From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity: Conceptual and Practical Challenges

✍ Scribed by Elena Casetta, Jorge Marques da Silva, Davide Vecchi

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 455
• Series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 24
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so?The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv
Biodiversity Healing (Elena Casetta, Jorge Marques da Silva, Davide Vecchi)....Pages 1-17
Front Matter ....Pages 19-19
The Hidden Biodiversity Data Retained in Pre-Linnaean Works: A Case Study with Two Important XVII Century Italian Entomologists (Francesco Andrietti, Carlo Polidori)....Pages 21-54
Marine Biodiversity Databanks (Anouk Barberousse, Sophie Bary)....Pages 55-76
Problems and Questions Posed by Cryptic Species. A Framework to Guide Future Studies (Anne Chenuil, Abigail E. Cahill, Numa Délémontey, Elrick Du Salliant du Luc, Hadrien Fanton)....Pages 77-106
The Importance of Scaling in Biodiversity (Luís Borda-de-Água)....Pages 107-122
Measures of Biological Diversity: Overview and Unified Framework (Vincenzo Crupi)....Pages 123-136
Essential Biodiversity Change Indicators for Evaluating the Effects of Anthropocene in Ecosystems at a Global Scale (Cristina Branquinho, Helena Cristina Serrano, Alice Nunes, Pedro Pinho, Paula Matos)....Pages 137-163
Front Matter ....Pages 165-165
Are Species Good Units for Biodiversity Studies and Conservation Efforts? (Thomas A. C. Reydon)....Pages 167-193
Why a Species-Based Approach to Biodiversity Is Not Enough. Lessons from Multispecies Biofilms (Jorge Marques da Silva, Elena Casetta)....Pages 195-217
Considering Intra-individual Genetic Heterogeneity to Understand Biodiversity (Eva Boon)....Pages 219-232
Biodiversity, Disparity and Evolvability (Alessandro Minelli)....Pages 233-246
Probing the Process-Based Approach to Biodiversity: Can Plasticity Lead to the Emergence of Novel Units of Biodiversity? (Davide Vecchi, Rob Mills)....Pages 247-268
Between Explanans and Explanandum: Biodiversity and the Unity of Theoretical Ecology (Philippe Huneman)....Pages 269-296
Functional Biodiversity and the Concept of Ecological Function (Antoine C. Dussault)....Pages 297-316
Integrating Ecology and Evolutionary Theory: A Game Changer for Biodiversity Conservation? (Silvia Di Marco)....Pages 317-337
Front Matter ....Pages 339-339
On the Impossibility and Dispensability of Defining ‘‘Biodiversity’’ (Georg Toepfer)....Pages 341-351
The Vagueness of “Biodiversity” and Its Implications in Conservation Practice (Yves Meinard, Sylvain Coq, Bernhard Schmid)....Pages 353-374
What Should “Biodiversity” Be? (Sahotra Sarkar)....Pages 375-399
Natural Diversity: How Taking the Bio- out of Biodiversity Aligns with Conservation Priorities (Carlos Santana)....Pages 401-414
Ordinary Biodiversity. The Case of Food (Andrea Borghini)....Pages 415-433
Conservation Sovereignty and Biodiversity (Markku Oksanen, Timo Vuorisalo)....Pages 435-452

✦ Subjects

Philosophy; Philosophy of Biology; Biodiversity; Geoecology/Natural Processes; Ecosystems