The seven impediments in invertebrate conservation and how to overcome them

By Pedro Cardoso, T. Erwin, P. Borges, T. New. 2011

982 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Despite their high diversity and importance for humankind, invertebrates are often neglected in biodiversity conservation policies. We identify seven impediments to their effective protection: (1) invertebrates and their ecological services are mostly unknown to the general public (the public dilemma); (2) policymakers and stakeholders are mostly unaware of invertebrate conservation problems (the political dilemma); (3) basic science on invertebrates is scarce and underfunded (the scientific dilemma); (4) most species are undescribed (the Linnean shortfall); (5) the distribution of described species is mostly unknown (the Wallacean shortfall); (6) the abundance of species and their changes in space and time are unknown (the Prestonian shortfall); (7) species ways of life and sensitivities to habitat change are largely unknown (the Hutchinsonian shortfall). Numerous recent developments in taxonomy, inventorying, monitoring, data compilation, statistical analysis and science communication facilitate overcoming these impediments in both policy and practice. We suggest as possible solutions for the public dilemma: better public information and marketing. For the political dilemma: red-listing, legal priority listing and inclusion in environmental impact assessment studies. For the scientific dilemma: parataxonomy, citizen science programs and biodiversity informatics. For the Linnean shortfall: biodiversity surrogacy, increased support for taxonomy and advances in taxonomic publications. For the Wallacean shortfall: funding of inventories, compilation of data in public repositories and species distribution modeling. For the Prestonian shortfall: standardized protocols for inventorying and monitoring, widespread use of analogous protocols and increased support for natural history collections. For the Hutchinsonian shortfall: identifying good indicator taxa and studying extinction rates by indirect evidence.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e524817f4aaebc21bbb35bc7d8fad32f5e7c5e61

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Citations in the corpus

Chironomids as indicators in freshwater ecosystems: an assessment of the literature (2015, background): “In addition, there are programmes developed for monitoring freshwater environments with effective agencies that apply many of policies for biomonitoring, which provide support for conservation (Li et al., 2010; Cardoso et al., 2011; New & Samways, 2014).”
Pollinator monitoring more than pays for itself (2020, background): “As political willingness to act is often driven by public demands (Cardaso, Erwin, Borges, & New, 2011”
The strong influence of collection bias on biodiversity knowledge shortfalls of Brazilian terrestrial biodiversity (2016, background): “Additionally to solutions already proposed for these shortfalls (e.g. Cardoso et al., 2011), we suggest that sites distant from access routes, particularly those with poorly sampled environmental conditions, should be preferential targets for future biodiversity surveys.”
Geographical, temporal and taxonomic biases in insect GBIF data on biodiversity and extinction (2021, background): “This erroneous extrapolation is related to what Cardoso and Leather (2019) justifiably referred to as the Linnaean and the Prestonian shortfalls, which respectively means ignoring both how many species there are and the abundance of species and their trends in space and time (Cardoso et al., 2011b).”
Effects of climate change on the distribution of indigenous species in oceanic islands (Azores) (2016, background): “Not knowing what species contribute to what ecosystem services means that the full consequences of species extinctions may be extremely hard to predict (Cardoso et al. 2011).”
Estimating patterns of reptile biodiversity in remote regions (2013, background): “best-studied taxa (the Wallacean shortfall) (Lomolino, 2004; Cardoso et al., 2011; Vale & Jenkins, 2012).”
Predicting a global insect apocalypse (2019, background): “As we are probably arriving late to the game, it is important that existing data, from multiple sources such as museum collections and citizen science projects, are unearthed and linked to schemes currently being mobilised (Cardoso et al., 2011).”
Seven Shortfalls that Beset Large-Scale Knowledge of Biodiversity (2015, background): “…knowledge about the responses and tolerances of species to abiotic conditions (i.e., their scenopoetic niche; discussed in this review, redefined from Cardoso et al. 2011) Eltonian Ecological interactions Lack of knowledge on species’ interactions and these interactions’ effects on individual…”
Is the insect apocalypse upon us? How to find out (2020, background): “The greatest challenge to studying insect trends, in diversity, abundance, range, occurrence or other metrics, is the paucity of baseline data (Cardoso et al., 2011; Eisenhauer et al., 2019; Wagner, 2017, 2019b; Cardoso and Leather, 2019): we lack robust records of past insect populations and divers”
Insect responses to global change offer signposts for biodiversity and conservation (2020, background): “…their biological diversity and ecological importance, insects are poorly represented in assessments of extinction risk and biodiversity change (Cardoso et al., 2011; Régnier et al., 2015; Montgomery et al., 2020) and under-represented in conservation research compared with vertebrates, plants…”
Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale (2017, background): “Generally, highresolution data for many invertebrate taxa are sparse across all realms, especially in the highly biodiverse tropics and subtropics and in freshwater habitats (Cardoso et al. 2011).”
An Exploratory Study of Domestic Violence: Perpetrators’ Reports of Violence Against Animals (2018, neutral): “Lack of public knowledge of arthropod ecosystem functions and understanding that arthropods are threatened leads to reduced support for their conservation (Cardoso et al., 2011).”