We address criticism that the Transport, Establishment, Abundance, Spread, Impact (TEASI) framework does not facilitate objective mapping of risk assessment methods nor defines best practice. We explain why TEASI is appropriate for mapping, despite inherent challenges, and how TEASI offers considerations for best practices, rather than suggesting one best practice. Our review of alien species risk assessments (RA) (Leung et al. 2012) aimed to synthesise the diverse approaches applied in this field to establish a logical framework for best practices. We believe the TEASI framework that makes explicit the consideration of Transport, Establishment, Abundance, Spread and Impact aspects of biological invasions helps integrate the main ideas underlying risk assessment and identifies important open questions. Barry (2013) provided a thoughtful review of our study and while he found much to commend in our approach, he indicated two main criticisms: (1) the mapping process in the article was subjective and TEASI does not encapsulate all the reviewed RAs and (2) we are not explicit in defining the best practice. We address each criticism. First, although quantitative approaches were relatively easy to map onto the TEASI framework, scoring-based approaches were more difficult and more subjective. Importantly, subjective does not mean arbitrary. For instance, mapping RA questions such as 'propa-gules dispersed by wind' onto the Spread component in TEASI and identifying it as a species trait is arguably logical. However, the rationale for how answers were combined was less clear for scoring approaches. For instance, many simply summed binary yes/no answers across all components, so we agree that they 'would need to be radically redefined' to map onto TEASI as many do not consider model structure. Barry (2013) further notes that the scoring approaches 'are abstract while the TEASI model is process-based and explicit'. This is certainly true but if the 'abstract' risks do not (at least imperfectly) map onto the set of real processes underlying invasions, we question whether they can be predictive. Thus, we argue that scoring-based approaches can and should be considered in the context of a process-based framework, but we acknowledge that this is challenging. We view this difficulty in mapping model structure as a limitation of existing scoring methodology rather than of the process-based TEASI model. We pose the questions: do the scoring model structures make sense in terms of invasion processes? How? If they do not, in the future, should they? Note, we do not deny the value of scoring RAs; they will remain important in addressing biological invasions, given limited time, data and resources. In addition, Barry (2013) argues that TEASI equations were too highly structured and prescriptive. Although we could have just listed factors thought to be relevant for invasion risk, this would be less valuable. Models are useful, in part, exactly because they are highly structured, presenting a clear picture of how we believe factors rel...

The equilibrium theory of island biogeography is the basis for estimating extinction rates and a pillar of conservation science. The default strategy for conserving biodiversity is the designation of nature reserves, treated as islands in an inhospitable sea of human activity. Despite the profound influence of islands on conservation theory and practice, their mainland analogues, forest fragments in human-dominated landscapes, consistently defy expected biodiversity patterns based on island biogeography theory. Countryside biogeography is an alternative framework, which recognizes that the fate of the world's wildlife will be decided largely by the hospitality of agricultural or countryside ecosystems. Here we directly test these biogeographic theories by comparing a Neotropical countryside ecosystem with a nearby island ecosystem, and show that each supports similar bat biodiversity in fundamentally different ways. The island ecosystem conforms to island biogeographic predictions of bat species loss, in which the water matrix is not habitat. In contrast, the countryside ecosystem has high species richness and evenness across forest reserves and smaller forest fragments. Relative to forest reserves and fragments, deforested countryside habitat supports a less species-rich, yet equally even, bat assemblage. Moreover, the bat assemblage associated with deforested habitat is compositionally novel because of predictable changes in abundances by many species using human-made habitat. Finally, we perform a global meta-analysis of bat biogeographic studies, spanning more than 700 species. It generalizes our findings, showing that separate biogeographic theories for countryside and island ecosystems are necessary. A theory of countryside biogeography is essential to conservation strategy in the agricultural ecosystems that comprise roughly half of the global land surface and are likely to increase even further.

Peer reviewed eScholarship.orgPowered by the California Digital Library University of California of committing a moral act later (Fig. 4). In addition, a moral self-licensing pattern emerged (18), such that committing a moral act earlier in the day was associated with an above-average likelihood of a subsequent immoral act and a decreased likelihood of a subsequent moral act (Fig. 4). Together, the analysis of everyday moral dynamics revealed evidence both for moral contagion through other people's good deeds and moral self-licensing through one's own good deeds outside of the laboratory. Given these different mechanisms, it seems important to find out more about how the principles of moral contagion can be used in public policy interventions, and how moral slacking may be prevented. By tracking people's everyday moral experiences, we corroborated well-controlled but artificial laboratory research, refined prior predictions, and made illuminating discoveries about how people experience and structure morality, as well as about how morality affects people's happiness and sense of purpose. A closer, ecologically valid look at how morality unfolds in people's natural environments may inspire new models and theories about what it means to lead the "good" or "bad" life. Psychol. 4, 1-32 (2008). 12. J. Graham et al., J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 101, 366-385 (2011). 13. J. Haidt, J. Graham, Soc. Justice Res. 20, 98-116 (2007. 14. J. Graham et al., Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 47, 55-130 (2013 Habitat conversion is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, yet little is known about how it is restructuring the tree of life by favoring some lineages over others. We combined a complete avian phylogeny with 12 years of Costa Rican bird surveys (118,127 detections across 487 species) sampled in three land uses: forest reserves, diversified agricultural systems, and intensive monocultures. Diversified agricultural systems supported 600 million more years of evolutionary history than intensive monocultures but 300 million fewer years than forests. Compared with species with many extant relatives, evolutionarily distinct species were extirpated at higher rates in both diversified and intensive agricultural systems. Forests are therefore essential for maintaining diversity across the tree of life, but diversified agricultural systems may help buffer against extreme loss of phylogenetic diversity.A s human-converted habitats expand over Earth's surface, the fate of global biodiversity will depend increasingly on the quality and characteristics of farming landscapes (1, 2). Agricultural systems vary widely in their ability to support biodiversity, with many species extirpated from some but sustained in others (1, 3). Additionally, characteristics of the species themselves, evolved over millions of years, may predispose some lineages to benefit (or suffer) from human environmental impacts (4-6).Phylogenetic diversity, the total evolutionary history or phylogenetic branch lengths of all species in a community (7), is recognized as having intr...

Conservation of species and ecosystems is increasingly difficult because anthropogenic impacts are pervasive and accelerating. Under this rapid global change, maximizing conservation success requires a paradigm shift from maintaining ecosystems in idealized past states toward facilitating their adaptive and functional capacities, even as species ebb and flow individually. Developing effective strategies under this new paradigm will require deeper understanding of the long-term dynamics that govern ecosystem persistence and reconciliation of conflicts among approaches to conserving historical versus novel ecosystems. Integrating emerging information from conservation biology, paleobiology, and the Earth sciences is an important step forward on the path to success. Maintaining nature in all its aspects will also entail immediately addressing the overarching threats of growing human population, overconsumption, pollution, and climate change.

Growing demand for food, fuel, and fiber is driving the intensification and expansion of agricultural land through a corresponding displacement of native woodland, savanna, and shrubland. In the wake of this displacement, it is clear that farmland can support biodiversity through preservation of important ecosystem elements at a fine scale. However, how much biodiversity can be sustained and with what tradeoffs for production are open questions. Using a well-studied tropical ecosystem in Costa Rica, we develop an empirically based model for quantifying the "wildlife-friendliness" of farmland for native birds. Some 80% of the 166 mist-netted species depend on fine-scale countryside forest elements (≤60-m-wide clusters of trees, typically of variable length and width) that weave through farmland along hilltops, valleys, rivers, roads, and property borders. Our model predicts with ∼75% accuracy the bird community composition of any part of the landscape. We find conservation value in small (≤20 m wide) clusters of trees and somewhat larger (≤60 m wide) forest remnants to provide substantial support for biodiversity beyond the borders of tropical forest reserves. Within the study area, forest elements on farms nearly double the effective size of the local forest reserve, providing seminatural habitats for bird species typically associated with the forest. Our findings provide a basis for estimating and sustaining biodiversity in farming systems through managing fine-scale ecosystem elements and, more broadly, informing ecosystem service analyses, biodiversity action plans, and regional land use strategies.countryside biogeography | habitat use | Las Cruces | radio telemetry | remote sensing M eeting food demands of the world's people in a sustainable manner will require a near-doubling of food production in the next 40 y while halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services (1-5). The conflict inherent in these goals has produced much debate, yielding two contrasting strategies-each at an extreme of spatial scale (6, 7). At the large scale, a so-called "land sparing" strategy pursues maximal yields through intense industrial farming in places with high potential productivity while setting aside separate reserves for biodiversity. Its opposite is a "wildlifefriendly" approach that integrates agricultural production and conservation on a fine scale on land managed for both.Wildlife-friendly farming balances tradeoffs within a single system (8, 9) with conservation benefits derived from much smaller, fine-scale ecosystem elements, whose sustainable contribution to biodiversity remains little known. These fine-scale ecosystem elements, such as single trees, charral (early secondary growth), live fences, fruit and timber plantations, and remnants of native forest of all sizes, determine the potential for farmland to support biodiversity and provide ecosystem services critical for food production (10-13). Quantifying the importance of finescale ecosystem elements in human-dominated landscapes has proven elusive. I...

The future of biodiversity and ecosystem services depends largely on the capacity of human-dominated ecosystems to support them, yet this capacity remains largely unknown. Using the framework of countryside biogeography, and working in the Las Cruces system of Coto Brus, Costa Rica, we assessed reptile and amphibian assemblages within four habitats that typify much of the Neotropics: sun coffee plantations (12 sites), pasture (12 sites), remnant forest elements (12 sites), and a larger, contiguous protected forest (3 sites in one forest). Through analysis of 1678 captures of 67 species, we draw four primary conclusions. First, we found that the majority of reptile (60%) and amphibian (70%) species in this study used an array of habitat types, including coffee plantations and actively grazed pastures. Second, we found that coffee plantations and pastures hosted rich, albeit different and less dense, reptile and amphibian biodiversity relative to the 326-ha Las Cruces Forest Reserve and neighboring forest elements. Third, we found that the small ribbons of "countryside forest elements" weaving through farmland collectively increased the effective size of a 326-ha local forest reserve 16-fold for reptiles and 14-fold for amphibians within our 236-km2 study area. Therefore, countryside forest elements, often too small for most remote sensing techniques to identify, are contributing -95% of the available habitat for forest-dependent reptiles and amphibians in our largely human-dominated study region. Fourth, we found large and pond-reproducing amphibians to prefer human-made habitats, whereas small, stream-reproducing, and directly developing species are more dependent on forest elements. Our investigation demonstrates that tropical farming landscapes can support substantial reptile and amphibian biodiversity. Our approach provides a framework for estimating the conservation value of the complex working landscapes that constitute roughly half of the global land surface, and which are experiencing intensification pressure worldwide.

Decision-makers increasingly seek scientific guidance on investing in nature, but biodiversity remains difficult to estimate across diverse landscapes. Here, we develop empirically based models for quantifying biodiversity across space. We focus on agricultural lands in the tropical forest biome, wherein lies the greatest potential to conserve or lose biodiversity. We explore two questions, drawing from empirical research oriented toward pioneering policies in Costa Rica. First, can remotely sensed tree cover serve as a reliable basis for improved estimation of biodiversity, from plots to regions? Second, how does tropical biodiversity change across the land-use gradient from native forest to deforested cropland and pasture? We report on understory plants, nonflying mammals, bats, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Using data from 67,737 observations of 908 species, we test how tree cover influences biodiversity across space. First, we find that fine-scale mapping of tree cover predicts biodiversity within a taxon-specific radius (of 30-70 m) about a point in the landscape. Second, nearly 50% of the tree cover in our study region is embedded in countryside forest elements, small (typically 0.05-100 ha) clusters or strips of trees on private property. Third, most species use multiple habitat types, including crop fields and pastures (to which 15% of species are restricted), although some taxa depend on forest (57% of species are restricted to forest elements). Our findings are supported by comparisons of 90 studies across Latin America. They provide a basis for a planning tool that guides investments in tropical forest biodiversity similar to those for securing ecosystem services.conservation science | countryside biogeography | ecosystem services | extinctions | species-area relationship W hat is the potential of sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes? The future of biodiversity hinges on the answer, given the limited scope for expanding protected areas. Moreover, the generation and delivery of many vital ecosystem services occurs on local to regional scales in socialecological systems where people make their livelihoods through cropping, grazing, forestry, and other rural activities. The answer is incomplete, but appears to be "high" (e.g., refs. 1-3). A further question, however, is how can this potential for conservation into the Anthropocene can be realized, with land use, other dimensions of global change, and rates of extinction intensifying rapidly worldwide (4-6) and weak institutions for protecting the global commons (7)?Efforts to secure biodiversity and ecosystem services in rural landscapes are expanding and becoming more sophisticated (e.g., refs. 8 and 9). In the case of ecosystem services, both scientific and policy support for targeting investments have advanced rapidly (10, 11). In China, for example, 200 million people presently are being paid to engage in conservation and restoration activities; since 2000 these investments have resulted in many ecosystem servi...

Birds both promote and prosper from forest restoration. The ecosystem functions birds perform can increase the pace of forest regeneration and, correspondingly, increase the available habitat for birds and other forest-dependent species. The aim of this study was to learn how tropical forest restoration treatments interact with landscape tree cover to affect the structure and composition of a diverse bird assemblage. We sampled bird communities over two years in 13 restoration sites and two old-growth forests in southern Costa Rica. Restoration sites were established on degraded farmlands in a variety of landscape contexts, and each included a 0.25-ha plantation, island treatment (trees planted in patches), and unplanted control. We analyzed four attributes of bird communities including frugivore abundance, nectarivore abundance, migrant insectivore richness, and compositional similarity of bird communities in restoration plots to bird communities in old-growth forests. All four bird community variables were greater in plantations and/or islands than in control treatments. Frugivore and nectarivore abundance decreased with increasing tree cover in the landscape surrounding restoration plots, whereas compositional similarity to old-growth forests was greatest in plantations embedded in landscapes with high tree cover. Migrant insectivore richness was unaffected by landscape tree cover. Our results agree with previous studies showing that increasing levels of investment in active restoration are positively related to bird richness and abundance, but differences in the effects of landscape tree cover on foraging guilds and community composition suggest that trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and bird-mediated ecosystem functioning may be important for prioritizing restoration sites.