锐的发展中国家非常适用。     

Factors underpinning Iranian farmers’ intention to conserve biodiversity at the farm level

The depletion of biodiversity is a major environmental challenge of the present time, with the agricultural sector being a significant contributor to the loss. Therefore, farmers' decisions and practices are pivotal in safeguarding biodiversity at the farm level. Accordingly, this study aimed to unravel the key factors influencing farmers' intention to conserve biodiversity (ICB), and in doing so, it adopted the protection motivation theory (PMT) as the theoretical framework. The study's statistical population comprised 412 farmers residing in Bavi County in the southwestern region of Iran. The research employed a questionnaire as the data collection instrument, and the research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicated that the respondents held a perception of high costs associated with implementing biodiversity conservation behaviors. They believed that such measures would not be easy to implement, and they would incur both monetary and non-monetary costs. Furthermore, the findings of the study revealed that the variables of SE and ICB among the studied farmers were lower than the theoretical median of 3, indicating that farmers may not have a strong desire and self-efficacy to engage in biodiversity conservation practices. Through the application of SEM, the study determined that the PMT accounts for 65.2% of farmers’ ICB. Additionally, perceived severity and self-efficacy were found to have the strongest effects on farmers’ ICB (as the first and second determinants), highlighting the importance of these variables in predicting farmers’ conservation behaviors. Overall, it can be concluded that these results have significant implications for policymakers in the agricultural sector, providing valuable insights into how to promote biodiversity conservation practices among farmers.     

Coevolutionary aesthetics in human and biotic artworlds

This work proposes a coevolutionary theory of aesthetics that encompasses both biotic and human arts. Anthropocentric perspectives in aesthetics prevent the recognition of the ontological complexity of the aesthetics of nature, and the aesthetic agency of many non-human organisms. The process of evaluative coevolution is shared by all biotic advertisements. I propose that art consists of a form of communication that coevolves with its own evaluation. Art and art history are population phenomena. I expand Arthur Danto’s Artworld concept to any aesthetic population of producers and evaluators. Current concepts of art cannot exclusively circumscribe the human arts from many forms of non-human biotic art. Without assuming an arbitrarily anthropocentric perspective, any concept of art will need to engage with biodiversity, and either recognize many instances of biotic advertisements as art, or exclude some instances of human art. Coevolutionary aesthetic theory provides a heuristic account of aesthetic change in both human and biotic artworlds, including the coevolutionary origin of aesthetic properties and aesthetic value within artworlds. Restructuring aesthetics, art criticism, and art history without human beings at the organizing centers of these disciplines stimulate new progress in our understanding of art, and the unique human contributions to aesthetics and aesthetic diversity.