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Assessing ecological function in the context of species recovery.

  • Akçakaya HR Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, U.S.A.
  • Rodrigues ASL Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS - Univ. de Montpellier - Univ. Paul-Valéry Montpellier - EPHE, Montpellier, France.
  • Keith DA IUCN Species Survival Commission, Gland, 1196, Switzerland.
  • Milner-Gulland EJ Department of Zoology and Merton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6BW, U.K.
  • Sanderson EW Wildlife Conservation Society, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY, 10460, U.S.A.
  • Hedges S IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group, Gland, 1196, Switzerland.
  • Mallon DP Division of Biology and Conservation Ecology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M1 5GD, U.K.
  • Grace MK Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6BW, U.K.
  • Long B Global Wildlife Conservation, 1250 24th St NW, Washington, D.C., 20037, U.S.A.
  • Meijaard E IUCN SSC Wild Pig Specialist Group, Gland, 1196, Switzerland.
  • Stephenson PJ Ecosystem Management Group, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland.
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  • 2019-10-18
Published in:
  • Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. - 2020
conservation impact
conservation optimism
conservation planning
green list of species
impacto de la conservación
lista verde de especies
optimismo en la conservación
planificación de la conservación
recuperación de especies
species recovery
保护乐观主义
保护成效
保护规划
物种恢复
物种绿色名录
Animals
Biodiversity
Conservation of Natural Resources
Ecosystem
Endangered Species
English Species interactions matter to conservation. Setting an ambitious recovery target for a species requires considering the size, density, and demographic structure of its populations such that they fulfill the interactions, roles, and functions of the species in the ecosystems in which they are embedded. A recently proposed framework for an International Union for Conservation of Nature Green List of Species formalizes this requirement by defining a fully recovered species in terms of representation, viability, and functionality. Defining and quantifying ecological function from the viewpoint of species recovery is challenging in concept and application, but also an opportunity to insert ecological theory into conservation practice. We propose 2 complementary approaches to assessing a species' ecological functions: confirmation (listing interactions of the species, identifying ecological processes and other species involved in these interactions, and quantifying the extent to which the species contributes to the identified ecological process) and elimination (inferring functionality by ruling out symptoms of reduced functionality, analogous to the red-list approach that focuses on symptoms of reduced viability). Despite the challenges, incorporation of functionality into species recovery planning is possible in most cases and it is essential to a conservation vision that goes beyond preventing extinctions and aims to restore a species to levels beyond what is required for its viability. This vision focuses on conservation and recovery at the species level and sees species as embedded in ecosystems, influencing and being influenced by the processes in those ecosystems. Thus, it connects and integrates conservation at the species and ecosystem levels.
Language
  • English
Open access status
green
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/234186
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