A group of people from our journal club attended the European Congress for Conservation Biology in Glasgow, Scotland (28.8.-1.9.2012). In practice, this means four days of intense conservation science, inspiring discussions and severe embarrassment of riches when it comes to choosing which session to go to. Luckily, I took some notes for memory, inspiration and, sometimes, finding links to what we do. (Disclaimer: this is neither a comprehensive summary of all of it, nor a synthesis.)
The first day, I attended a symposium about distribution atlases. I am obviously interested in them because I work with species distribution models and atlas data is a cornerstone of many such exercises. The session provided insights to other things atlas data is good for as well.
Chris van Swaay (De Vlinderstichting) provided an inspiring example of how opportunistic observation data can be used in dynamic site occupancy models to reveal trends in metapopulation dynamics before they are reflected in presence-absence data (read more: van Strien et al. 2011).
Simon Gillings (British Trust of Ornithology) was reflecting on the findings of the National Bird Atlas Project run by the British Trust of Ornithology. Again, relative abundance data from a fixed effort collection scheme revealed abundance trends that were not reflected in the presence-absence representation of the same data. Another interesting point raised in the discussion was that in the era of online data entering, it would be possible to better understand factors behind survey intensity so that the voluntary observers and their efforts could be managed to gain in comprehensiveness of the data.
Lluis Brotons (EBCC-ICO-CTFC-CREAF) and Verena Keller (EBCC) let us have a look behind the scenes of the EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds, the challenges of integrating data across various collection schemes and an outlook for a second Atlas. The project aims at covering 5 years of fieldwork, more than 50 countries, over 500 bird species and more than 5000 grid cells 50 x 50 km in size – this is exciting! Follow the project at http://www.ebcc.info.
After that, I went to see the first three finalists running for the student award.
Ricardo Correia (Universidade de Lisboa) raised the important issue of data extent in species distribution models to predict impacts of climate change. Working with the Cork oak in the Mediterranean region, he showed that it is indeed important to consider the full range of the species rather than a part of it, in order for the model to make sensible predictions. This is a subject we have also discussed in our journal club last September.
Bernard Coetzee (Stellenbosch University) presented very interesting results of protected area success worldwide. His title, Protected areas achieve significant conservation outcomes, pretty much summarizes the main conclusion. Wonderful to have good news for a change! As protected area effectiveness is one of the key interests of our journal club, I am sure it will be very interesting to dwell in the detail of this study once it is out. By the way, there are a couple of recent papers on the topic, concluding that protected areas have facilitated species range expansions in the UK (Thomas et al. 2012) and that the development of biodiversity inside protected areas reflects the development outside them in the tropical regions (Laurance et al. 2012).
Daniele Baisero (Sapienza Università di Roma) raised an important point about gap analysis based on extent of occurrence data: our understanding of what proportion of a species’ distribution is covered by protected areas may be distorted unless the unsuitable habitats are filtered out. Such an approach indeed seems a sensible one. Such habitat suitability models for global mammals have been used in a number of studies e.g. in the Philosophical Transactions B theme issue “Global strategies for the conservation of mammals”.
After these talks I really wanted to see a couple in a session dealing with spatial ecology and conservation.
Santtu Kareksela (University of Jyväskylä) presented an interesting approach to spatial conservation prioritization: instead of looking at the most valuable sites to put aside for biodiversity conservation, should we identify the least valuable sites and allocate extractive land uses to those sites?
Stefan Schindler (University of Vienna) presented a meta-analysis for identifying species diversity indicators based on landscape structure. He had a message to all of us: when reporting the results of a case study in an article, please think about what you report from the point of view of someone who wants to include your study in a systematic review or meta-analysis! If relevant information about the study set-up is missing, the study may need to be excluded and does not contribute to the Big Picture.
Diogo Alagador (University of Évora) discussed species range shifts in the course of climate change and presented a framework for dynamic reserve selection that would account for range shifts, where protected areas would be designated and de-designated according to their changing biodiversity value. This talk raised a lot of discussion. Dynamic conservation is a fascinating topic.
During the last session of the day, I could already hear my brain blinking “intake quota exceeded”. However, the session called “Planning, management and conservation strategies” covered a diverse range of topics and was interesting to follow.
Clara Therville (CNRS) provided a social science perspective to conservation, noting that nature conservation in many places is shifting from segregative establishment of protected areas to integrative planning of multiple uses and allowing some forms of human activities in the areas of interest. She asked whether the institutions governing the current conservation are ready to legitimize, support and represent integrated conservation projects.
Brandon Anthony (Central European University) presented an evaluation of protected areas in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. This was very interesting as I rarely come across conservation research focusing on that area. According to their analysis, the overall protected area effectiveness in the region was higher than global average.
Three more days of ECCB to go!