H. Martin Schaefer

Financial Costs of Meeting Global Biodiversity Conservation Targets: Current Spending and Unmet Needs

Costs of Conservation In 2010, world governments agreed to a strategic plan for biodiversity conservation, including 20 targets to be met by 2020, through the Convention on Biological Diversity. Discussions on financing the plan have still not been resolved, partly because there is little information on the likely costs of meeting the targets. McCarthy et al. (p. 946, published online 11 October) estimate the financial costs for two of the targets relating to protected areas and preventing extinctions. Using data from birds, they develop models that can be extrapolated to the costs for biodiversity more broadly. Reducing extinction risk for all species is estimated to require in the region of U.S.

Life history trade-offs are influenced by the diversity, availability and interactions of dietary antioxidants

4 billion annually, while the projected costs of establishing and maintaining protected areas may be as much as U.S.

Deception in plants: mimicry or perceptual exploitation?

58 billion—although both sums are small, relative to the economic costs of ecosystem losses. Data for birds and protected area requirements yield estimated costs for maintaining worldwide diversity targets. World governments have committed to halting human-induced extinctions and safeguarding important sites for biodiversity by 2020, but the financial costs of meeting these targets are largely unknown. We estimate the cost of reducing the extinction risk of all globally threatened bird species (by ≥1 International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List category) to be U.S.

Contemporary Evolution of Reproductive Isolation and Phenotypic Divergence in Sympatry along a Migratory Divide

0.875 to

Biodiversity at multiple trophic levels is needed for ecosystem multifunctionality

1.23 billion annually over the next decade, of which 12% is currently funded. Incorporating threatened nonavian species increases this total to U.S.

Are Fruit Colors Adapted to Consumer Vision and Birds Equally Efficient in Detecting Colorful Signals

3.41 to

Ontogenetic colour changes in an insular tree species: signalling to extinct browsing birds?

4.76 billion annually. We estimate that protecting and effectively managing all terrestrial sites of global avian conservation significance (11,731 Important Bird Areas) would cost U.S.

Colour spaces in ecology and evolutionary biology.

65.1 billion annually. Adding sites for other taxa increases this to U.S.

Red leaf margins indicate increased polygodial content and function as visual signals to reduce herbivory in Pseudowintera colorata

76.1 billion annually. Meeting these targets will require conservation funding to increase by at least an order of magnitude.

How colorful are fruits? Limited color diversity in fleshy fruits on local and global scales.

The expression of most life history traits, such as immunity, growth and the development of sexual signals, is negatively affected by high levels of oxidative stress. Dietary antioxidants can reduce oxidative stress and have therefore been the focus of numerous studies in behavioural and evolutionary ecology in the last few decades. Most of this research has focused on carotenoids, neglecting a number of more common, more potent, and thereby potentially more important, antioxidants, such as polyphenolic antioxidants. However, the effects of several classes of antioxidants on different life history traits have been thoroughly investigated in medical and animal-breeding studies. We suggest that behavioural and evolutionary studies will benefit from incorporating these advances. By reviewing the literature on the effects of antioxidants on life history traits in fish, birds and mammals, we develop a broad framework for dietary antioxidants. Fundamental properties of antioxidants, in particular their biochemistry, their potency and the interactions between them affect their relative relevance for life history traits. Based on tissue affinity, we distinguish between two categories of dietary antioxidants: focal antioxidants that are intrinsically important for a given trait and nonfocal antioxidants that influence traits only indirectly. Furthermore, we show how temporal and spatial environmental variability in antioxidant availability, as well as individual variation in food selection, may generate interindividual differences in the expression of life history traits. Finally, we suggest future research lines and experimental designs that may provide basic information needed to advance our knowledge of the ecological and evolutionary relevance of dietary antioxidants.