Sunday, February 8, 2015

Current Ecological Conservation Strategies Attempt to Save the Highest Number of Avian Species, but May Fail to Consider the More Evolutionarily Distinct Species



Date: February 5th , 2015
Source: Yale University
Summary: Current ecological conservation tries to save as many avian species as possible, which is part of their job. However, there was not enough research done to see the effect of saving the more isolated avian species that are more evolutionarily diverse. The research shown in this research paper shows that prioritizing saving avian species based on their ecological uniqueness, rather than attempting to save as many species as possible, is the more effective strategy to preserve total evolutionary information across all avian species.

Post:
When one thinks of the words “Ecological Conservation”, one might think of security officers restraining elephant poachers, or a zoologist examining a giant panda. However, extinction and the struggle to prevent it range across a plethora of species that are not nearly as exotic. Many species of birds are heading towards extinction, and ecologists have limited resources to stem the tide of extinction. A natural debate arises when these factors are taken into consideration: which species and locations should be given conservation priority? The conventional answer to this question is to simply concentrate resources into locations that have the most endangered species, thus saving as many species as possible. A study conducted at Yale university attempts to offer an alternate solution; to concentrate resources on species with the most ecological uniqueness.
Why is every extinction a tragedy? For every species that will never again walk on this Earth, not only is their ecological niche forever lost, but also their evolutionary information. One reason for ecological conservation is that these species may survive to pass on this evolutionary information. No two species have the same evolutionary uniqueness. Some species are relatively isolated on the phylogenic tree, and it is these species that the researchers at Yale University suggest resources are used to preserve.
There are almost ten thousand species of birds on Earth, and there has not been enough time nor resources to study them all, phylogenically and ecologically. However, phylogenetic information about these bird species have been accumulating at a much faster pace than ecological information. This fact was an inspiration for the Yale research group, as this phylogenic information was then cross referenced with that of other bird species. This allowed for the ranking of birds based on their evolutionary uniqueness. They then located the most evolutionary distinct species, and found that they were generally isolated from other avian species. This means that conventional conservation strategies would not protect these species as well, despite their obvious importance to phylogenetic research.
            In conclusion, these researchers recommend that current conservation priorities be reworked, to consider the evolutionary uniqueness of the species to some capacity.

Citation:
Walter Jetz, Gavin H. Thomas, Jeffrey B. Joy, David W. Redding, Klaas Hartmann, and Arne O. Mooer. 2014. Global distribution and conservation of evolutionary distinctness in birds. Current Biology 24, 919–930


2 comments:

  1. Late submission due to problems with accessing the blog, email sent to Professor Wisner with proof of completion before the due date.

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  2. I really liked how you put th term Ecological Conservation in a more realistic way and showed that there is more to it than meets the eye. What I found interesting was the idea to put more resources towards places with more diversity instead of deciding which animals to rpeserve based on our own wants and benefits.

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