The seven impediments in invertebrate conservation and how to overcome them
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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