Abstracts available here - Society for Conservation Biology

25th International Congress for Conservation Biology • Auckland, New Zealand • 5-9 December 2011
budget. We find that the species selected under a maximal coverage
objective are not the species that are currently targeted for monitoring.
If costs, dependencies and uncertainties in response are not incorporated
into the planning process, decisions will be more costly or less efficient,
and uninformative or suboptimal species might be monitored. By explicitly
stating objectives and exploring uncertainty before monitoring takes place,
it is easier to adaptively manage and monitor populations, and account for
and audit investment decisions. Our framework will enhance the utility and
transparency of monitoring programmes in the future.
2011-12-06 12:15 Utilizing Australia’s wet tropics rainforests and
ecotourism to educate tourists about major threats to rainforests, such
as climate change
Turton, SM*, School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, James Cook
University, Cairns, Australia;
The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area (WTQWHA) was
proclaimed in 1988 after a prolonged battle between the logging industry
and conservationists. Since the proclamation, sustainable ecotourism has
become the dominant industry utilizing these internationally recognized
tropical rainforests with an estimated net value of AU$1B pa to the regional
economy. While the WTQWHA are not threatened by many of the
direct and insidious forces being inflicted on tropical forests in other parts
of the developing world, they are not immune to threats such as climate
change and invasive species. Due to past land use change, the WTQWHA
comprises of many small forest remnants on the coastal plain and Atherton
Tableland, interspersed with large blocks of contiguous forest on the less
accessible mountainous areas. In recent times, there has been a strong
effort applied to restore landscape connectivity between remaining forest
remnants through use of wildlife corridors and riparian restoration along
degraded waterways. My talk will present a framework demonstrating
how to combine world class rainforest science from the WTQWHA with
ecotourism to provide a platform to educate Australian and international
tourists about the major threats to tropical forests around the world.
2011-12-08 13:15 Rethinking barriers and bridges to AM: risk,
uncertainty, and indeterminism.
Tyre, A.*, University of Nebraska; Michaels, S., University of
Nebraska;
Adaptive Management doesn’t provide what people need in all
circumstances. Why? One reason is the failure to acknowledge that there
are social origins of indeterminism with different consequences than
natural sources of indeterminism. Consequently, we introduce the idea of
social indeterminism as a form of not knowing what will happen that arises
from the unpredictability of human interactions. We argue that Adaptive
Management is most suited for situations where social indeterminism is
low. We develop a matrix of natural and social indeterminism for explaining
where Adaptive Management is most useful, and where it is most likely to
be dissatisfying. We go on to discuss strategies that may be applicable when
social indeterminism is high.
2011-12-07 17:45 How does salmon aquaculture affect marine fish
biodiversity and ecosystem structure?
Uglem, Ingebrigt*, Norwegian Institite for Nature Research;
Dempster, Tim, Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne;
Bjorn, Paal-Arne, NOFIMA; Sanchez-Jerez, Pablo, Department
of Marine Sciences and Applied Biology, University of Alicante;
Fernandez-Jover, Damian, Department of Marine Sciences and
Applied Biology, University of Alicante;
Coastal ecosystems are the most productive and exploited of marine
ecosystems. Of the various agents of anthropogenic change to coastal
ecosystems, sea cage fish farming is among the most pervasive and is
known to alter biodiversity and ecological processes in many ways. Our
studies show that while salmon farms cover a limited area, they are highly
attractive to a range of wild fish species, which aggregate in their immediate
vicinity in large numbers. The constant supply of lost feed from cages is
the primary mechanism for aggregation of wild fish. Wild fish aggregating
at farms modify their diets, condition, fat-content and tissue fatty-acid
distributions. Changed diets might affect the reproductive potential of wild
fish, as well as palatability, due to use of vegetable oils in the feed. Levels of
various pollutants also differ among farm attracted and non-attracted fish
and movements of attracted fish may be a potential pathway of pathogen
transfer. Finally, farms may affect natural migration patterns of wild fish and
also change the susceptibility of some species to fishing. In sum, our results
demonstrate that salmon farms may be regarded as “artificial” hotspots of
biodiversity, which also could constitute ecological traps for some species.
These findings have a range of implications both for the society and for
conservation.
2011-12-08 18:30 Taxonomic and systematic revision of species of the
genera Gobio and Romanogobio in the light of frequent hybridization
Urbankova, S*, Institute of Vertebrate Biology, v.v.i., Czech Republic
; Mendel, J, Institute of Vertebrate Biology, v.v.i., Czech Republic ;
Vasileva, E, Zoological Museum, Russia; Nowak, M, University
of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland; Stefanov, T, National Museum
of Natural History, Bulgaria; Sanda, R, National Museum, Czech
Republic; Kosco, J, University of Presov, Slovakia; Halacka, K,
Institute of Vertebrate Biology, v.v.i., Czech Republic
The presented paper deals with the taxonomy, phylogeography, hybridization
and current distribution areas of 20 species of gudgeons of the genera Gobio
and Romanogobio in the Eurasian context. The level of endangerment
resulting from sympatric occurrence, the end area and frequency of
hybridization events is evaluated. A comprehensive revision of three newly
discovered taxa was finished and their species status identified. The species
of gudgeons, not analyzed so far, were added into the pilot phylogenetic
study with a view to determination of their systematic relations within both
the genera. For the purpose of biodiversity inventory of the Czech Republic
the originality and quantity of the taxa with newly proposed species status
was evaluated. From the point of view of conservation a new identification
method, S7indel diagnostics, was formulated and its contribution in the
Eurasian context was evaluated. Against the background of genotypization
an attempt was made to develop a morphologic key of some species of the
two genera both for the professional and general public. From the point of
view of museum conservation, a type series of newly revised species from
the territories of the Slovak and Czech Republics including barcodes and
detailed vouchers was assembled. The study was carried out within the
framework of the research project no. 206/09/P608 supported by the Grant
Agency of the Czech Republic.
2011-12-07 15:45 Performance of terrestrial vertebrate taxa as
indicator groups for the identification of priority sites for conservation
Urquiza-Haas, T. *, The National Commission for Knowledge
and Use of Biodiversity ; Koleff, P. , The National Commission for
Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity ;
Conservation planning is inevitable based on the use of surrogates. We
determined whether a system of land areas for conservation designed for
one terrestrial ver¬tebrate taxon can be appropriate for the rest of the
vertebrate taxa.. Conservation area systems were generated for each taxon of
vertebrates (amphibians, rep¬tiles, birds and mammals) with Marxan. The
system of conservation areas identified for the group of am¬phibians had a
smaller area (477 planning units of 256 km2) than the other groups, while
the system identified for birds was three times larger. Systems designed
for amphibians and reptiles were able to represent a higher proportion of
species from other groups (80% and 86% respectively), while the sys¬tem
designed for birds was to the least effective for the species of the other
taxa (i.e. it represented the lowest number of species over a larger area).
It was estimated that the priority sites for amphibians and birds are, on
average, able to represent, within an area equal in size, 80.1% and 60.9%
of the species of other groups, respectively. By contrast, bird spe¬cies were
represented almost entirely (97.8%) by the systems designed for other
taxa. The results indicate that, while no conservation area system designed
for a single taxon is entirely appropriate for the other groups, the reptiles
and amphibians are the most effective surrogates, since they achieve the
representation of a very high proportion of species of the other groups.
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