William S. Alverson

Wild forests : conservation biology and public policy

Wild Forests presents a coherent review of the scientific and policy issues surrounding biological diversity in the context of contemporary public forest management. The authors examine past and current practices of forest management and provide a comprehensive overview of known and suspected threats to diversity.In addition to discussing general ecological principles, the authors evaluate specific approaches to forest management that have been proposed to ameliorate diversity losses. They present one such policy -- the Dominant Use Zoning Model incorporating an integrated network of Diversity Maintenance Areas -- and describe their attempts to persuade the U.S. Forest Service to adopt such a policy in Wisconsin.Drawing on experience in the field, in negotiations, and in court, the authors analyze the ways in which federal agencies are coping with the mandates of conservation biology and suggest reforms that could better address these important issues. Throughout, they argue that wild or unengineered conditions are those that are most likely to foster a return to the species richness that we once enjoyed.

New reports of nuclear DNA content for 407 vascular plant taxa from the United States

BACKGROUND AND AIMSnThe amount of DNA in an unreplicated haploid nuclear genome (C-value) ranges over several orders of magnitude among plant species and represents a key metric for comparing plant genomes. To extend previously published datasets on plant nuclear content and to characterize the DNA content of many species present in one region of North America, flow cytometry was used to estimate C-values of woody and herbaceous species collected in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA.nnnMETHODSnA total of 674 samples and vouchers were collected from locations across Wisconsin and Michigan, USA. From these, C-value estimates were obtained for 514 species, subspecies and varieties of vascular plants. Nuclei were extracted from samples of these species in one of two buffers, stained with the fluorochrome propidium iodide, and an Accuri C-6 flow cytometer was used to measure fluorescence peaks relative to those of an internal standard. Replicate extractions, coefficients of variation and comparisons to published C-values in the same and related species were used to confirm the accuracy and reliability of our results.nnnKEY RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSnPrime C-values for 407 taxa are provided for which no published data exist, including 390 angiosperms, two gymnosperms, ten monilophytes and five lycophytes. Non-prime reports for 107 additional taxa are also provided. The prime values represent new reports for 129 genera and five families (of 303 genera and 97 families sampled). New family C-value maxima or minima are reported for Betulaceae, Ericaceae, Ranunculaceae and Sapindaceae. These data provide the basis for phylogenetic analyses of C-value variation and future analyses of how C-values covary with other functional traits.

Revisiting the phylogeny of Bombacoideae (Malvaceae): Novel relationships, morphologically cohesive clades, and a new tribal classification based on multilocus phylogenetic analyses.

Bombacoideae (Malvaceae) is a clade of deciduous trees with a marked dominance in many forests, especially in the Neotropics. The historical lack of a well-resolved phylogenetic framework for Bombacoideae hinders studies in this ecologically important group. We reexamined phylogenetic relationships in this clade based on a matrix of 6465 nuclear (ETS, ITS) and plastid (matK, trnL-trnF, trnS-trnG) DNA characters. We used maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference to infer relationships among 108 species (∼70% of the total number of known species). We analyzed the evolution of selected morphological traits: trunk or branch prickles, calyx shape, endocarp type, seed shape, and seed number per fruit, using ML reconstructions of their ancestral states to identify possible synapomorphies for major clades. Novel phylogenetic relationships emerged from our analyses, including three major lineages marked by fruit or seed traits: the winged-seed clade (Bernoullia, Gyranthera, and Huberodendron), the spongy endocarp clade (Adansonia, Aguiaria, Catostemma, Cavanillesia, and Scleronema), and the Kapok clade (Bombax, Ceiba, Eriotheca, Neobuchia, Pachira, Pseudobombax, Rhodognaphalon, and Spirotheca). The Kapok clade, the most diverse lineage of the subfamily, includes sister relationships (i) between Pseudobombax and Pochota fendleri a historically incertae sedis taxon, and (ii) between the Paleotropical genera Bombax and Rhodognaphalon, implying just two bombacoid dispersals to the Old World, the other one involving Adansonia. This new phylogenetic framework offers new insights and a promising avenue for further evolutionary studies. In view of this information, we present a new tribal classification of the subfamily, accompanied by an identification key.

Quararibea pumila (Bombacaceae), a new endemic from Costa Rica

A new species ofQuararibea, remarkable in its diminutive size, “palmoid” growth form, very large oblanceolate-obovate leaves, and cauliflory, is described and illustrated. (Se describe e ilustra una nueva especie deQuararibea, muy notable por su tamaño, diminuto, su forma de crecimiento palmoide, sus hojas oblanceoladas-obovadas y muy grandes, y su estado caulifloro.)

A synopsis of Phragmotheca (Bombacaceae), with two new species and a new subspecies

Recent botanical exploration in Panama and northwestern South America allows a more complete account ofPhragmotheca than was previously possible. Of the six taxa now recognized,Phragmotheca mammosa subspp.mammosa andamazonica, andP. ecuadorensis are newly described and illustrated here. A key to the species, descriptions of all taxa, comments on habitat and phenology, and photographs of staminal thecae and leaf trichomes are provided. Seedlings of “durian morphology”, previously known in the family only from paleotropical members, are reported fromP. mammosa.

Quararibea (Bombacaceae): Five new species from moist and wet forests of Costa Rica and Panama

Five new species ofQuararibea from costa Rica and Panama are described and illustrated, with notes on their ecology and relationships.Quararibea gomeziana, Q. pendula, andQ. santaritensis are from the Caribbean lowlands of the Provinces of Limón, Costa Rica, and of Bocas del Toro and Colón, Panama.Quararibea aurantiocalyx andQ. costaricensis are from montane habitats of Panama and Costa Rica. The exceptionally long pedicels ofQ. pendula far exceed those of other known members ofQuararibea and may prove to be the most striking example of adaptation to bat pollination and fruit dispersal in the genus.Quararibea costaricensis, a relatively common species, has long been erroneously identified asQ. platyphylla, a much rarer inhabitant of the same region.

How many species of Spirotheca (Malvaceae s.l., Bombacoideae)?

We review the 11 putative species of the neotropical genusSpirotheca and conclude that only five should be treated as distinct taxa. Of these, three have restricted ranges (S. awadendron, S. mahechae, S. michaeli) and two are more widespread (S. rivieri and S. rosea). We provide keys and descriptions of each of these and publish two new combinations (S. rosea andS. rivieri var.passifloroides).ResumenHemos revisado las 11 especies putativas del género neotropicalSpirotheca y concluimos que sólo cinco deberían ser consideradas taxa distintas. De ellas, tres tienen distribuciones restringidas (S. awadendron, S. mahechae, S. michaeli), y las otras tienen rangos más amplios (S. rivieri y S. rosea). Agregamos claves y descripciones para la determinación de las mismas y publicamos dos neuvas combinaciones (S. rosea yS. rivieri var.passifloroides).

Conservation Biology Conference II

ogy that might be regarded as ’applied,’ they come up with basic ideas that are very novel and that wind up in the pages of a respectable journal-perhaps without reference to where the idea came from in the first place. So in this way we all tend to compartmentalize our activities in a more or less artificial way. Yet conservation biology is really organized around a highly practical mission-the maintenance of biological diversity on this planet. And if you ask me whether I think that carrying out this mission is a real intellectual challenge, I say it is, absolutely. And it has great intellectual value, partly for the simple reason that it brings questions and fields of interest together in new ways. The minimum viable population problem, for example, is a major issue for conservation biology (R&MN, 3:21). And we are seeing what I think will be major advances in the field of population biology just because the MVP problem crystallizes and brings together subdisciplines such as population biology, population genetics, ecology, and demography that haven’t really been synthesized by theoreticians. And, not surprisingly, it works the other way as well. We see managers, people dealing with practical problems as part of their jobs, coming up with all sorts of insights and initiatives. For example, Hal Salwasser with the U.S. Forest Service has made major contributions to the synthesis and application of the concept of population viability. His job is to bring an ecological perspective to plans for managing the forests. And he and I organized the first workshop on the minimum viable population size issue in Nevada City in, I believe, 1981. Another example is the problem of founding populations. The question is, how many founders do you need to establish a captive population that will maintain most of its genetic variability? That problem was brought up by people in the zoo world such as Ulysses Seal, Bill Conway and Tom Foose. Some of us, including Mike Gilpin at UC-San Diego, have recently proposed some solutions. Several years ago researchers at the San Diego Zoo worked out a way to sex birds of species in which the sexes are morphologically identical by measuring hormones in their urine. So it is easy to think of examples of the artificial barrier between theory and practice breaking down in many different fields related to conservation biology. In an even deeper sense, Soul6 sees his efforts in behalf of conservation biology as related to his own interest in breaking down the artificial barrier that is sometimes erected between science and the world of values. His own interest in values is evident in his experiences with Buddhism, his interest in the thinking of philosophers such as Naess-and of course in the conservation biology initiative as well, which is clearly an attempt to put science to work in the interest of values. We all have values, and we act on them, he says. Science may not have values, but scientists do. In fact the whole idea that diversity is a good thing, which is really the starting point for conservation biology, is a value judgment. So is the idea that plants and animals have intrinsic value apart from their utilitarian value to humans. We can’t defend these ideas on purely scientific or logical grounds, so they become articles of faith, which we can organize into what Naess has called an ’ecosophy.’ It is critically important that we do this. Because it is clear that human beings are going to transform the planet. In fact, they are going to destroy or greatly perturb most of the biological communities that have evolved on the planet. The question now is what sort of future is there going to be. The point is not to make a choice between natural and artificial. Perhaps ~ne of the most interesting philosophical and intellectual questions of our time is to figure out how we can have both.

A new catostemma (Bombacaceae) from Colombia

A new tree species from Colombia, closely resembling other members of the neotropical genusCatostemma in its large one-seeded fruits, is described and illustrated.Catostemma digitata has palmately compound leaves, previously unknown in mature individuals of this genus.