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4 - Testing the efficiency of global-scale conservation planning by using data on Andean amphibians
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- By Don R. Church, Conservation International, Claude Gascon, Conservation International, Megan Van Fossen, Conservation International, Grisel Velasquez, Conservation International, Luis A. Solorzano, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Edited by Marc-André Villard, Université de Moncton, Canada, Bengt Gunnar Jonsson
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- Book:
- Setting Conservation Targets for Managed Forest Landscapes
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 19 February 2009, pp 50-78
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
Conservation planning at any scale (global, regional, or local) requires the best scientific input. For biodiversity conservation planning, detailed information on species distributions is needed. In addition, knowledge of the conservation status of species and of the present threats acting on those species is essential to enable some form of prioritization of conservation targets. To date, many valuable conservation planning approaches have been applied at these different scales, but often the quality and nature of the information varies among spatial scales, creating a disconnect between priorities at the local and global scales. Recent work on the global assessment of the conservation status of all amphibian species provides the conservation community with a unique opportunity to integrate conservation planning at the global, regional, and local scales using the same scientific information. Such information can help us establish global priorities for conservation action, design regional landscapes or conservation corridors based on the most highly threatened endemic species and their responses to different land uses, as well as define key gaps in existing networks of protected areas that need formal protection. Using the same detailed global information ensures that priorities at all scales are related and form an integrated strategy for addressing the most urgent conservation needs.
Although protected areas are critical to safeguarding global biodiversity, many species occur largely or entirely outside of protected areas.
15 - Primate diversity patterns and their conservation in Amazonia
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- By José Maria Cardoso Da Silva, Conservation International do Brasil, Av Nazare 541/310, 66035-170 Belém, Pará, Brazil, Anthony B. Rylands, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, 1919 M Street, NW Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA, José S. Silva Júnior, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Departamento de Zoologia, C. P. 399, 66017-970 Belém, Pará, Brazil, Claude Gascon, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, 1919 M Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA, Gustavo A. B. Da Fonseca, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, 1919 M St, NW Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA
- Edited by Andrew Purvis, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, John L. Gittleman, University of Virginia, Thomas Brooks, Conservation International, Washington DC
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- Book:
- Phylogeny and Conservation
- Published online:
- 04 December 2009
- Print publication:
- 22 September 2005, pp 337-364
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
Amazonia is the world's most diverse wilderness area. Encompassing more than 6 million square kilometres in nine countries of northern South America, its biodiversity, in the full meaning of the word, is impressive. Tropical landscapes range from savannas, to forests seasonally and even permanently flooded by the largest rivers in the world, to white-sand forest and scrub, and terra firme forests (Prance 1987). More than one tenth of the world's species occur there (Prance & Lovejoy 1985), with all the untapped genetic resources, increasingly recognised, and exploited, as an essential for our future.
Recent compilations indicate at least 40 000 plant species, 427 mammals, 1294 birds, 378 reptiles, 427 amphibians and around 3000 fishes (Mittermeier et al. 2002). The conservation of Amazonia is a global challenge, given its biodiversity, besides its importance in the regulation of regional hydrological regimes and climate and terrestrial carbon storage (Fearnside 1997, 1999, 2000; Saint-Paul et al. 1999).
A biome-level conservation system for the Amazon requires a good understanding not only of the major biodiversity patterns within the region but also of the relative importance of the evolutionary and ecological processes responsible for their generation and maintenance. In this chapter, we explore these issues; we use primates as a study group and hence update the insights provided by Alfred Russel Wallace (1852) in his remarkable account of primate biogeography in Amazonia. First, we describe the areas of endemism currently recognised for vertebrates in the region.
Effects of a strong drought on Amazonian forest fragments and edges
- WILLIAM F. LAURANCE, G. BRUCE WILLIAMSON, PATRICIA DELAMÔNICA, ALEXANDRE OLIVEIRA, THOMAS E. LOVEJOY, CLAUDE GASCON, LUCIANO POHL
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- Journal:
- Journal of Tropical Ecology / Volume 17 / Issue 6 / November 2001
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 27 November 2001, pp. 771-785
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Little is known about how climatic variability affects fragmented forests and their abrupt edges. We contrasted effects of the 1997 El Niño drought between fragmented and continuous forests in central Amazonia, using long-term data on tree mortality. For 23 permanent 1-ha plots, annualized mortality rates of trees ≥ 10 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) were compared among a ‘baseline’ interval of 5-17 y before the drought, a 12-16-month interval during the drought, and a 12-13-month interval after the drought, using repeated-measures ANOVA. We also examined the size distributions of dead trees for each interval. During the drought, average annual tree mortality rose significantly in both forest edges (from 2.44% to 2.93%) and interiors (from 1.13% to 1.91%), and the magnitude of this increase did not differ significantly between edges and interiors. After the drought, tree mortality declined in all plots, but most dramatically on edges. Mortality rates were more variable over time on edges than interiors, and there was no evidence of time lags in mortality. In forest interiors, the size distributions of trees that died did not differ significantly among the three intervals. On edges, however, relatively fewer small (10-15 cm dbh) and more medium-sized (20-30 cm dbh) trees died in the post-drought interval, compared to other intervals. Moreover, forest edges lost a significantly higher proportion of large (≥ 60 cm dbh) trees than did forest interiors. These results suggest that droughts have relatively complex effects on fragmented Amazonian forests. Drought effects in our forest fragments probably were reduced by prior floristic and structural changes near edges and by adjoining regrowth forest that partially buffered edge vegetation from desiccating conditions.