Applications of biodiversity theories in conservation

Abstract

9Biodiversity theories are not very often explicitly consulted in conservation practice, but 10 implicitly many conservation decisions rely on theory. Biodiversity theories can inform 11 important conservation actions such as assessments of species richness and extinction or 12 habitat loss and fragmentation. Popular examples of biodiversity theories are niche theory and 13 island biogeography theory, whereas neutral theory is less known. Here, we review the 14 implications of biodiversity theories for conservation practice, focusing on neutral theory. 15 Neutral theory assumes that the establishment and success of an individual in a community 16 does not depend on its species identity, but is instead predominantly driven by a stochastic 17 process. We found that drift and stochasticity appear much less frequently in conservation 18 studies than selection processes typical of niche theory. This might be because habitat-19 specificity is not supported by neutral theory, but is common among rare and vulnerable 20 species. Furthermore, neutral theory makes less intuitive assumptions than niche theory and 21 does not consider trophic interactions. However, models based on neutral theory proved to be 22 useful in some biodiversity hotspots. Moreover, some models based on neutral theory and support protected area design. We propose that neutral theory can serve as a valuable first-28 order approximation to reduce complexity and by design account for drift and stochasticity.

Up close and personal: An expedition to the last frontier of Sara, Western Philippines

“…Thus, this is defined as 'the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part of; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems' (15) . https://www.indjst.org/ Therefore, Biodiversity Theory is about significant conservation action to assess and evaluate the status of the ecosystem (16) .…”