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Scientists figure how to measure biodiversity in the most efficient way

Posted on November 25, 2007

[Wonder if this works for the special characteristics (?) of island biodiversity??? bp]from Journal Watch of the Society for Conservation Biology <http://conservationmagazine.org/2007/11/22/biodiversity-on-a-bud…>A publication of the Society for Conservation Biology Conservation magazineNov 22 2007Biodiversity on a budgetScientists figure out how to describe the world in the most efficient waymaking pieces of eight go furtherMeasuring biodiversity falls into the really-important-but-incredibly-difficult-to-do category of chores, so when someone comes up with a scheme to make it more cost-effective (i.e. easier) they deserve to be heard. A lengthy list of international conservation biologists, fronted by the University of East Anglia’s Toby Gardner, has done just that, and just they’ve published their findings in Ecology Letters. After sampling a wide range of taxa at sites across 500 000 hectares of Brazilian Amazonia, birds and dung beetles shook out as being particularly good – and cheap – indicators of general biodiversity. However, focusing on these groups is a double-edged sword: on the one hand the money goes further, but on the other we remain ignorant of those poorly understood, expensive to study species.Source: Gardner TA, Barlow J, Araujo IS, Ávila-Pires TC, Bonaldo AB, Costa JE, Esposito MC, Ferreira LV, Hawes J, Hernandez MIM, Hoogmoed MS, Leite RN, Lo-Man-Hung NF, Malcolm JR, Martins MB, Mestre LAM, Miranda-Santos R, Overal WL, Parry L, Peters SL, Ribeiro-Junior MA, da Silva MNF, da Silva Motta & Peres CA (2007) The cost-effectiveness of biodiversity surveys in tropical forests. Ecology Letters DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01133xRelated stories in Conservation magazine: Democratizing TaxonomyFiled Under Endangered species, Monitoring, Economics and conservation, Tools and technology |Conservation magazine is published by the Society for Conservation BiologyCopyright © 2007 Society for Conservation Biology

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