Sean L. Maxwell

Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers

DIVERSITY The forgotten women of Antarctic research p.148 EDUCATION Boosting creative teaching in Indias schools p.148 BOOKS Journey through the microbiological jungle within us p.146 climate agreement into action. It is also crucial that the World Conservation Congress delegates — and society in general — ensure that efforts to address climate change do not overshadow more immediate priorities for the survival of the worlds flora and fauna. Since 2001, the categories and criteria of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — a standard for the evaluation of extinction T here is a growing tendency for media reports about threats to biodiversity to focus on climate change. Here we report an analysis of threat information gathered for more than 8,000 species. These data revealed a contrasting picture. We found that by far the biggest drivers of biodiversity decline are overex-ploitation (the harvesting of species from the wild at rates that cannot be compensated for by reproduction or regrowth) and agriculture (the production of food, fodder, fibre and fuel crops; livestock farming; aquaculture; and the cultivation of trees). Early next month, representatives from government, industry and non-governmental organizations will define future directions for conservation at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). High on the agenda for political leaders, non-governmental organizations , conservationists and many others will be taking steps to turn the 2015 Paris The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers The threats of old are still the dominant drivers of current species loss, indicates an analysis of IUCN Red List data by Sean Maxwell and colleagues.

How much is new information worth? Evaluating the financial benefit of resolving management uncertainty

Conservation decision-makers face a trade-off between spending limited funds on direct management action, or gaining new information in an attempt to improve management performance in the future. Value-of-information analysis can help to resolve this trade-off by evaluating how much management performance could improve if new information was gained. Value-of-information analysis has been used extensively in other disciplines, but there are only a few examples where it has informed conservation planning, none of which have used it to evaluate the financial value of gaining new information.

Being smart about SMART environmental targets

Focus on the negotiation process, not just the end target Global progress toward meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi targets has recently been found wanting (1). The Aichi targets were intended to be SMART (specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time-bound), partly in response to the perception that failure to meet the preceding global biodiversity targets resulted from their lack of SMART-ness (2). Negotiations are building toward the September 2015 United Nations meeting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will influence government and business development priorities for decades. Some argue that scientists must engage with the SDG negotiation process to ensure that the environmental targets (e.g., sustainable food production and water-use efficiency) are not vague, modest, or lacking in detailed quantification (3). We caution against focusing only on ensuring that environmental targets are SMART and call for greater attention on the processes that lead to a target being set and met.

The exceptional value of intact forest ecosystems

As the terrestrial human footprint continues to expand, the amount of native forest that is free from significant damaging human activities is in precipitous decline. There is emerging evidence that the remaining intact forest supports an exceptional confluence of globally significant environmental values relative to degraded forests, including imperilled biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, indigenous culture and the maintenance of human health. Here we argue that maintaining and, where possible, restoring the integrity of dwindling intact forests is an urgent priority for current global efforts to halt the ongoing biodiversity crisis, slow rapid climate change and achieve sustainability goals. Retaining the integrity of intact forest ecosystems should be a central component of proactive global and national environmental strategies, alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and promoting reforestation.Forests that are free of significant human-induced degradation should be accorded urgent conservation priority, it is argued, owing to evidence that they hold particular value for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, and the maintenance of indigenous cultures and human health.

One-third of global protected land is under intense human pressure

Protected yet pressured Protected areas are increasingly recognized as an essential way to safeguard biodiversity. Although the percentage of land included in the global protected area network has increased from 9 to 15%, Jones et al. found that a third of this area is influenced by intensive human activity. Thus, even landscapes that are protected are experiencing some human pressure, with only the most remote northern regions remaining almost untouched. Science, this issue p. 788 Human pressure is present in a third of the land designated as protected, globally. In an era of massive biodiversity loss, the greatest conservation success story has been the growth of protected land globally. Protected areas are the primary defense against biodiversity loss, but extensive human activity within their boundaries can undermine this. Using the most comprehensive global map of human pressure, we show that 6 million square kilometers (32.8%) of protected land is under intense human pressure. For protected areas designated before the Convention on Biological Diversity was ratified in 1992, 55% have since experienced human pressure increases. These increases were lowest in large, strict protected areas, showing that they are potentially effective, at least in some nations. Transparent reporting on human pressure within protected areas is now critical, as are global targets aimed at efforts required to halt biodiversity loss.

Integrating human responses to climate change into conservation vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning

The impact of climate change on biodiversity is now evident, with the direct impacts of changing temperature and rainfall patterns and increases in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events on species distribution, populations, and overall ecosystem function being increasingly publicized. Changes in the climate system are also affecting human communities, and a range of human responses across terrestrial and marine realms have been witnessed, including altered agricultural activities, shifting fishing efforts, and human migration. Failing to account for the human responses to climate change is likely to compromise climate‐smart conservation efforts. Here, we use a well‐established conservation planning framework to show how integrating human responses to climate change into both species‐ and site‐based vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans is possible. By explicitly taking into account human responses, conservation practitioners will improve their evaluation of species and ecosystem vulnerability, and will be better able to deliver win‐wins for human‐ and biodiversity‐focused climate adaptation.

Contrary effects of leaf position and identity on oviposition and larval feeding patterns of the diamondback moth

The influence of leaf position and leaf identity on oviposition and neonate feeding site establishment by the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), were investigated in laboratory experiments. Leaves were excised from cabbage [Brassica oleracea L. capitata, cv. Sugarloaf (Brassicaceae)] and the plants reconfigured on artificial stems made from oasis floral foam. Excised leaves were arranged in their normal (natural) order, in reverse order, or in random order. Relative leaf position, but not leaf identity, significantly influenced the choice of oviposition site; when exposed to female moths, leaves in the lowest three positions always received most eggs. To eliminate the effect of leaf position, oviposition experiments were conducted on excised leaves held at uniform height in individual blocks of oasis foam that had been randomly allocated to a position in a circle at the base of an oviposition cage. Moths laid significantly more eggs on younger leaves, but egg density per unit area did not vary among leaves, supporting the finding that leaf identity did not affect moth oviposition. In experiments that investigated the establishment of neonate feeding sites in reconfigured plants, feeding sites were always concentrated on the youngest two leaves of plants, regardless of their position in normal‐, reverse‐, and random‐order plant configurations. This indicates that leaf identity rather than leaf position determines the site of neonate feeding site establishment. The contrary effects of leaf identity and leaf position on oviposition and neonate feeding site establishment in the same species suggests that different life stages utilize different plant cues (perhaps both physical and chemical) in life stage‐specific ways.

When to monitor and when to act: Value of information theory for multiple management units and limited budgets

The question of when to monitor and when to act is fundamental to applied ecology and notoriously difficult to answer. Value of information (VOI) theory holds great promise to help answer this question for many management problems. However, VOI theory in applied ecology has only been demonstrated in single-decision problems and has lacked explicit links between monitoring and management costs. Here, we present an extension of VOI theory for solving multi-unit decisions of whether to monitor before managing, while explicitly accounting for monitoring costs. Our formulation helps to choose the optimal monitoring/management strategy among groups of management units (e.g. species, habitat patches) and can be used to examine the benefits of partial and repeat monitoring. To demonstrate our approach, we use case-simulated studies of single-species protection that must choose among potential habitat areas, and classification and management of multiple species threatened with extinction. We provide spreadsheets and code to illustrate the calculations and facilitate application. Our case studies demonstrate the utility of predicting the number of units with a given outcome for problems with probabilities of discrete states and the efficiency of having a flexible approach to manage according to monitoring outcomes. Synthesis and applications. The decision to act or gather more information can have serious consequences for management. No decision, including the decision to monitor, is risk-free. Our multi-unit expansion of Value of Information theory can reduce the risk in monitoring/acting decisions for many applied ecology problems. While our approach cannot account for the potential value of discovering previously unknown threats or ecological processes via monitoring programmes, it can provide quantitative guidance on whether to monitor before acting, and which monitoring/management actions are most likely to meet management objectives.