Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 144, Issue 11, November 2011, Pages 2647-2655
Biological Conservation

The seven impediments in invertebrate conservation and how to overcome them

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2011.07.024Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite their high diversity and importance for humankind, invertebrates are often neglected in biodiversity conservation policies. We identify seven impediments to their effective protection: (1) invertebrates and their ecological services are mostly unknown to the general public (the public dilemma); (2) policymakers and stakeholders are mostly unaware of invertebrate conservation problems (the political dilemma); (3) basic science on invertebrates is scarce and underfunded (the scientific dilemma); (4) most species are undescribed (the Linnean shortfall); (5) the distribution of described species is mostly unknown (the Wallacean shortfall); (6) the abundance of species and their changes in space and time are unknown (the Prestonian shortfall); (7) species ways of life and sensitivities to habitat change are largely unknown (the Hutchinsonian shortfall).

Numerous recent developments in taxonomy, inventorying, monitoring, data compilation, statistical analysis and science communication facilitate overcoming these impediments in both policy and practice. We suggest as possible solutions for the public dilemma: better public information and marketing. For the political dilemma: red-listing, legal priority listing and inclusion in environmental impact assessment studies. For the scientific dilemma: parataxonomy, citizen science programs and biodiversity informatics. For the Linnean shortfall: biodiversity surrogacy, increased support for taxonomy and advances in taxonomic publications. For the Wallacean shortfall: funding of inventories, compilation of data in public repositories and species distribution modeling. For the Prestonian shortfall: standardized protocols for inventorying and monitoring, widespread use of analogous protocols and increased support for natural history collections. For the Hutchinsonian shortfall: identifying good indicator taxa and studying extinction rates by indirect evidence.

Highlights

► We identify seven impediments to invertebrate conservation. ► Three dilemmas: public, political and scientific. ► Four shortfalls: Linnean, Wallacean, Prestonian and Hutchinsonian. ► We present possible solutions for each impediment.

Section snippets

The importance of invertebrates

Invertebrates dominate among multicellular organisms in terms of richness, abundance and often biomass; for example, more than 100,000 species of terrestrial arthropods occupy a single hectare of rain forest in the western Amazon (Erwin et al., 2004) and there is more ant biomass in the soils of the Serengeti Plains than there is of surface mammals (Hölldobler and Wilson, 1990). About 80% of all described species are invertebrates. Beetles alone comprise at least 10 times the number of species

The neglect of invertebrates

One of the major crises Earth’s ecological stability faces today is the ever-growing and accelerating mass extinction of species due to human activities (Erwin, 1991a, Lawton and May, 1995, Purvis and Hector, 2000, Smith et al., 1993). Our knowledge of global biodiversity and its rate of extinction is very limited, but of the 3–100 million species believed to exist, conservative estimates point to about 3000 being lost each year, that is, eight species per day (Wilson, 2003a, González-Oreja,

Invertebrates and their ecological services are mostly unknown to the general public (the public dilemma)

Invertebrate conservation is hard to justify when many people see each insect as a potential pest or each spider as a potential health threat (Martín-López et al., 2007). With a few exceptions (e.g. bees, butterflies), the public is not aware of invertebrate roles in ecosystems and the conservation threats many species are facing. Without such information, people tend to disregard invertebrates as important for ecosystem functioning or as in need of protection (Martín-López et al., 2007,

Conclusions

We have outlined seven topics that we regard as impediments that hamper progress in the conservation of invertebrate species at a global level. These impediments represent only one of the several possible ways of dividing the problems related to invertebrate conservation. Nevertheless, we think that the present division is constructive. It is the public and politicians who ultimately decide which science is worth supporting at each moment. The Linnean shortfall is the obvious basis for the

Acknowledgements

We thank J. Hortal, S. Ribeiro and A.S. Pullin for suggestions and fruitful discussions around the subject. P.C. and P.A.V.B. are supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BPD/40688/2007; FCT – PTDC/BIA-BEC/104571/2008; FCT – PTDC/BIA-BEC/100182/2008).

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