Geographic Distribution of Endangered Species in the United States

Dobson, Andrew; Rodrı́guez, Jon Paul; Roberts, W. Van B.; Wilcove, David S.

doi:10.1126/science.275.5299.550

Cited by 551 publications

(384 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Biodiversity of vertebrates also encompasses aspects of population and genetic diversity that are missed when using species as the sole unit of measurement. Furthermore, methods for setting conservation priorities are complex and should consider not just the number of endemics or total species present, but also degree of threat 7,11 , population viability 18 , ecological and evolutionary processes 14,18 , and economic costs and benefits of conservation 27 . Comprehensive conservation strategies will require efforts at multiple scales to ensure the longterm survival of biodiversity in a region 2,18 .…”

Section: Lettersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The vast majority of species, however, have yet to be named, and information regarding their ranges (as well as the geographic ranges of many described species) is lacking 15,16 . Vertebrates, being relatively well-known, are frequently used to represent all biodiversity, but analyses of cross-taxa congruence often show little overlap [5][6][7] and have thus lowered confidence in the use of surrogates. This lack of concordance could be a consequence of limitations in the taxonomic breadth or geographic extent of previous studies [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this reason, many studies have tested the performance of terrestrial vertebrates as surrogates for overall species diversity, but these tests have typically been limited to a single taxon or region [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] . Here we show that global patterns of richness are highly correlated among amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, as are endemism patterns.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism

Lamoreux

Morrison

Ricketts

et al. 2005

Nature

448

392

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Section: Lettersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism

Lamoreux

Morrison

Ricketts

et al. 2005

Nature

448

392

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“…We analyzed three conservation databases containing incidence records of endangered, threatened, rare, and͞or ''of-concern'' species (hereafter simply termed species) for (i) the southern California coastal sage scrub community type (Natural Diversity Database, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Sacramento), an area with many imperiled species, including the California gnatcatcher Polioptila californica; (ii) the Columbia Plateau (The Nature Conservancy and Natural Heritage network, Arlington, VA), a five-state region in the northwestern United States that was the focus of a recent $50 million federal ecosystem assessment (www. icbemp.gov); and (iii) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency endangered species by county database (19). These databases do not include information on other, more common species residing in the regions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Umbrellas and flagships: Efficient conservation surrogates or expensive mistakes?

Andelman

Fagan

2000

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

579

396

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The use of umbrella and flagship species as surrogates for regional biota whose spatial distributions are poorly known is a popular conservation strategy. Yet many assumptions underlying the choice of surrogate species remain untested. By using biodiversity databases containing spatial incidence data for species of concern for (i) the southern California coastal sage scrub habitat, (ii) the Columbia Plateau ecoregion, and (iii) the continental United States, we evaluate the potential effectiveness of a range of conservation surrogate schemes (e.g., big carnivores, charismatic species, keystone species, wide-ranging species), asking how many species potentially are protected by each scheme and at what cost in each habitat area. For all three databases, we find that none of the surrogate schemes we evaluated performs significantly better than do a comparable number of species randomly selected from the database. Although some surrogate species may have considerable publicity value, based on the databases we analyzed, representing diverse taxa on three different geographic scales, we find that the utility of umbrella and flagship species as surrogates for regional biodiversity may be limited.F or many regions of the world, scientists lack detailed distribution and abundance data for most species of conservation concern. Nevertheless, decisions about which lands to allocate for conservation often cannot be postponed until more data are available, even though additional data might facilitate the identification of more economically efficient reserve networks (1, 2). In such cases, conservationists must seek effective shortcuts to conserve biodiversity. One popular shortcut is to focus conservation planning efforts on a relatively small number of focal or surrogate species (3-5) and assume that if we protect the surrogates we will also do an adequate job of protecting much of the regional biota. Three classes of surrogate species schemes are prevalent: (i) flagships (i.e., charismatic species that attract public support); (ii) umbrellas (i.e., species requiring such large areas of habitat that their protection might automatically protect other species); and (iii) biodiversity indicators (i.e., sets of species or taxa whose presence may indicate areas of high species richness) (5,6).Although surrogate schemes are often used to set conservation priorities (7,8), the choice of particular surrogates has largely been ad hoc (9), and assumptions underlying those choices usually are implicit, not explicit. Of previous analyses of species richness and co-occurrence patterns (10-16), umbrella taxa (17), and complementarity among taxa (18) at a variety of geographic scales, few (4) have systematically evaluated the effectiveness of typical schemes for identifying surrogate species from a practical standpoint. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the utility and limitations of commonly used flagship, umbrella, and indicator schemes by evaluating patterns of spatial cooccurrence between surrogate species and regional biota in thre...

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“…The tools score regions or sets of parcels for their biological value (6,7), conservation cost (8,9), and threat level (10)(11)(12). The available approaches assume these scores can be treated as constant.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Land market feedbacks can undermine biodiversity conservation

Armsworth

Daily

Kareiva

et al. 2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

213

163

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The full or partial purchase of land has become a cornerstone of efforts to conserve biodiversity in countries with strong private property rights. Methods used to target areas for acquisition typically ignore land market dynamics. We show how conservation purchases affect land prices and generate feedbacks that can undermine conservation goals, either by displacing development toward biologically valuable areas or by accelerating its pace. The impact of these market feedbacks on the effectiveness of conservation depends on the ecological value of land outside nature reserves. Traditional, noneconomic approaches to site prioritization should perform adequately in places where land outside reserves supports little biodiversity. However, these approaches will perform poorly in locations where the countryside surrounding reserves is important for species' persistence. Conservation investments can sometimes even be counterproductive, condemning more species than they save. Conservation is most likely to be compromised in the absence of accurate information on species distributions, which provides a strong argument for improving inventories of biodiversity. Accounting for land market dynamics in conservation planning is crucial for making smart investment decisions.conservation planning ͉ reserve design ͉ site selection ͉ development pressure ͉ habitat destruction

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Geographic Distribution of Endangered Species in the United States

Cited by 551 publications

References 9 publications

Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism

Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism

Umbrellas and flagships: Efficient conservation surrogates or expensive mistakes?

Land market feedbacks can undermine biodiversity conservation

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