From genes to landscapes: conserving biodiversity at multiple scales.

Abstract

Biodiversity has at last become a familiar term outside of scientific circles. Ways of measuring it and mapping it are advancing and becoming more complex, but ways of deciding how to conserve it remain mixed at best, and the resources available to manage dimishing biodiversity are themselves scarce. One significant problem is that policy decisions are frequently at the local scale, where as biodiversity mapping is more often at the regional or national scale. Building on gap analysis techniques, one hierarchical, objective approach to conserving biodiversity is based on prioritizing sets of species rather than focusing on individual species or whole ecosystems. This method has already been somewhat successful.

Citation

Duncan, Sally. 2000. From genes to landscapes: conserving biodiversity at multiple scales. Science Findings. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. November (29): 1-5