Datasets, Tools & Reports

Search

• 

  Patterns of isozyme variation as indicators of biogeographic history in Pilgerodendron uviferum (D. Don) Florin »

  The effects of Pleistocene glaciations on the genetic characteristics of the most austral conifer in the world, Pilgerodendron uviferum, were analysed with specific reference to the hypothesis that the species persisted locally in ice-free areas in temperate South America.

  Results indicated that Pilgerodendron populations are highly monomorphic, probably reflecting past population bottlenecks and reduced gene flow. Southernmost populations tend to be the least genetically variable and were therefore probably more affected by glacial activity than northern ones. Populations located outside ice limits seem to have been isolated during the glacial period. The presence of centres of genetic diversity, together with the lack of a significant correlation between genetic and geographical distances and the absence of geographical patterns of allelic frequencies at most analysed alleles, may indicate that Pilgerodendron did not advance southward after the last glaciation from a unique northern refugium, but spread from several surviving populations in ice-free areas in Patagonia instead.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  Linking Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: A State of Knowledge Review »

  Over recent decades, biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction have both become international societal and political goals. There is recognition of the links between these two goals both within the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Millennium Development Goals. However, the causal relationships are not so simple either that one can say poverty causes biodiversity loss, or improvements in biodiversity reduce poverty. This suggests a need to be more specific in defining what types of poverty and biodiversity issues are being assessed.

  Two “state of knowledge” reviews were commissioned to explore the evidence base for two common assumptions about the link between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction: 1) that the poor depend on biodiversity; and 2) that biodiversity conservation can be a mechanism for poverty reduction. These attempt to tease apart the issues of what type of poverty and what type of biodiversity are being assessed.

  Resource Type: Reports
• 

  A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2010 »

  Horizon scanning identifies emerging issues in a given field sufficiently early to conduct research to inform policy and practice. Our group of horizon scanners, including academics and researchers, convened to identify fifteen nascent issues that could affect the conservation of biological diversity. These include the impacts of and potential human responses to climate change, novel biological and digital technologies, novel pollutants and invasive species. We expect to repeat this process and collation annually.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  Protected Planet Report 2012 »

  The Protected Planet Report 2012 reviews progress towards the achievement of international protected area targets.

  Resource Type: Reports
• 

  Prospects for Biodiversity »

  Assuming no radical transformation in human behavior, we can expect important changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services by 2050. A considerable number of species extinctions will have taken place. Existing large blocks of tropical forest will be much reduced and fragmented, but temperate forests and some tropical forests will be stable or increasing in area, although the latter will be biotically impoverished. Marine ecosystems will be very different from today's, with few large marine predators, and freshwater biodiversity will be severely reduced almost everywhere. These changes will not, in themselves, threaten the survival of humans as a species.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy »

  Sustainability requires living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere. In an attempt to measure the extent to which humanity satisfies this requirement, we use existing data to translate human demand on the environment into the area required for the production of food and other goods, together with the absorption of wastes. Our accounts indicate that human demand may well have exceeded the biosphere's regenerative capacity since the 1980s. According to this preliminary and exploratory assessment, humanity's load corresponded to 70% of the capacity of the global biosphere in 1961, and grew to 120% in 1999.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  Outcomes, not implementation, predict conservation success »

  We applied a conceptual framework and score-card developed by the Cambridge Conservation Forum (CCF) to a sample of 60 conservation activities to determine the predictive power of implementation measures versus measures of key outcomes (later steps in the models defined in the CCF tools). We show that assessing key outcomes is often more difficult than quantifying the degree of implementation of a project but that, while implementation is a poor predictor of success, key outcomes provide a feasible and much more reliable proxy for whether a project will deliver real conservation benefits. The CCF framework and evaluation tool provide a powerful basis for synthesizing past experience and, with wider application, will help to identify factors that affect the success of conservation activities.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  ECO-ED: rhetoric or progress? »

  The World Congress for Education and Communication on Environment and Development (ECO-ED), which took place in Toronto, Canada, 17-21 October 1992, was multisectoral in scope, accommodating individuals and groups from business, aid agencies, the NGO community, government, the media, UN agencies (UNEP/UNESCO), educators and education associations.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers
• 

  CITES and the conservation of tree species: the case of Aquilaria in Indonesia »

• 

  Effects of population disjunction on isozyme variation in the widespread Pilgerodendron uviferum »

  Geographical range is considered a good predictor of the levels of isozyme variation in plants. Widespread species, often consisting of historically larger and more continuous populations, maintain higher polymorphism and are less affected by drift, which tends to erode genetic variation in more geographically restricted species. However, widespread species occurring in small and disjunct populations may not fit this pattern. In this study we examined genetic variation in Pilgerodendron uviferum, a conifer endemic to temperate forests of southern South America.

  Resource Type: Journal Papers