This is an interesting conceptual map of risks to the world economy. Biodiversity loss is included, though I bet a lot of conservation biologists would disagree with the missing links. Biodiversity could certainly be used as an investment in infrastructure (ecotourism, ecosystem services), preventing food price volatility, transnational crime and corruption and international terrorism (Somali pirates), and how on earth did they leave out Pandemics? The really interesting thing, though is their plot of likelihood and severity. Biodiversity loss is about midrange in the likelihood scale, but fourth-lowest on the severity scale. Meanwhile, asset price collapse is listed as the highest likelihood and highest severity. It’s an fascinating view on how economists think about biodiversity loss.

We teach and talk about ecology as a tale of balance: the decline of one population generally leads to the increase in another. Nature abhors a vacuum. The cycling of predators and prey. Unfortunately, that complexity leads to a lot of problem in application. I can’t think of a better example than Macquarie Island, where cats were introduced about a century ago. The cats then destroyed the local community of birds. Unfortunately, when managers removed all the cats, the rabbits took over. There have been a bunch of similar stories on unanticipated ecological results and other catch-22s recently. Where I work, it’s not clear whether management should focus on the endangered San Joaquin kit fox or its prey, the endangered giant kangaroo rat. Managers in Washington are facing the same problem with orcas and Chinook salmon (you’ll recall that managers in Oregon had no such qualms about killing California sea lions that were eating salmon). Or take this study that shows prescribed burns in the Western U.S. could actually decrease our carbon footprint. Consider that swift populations in the UK are declining due to housing renovation projects.

There’s an emerging science on ecological traps, where changes in habitat (generally human-caused) lead to novel environments that appear to be high quality for a species, but are in fact low quality. In the Negev desert, for example, managers establishment of pits and dykes to increase moisture in certain areas led to increased mortality for an endemic lizard. The increased moisture led to trees, which served as perches for shrikes, who preyed on the lizards. The lizards had no exposures to trees and so didn’t anticipate the negative consequences.

In a recent discussion section for our wildlife ecology class, students were asked to draw parts of the Yellowstone ecosystem, to try to understand the consequences (direct and indirect) of removing wolves. After a sufficient number of convoluted arrows had been added among humans, wolves, elk, aspen, beaver, fish, soil, &c. &c., one student shouted “It’s all connected, man!” A total Berkeley moment.

All of you out there with consblog.org as your homepage will be dispirited to learn that, in biodiversity battle, the forces of darkness have brought the fight to the Web. The BBC, reporting from CITES in Doha, uncovers online lion cub auctions. Lovely.

Yes, I’m still here. No, I’m not sure if this is a repeat.

Something interesting going on with the California State Parks Foundation:

In the last several years, California’s state park system has been proposed to be shut down to the public – first in January 2008 and again in May 2009.  These proposals have been eye-opening to all Californians who support their state parks.  Yet often in times of crisis, opportunities and new ideas emerge.   In this moment, we believe it is critical to begin a public dialogue about what excellence in California’s state park system should look like.

They’re opening up an online survey to solicit views on how the state park system should be run.

Sad news. John Thorbjarnarson, Senior Conservation Scientist for WCS and renowned reptile expert, died suddenly early this week. A warm and fitting tribute from his nephew.

It is because of men like John that many endangered species still exist on this planet. It is because of men like him that we know that childhood dreams are something you can follow.

This morning struck into the region of full goatees–sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally. It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and uncomely fashion: it was like running suddenly across a forgotten acquaintance whom you had supposed dead for a generation. The goatee extends over a wide extent of country, and is accompanied by an iron-clad belief in Adam, and the biblical history of creation, which has not suffered from the assaults of the scientists.

-Life on the Mississippi (1883)

A comparison of the birds killed annually by Danish windmills, Danish automobiles, and British cats. Taken from Sustainable Energy–without the hot air by David J.C. MacKay, who makes this book and all the graphics he prepared for it available free online.  (He notes that the number taken by cats is about the same as birds that die attempting to fly through plate glass.)

Happy New Year. Here’s a map of game in the United States from 1956.

Apologies for light posting recently. Hopefully back at it once the thesis (fingers crossed) is approved. (via Why Evolution is True)