Jonathan E M Baillie

Zoological Society of London | IoZ · Conservation Programmes

It is essential to understand whether conservation interventions are having the desired effect, particularly in light of increasing pressures on biodiversity and because of requirements by donors that project success be demonstrated. Whilst most evaluations look at effectiveness at a project or organizational level, local efforts need to be connect...

Biodiversity hotspots understandably attract considerable conservation attention. However, deserts are rarely viewed as conservation priority areas, due to their relatively low productivity, yet these systems are home to unique species, adapted to harsh and highly variable environments. While global attention has been focused on hotspots, the world...

Aim: Global-scale studies are required to identify broad-scale patterns in the distributions of species, to evaluate the processes that determine diversity and to determine how similar or different these patterns and processes are among different groups of freshwater species. Broad-scale patterns of spatial variation in species distribution are ce...

Appendix S1 Reptile and fish species in our analyses of freshwater species. Figure S1 Proportion of freshwater fish species by biogeographical realm.

Conservation of phylogenetic diversity allows maximising evolutionary information preserved within fauna and flora. The "EDGE of Existence" programme is the first institutional conservation initiative that prioritises species based on phylogenetic information. Species are ranked in two ways: one according to their evolutionary distinctiveness (ED)...

Species richness maps of the 5% top ranking ED and EDGE amphibian species for resolutions from 25×25 km to 200×200 km in steps of 25 km. (PDF)

Model estimates and test statistics for all environmental correlates (PCA 1 to PCA 8) predicting qED and qEDGE for all resolutions and both taxa. (CSV)

Species richness maps of the 5% top ranking ED and EDGE mammalian species for resolutions from 25×25 km to 200×200 km in steps of 25 km. (PDF)

qED and qEDGE maps for amphibians for raster resolutions of 25×25 km to 200×200 km in steps of 25 km. (PDF)

Model estimates and test statistics for the effect of global land cover types on qED and qEDEG (GLC categories sensu Globcover 2009 V2.3) for all resolutions and both taxa, as well as ED and EDGE. (CSV)

Zip compressed species level data of ED and EDGE scores for all mammals and amphibian species included in the analyses. (ZIP)

Spatial polygons containing the EDGE and ED zones for amphibians and mammals in a RData file which can be used in R (with the sp package loaded). Three variables define the different polygons: “Res” refers to the resolution of the rasters used to create the polygons and takes values from 25 to 200 in steps of 25; “Cat” describes whether the polygon...

qED and qEDGE maps for mammals for raster resolutions of 25×25 km to 200×200 km in steps of 25 km. (PDF)

Tracking change in species extinction risk provides an effective metric with which to follow trends in biodiversity. One of the most widely applied classifications of the relative risk of extinction of species is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. This chapter explores the prospect of taking the Red List Index (...

Understanding change in population abundance is critical to understanding change in biodiversity. This chapter presents an indicator measuring change in abundance of vertebrate species over a 37-year time period from 1970 to 2007. The Living Planet Index (LPI) measures global vertebrate abundance trends over time by calculating the average change i...

This chapter defines the most common scales of conservation intervention, and introduces a number of approaches for conservation planning. It highlights the need for the conservation community to work together to develop a more co-ordinated and inclusive planning process that integrates conservation interventions at a broad range of scales. The cha...

This introductory chapter of Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation: Bridging the Gap between Global Commitment and Local Action provides a glimpse of the themes covered in the book. The book addresses two key themes in biodiversity conservation and monitoring, bringing together insights from science and policy spheres. The first is evaluating a...

Effective and targeted conservation action requires detailed information about species, their distribution, systematics and ecology as well as the distribution of threat processes which affect them. Knowledge of reptilian diversity remains surprisingly disparate, and innovative means of gaining rapid insight into the status of reptiles are needed i...

Species diversity is a function of species richness, the number of species in a given locality and species evenness, the degree to which the relative abundances of species are similar [1, 2]. While this notion may be easy to conceptualize, it has proven difficult, and at time contentious, to quantify [1, 2]. Commonly used methods include constructi...

Pangolins, or scaly anteaters (Manidae, Pholidota), are atypical mammals covered in individual, overlapping scales comprised of keratin. There are eight extant species which inhabit tropical and subtropical forests, dry woodlands and open savannahs of the Old World. Four are native to Asia: the Chinese Pangolin Manis penta-dactyla, Sunda Pangolin M...

As the world's governments congregate for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), we call on them to address one of the greatest oversights in conservation in recent years: the neglect of desert ecosystems. Deserts cover 17% of the world's land mass and harbor surprisingly

To improve sustainability of ocean ecosystems, implementation of existing commitments should be prioritized.

Biodiversity has been recognized as one of the key components of environmental sustainability. Assessment of biodiversity trends and progress toward targets requires effective and sound indicators. In our article, we review and compare the leading multispecies biodiversity indices used in global and regional assessments. We reviewed basic character...

The huge conservation interest that mammals attract and the large datasets that have been collected on them have propelled a diversity of global mammal prioritization schemes, but no comprehensive global mammal conservation strategy. We highlight some of the potential discrepancies between the schemes presented in this theme issue, including: conse...

Under the impact of human activity, global extinction rates have risen a thousand times higher than shown in the fossil record. The resources available for conservation are insufficient to prevent the loss of much of the world's threatened biodiversity during this crisis. Conservation planners have been forced to prioritize their protective activit...

In the face of unprecedented global biodiversity loss, conservation planning must balance between refining and deepening knowledge versus acting on current information to preserve species and communities. Phylogenetic diversity (PD), a biodiversity measure that takes into account the evolutionary relationships between species, is arguably a more me...

Global species extinction typically represents the endpoint in a long sequence of population declines and local extinctions. In comparative studies of extinction risk of contemporary mammalian species, there appear to be some universal traits that may predispose taxa to an elevated risk of extinction. In local population-level studies, there are li...

The conservation of species is one of the foundations of conservation biology. Successful species conservation has often been defined as simply the avoidance of extinction. We argue that this focus, although important, amounts to practicing conservation at the “emergency room door,” and will never be a sufficient approach to conserving species. Ins...

As the impacts of anthropogenic activities increase in both magnitude and extent, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure. Scientists and policy makers are frequently hampered by a lack of information on biological systems, particularly information relating to long-term trends. Such information is crucial to developing an understanding as...

The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the...

Assessing Biodiversity Declines Understanding human impact on biodiversity depends on sound quantitative projection. Pereira et al. (p. 1496 , published online 26 October) review quantitative scenarios that have been developed for four main areas of concern: species extinctions, species abundances and community structure, habitat loss and degradati...

Protected areas (PAs) are the cornerstone of global conservation efforts but their performance in maintaining populations of their key species remains poorly documented. Here, we address this gap using a new database of 583 population abundance time series for 69 species of large mammals in 78 African PAs. Population abundance time series were aggr...

![Figure][1] CREDIT: [ISTOCKPHOTO.COM][2] In their Policy Forum “The Barometer of Life” (9 April, p. [177][1]), S. N. Stuart and coauthors report that 160,000 species are required to approach a meaningful indicator of the health of species. Assuming a linear projection, at the current

In 2002, world leaders committed, through the Convention on Biological Diversity, to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. We compiled 31 indicators to report on progress toward this target. Most indicators of the state of biodiversity (covering species’ population trends, extinction risk, habitat extent and cond...

Although recent biodiversity loss has been compared with cataclysmic mass extinctions, we still possess few indicators that can assess the extent or location of biodiversity loss on a global scale. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has mandated development of indicators that can meet the needs of monitoring biodiversity by 2010. To date,...

Following creation of the 2010 Biodiversity Target under the Convention on Biological Diversity and adoption of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, information on status and trends of biodiversity at the national level has become increasingly important to both science and policy. National red lists (NRLs) of threatened species may prov...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are designed to inspire efforts to improve people's lives by, among other priorities, halving extreme poverty by 2015 (1). Analogously, concern about global decline in biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services (2) gave rise in 1992 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD target “to a...

The status and trends of global biodiversity are often measured with a bias towards datasets limited to terrestrial vertebrates. The first global assessment of an insect order (Odonata) provides new context to the ongoing discussion of current biodiversity loss. A randomly selected sample of 1500 (26.4%) of the 5680 described dragonflies and damsel...

Freshwater ecosystems in the tropics host a diverse endemic fauna including freshwater crabs, but the rapid loss and deterioration of habitat means that many species are now under imminent threat. Studies on freshwater fish and amphibians suggest a third to half of the species in some tropical freshwaters is either extinct or endangered, but the st...

Are all species equal in terms of conservation attention? We developed a novel framework to assess the level of conservation attention given to 697 threatened mammals and 100 critically endangered amphibian species. Our index of conservation attention provides a quantitative framework for assessing how conservation resources are allocated, based on...

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna Zaglossus attenboroughi is known from a single specimen collected in the Cyclops Mountains of northern Papua in 1961, and has previously been considered to be extremely rare if not already extinct. New fieldwork to investigate the continued survival of Z. attenboroughi was conducted on the north and south slopes o...

The task of measuring the decline of global biodiversity and instituting changes to halt and reverse this downturn has been taken up in response to the Convention on Biological Diversity's 2010 target. It is an undertaking made more difficult by the complex nature of biodiversity and the consequent difficulty in accurately gauging its depletion. In...

Knowledge of mammalian diversity is still surprisingly disparate, both regionally and taxonomically. Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status and distribution of the world's mammals. Data, compiled by 1700+ experts, cover all 5487 species, including marine mammals. Global macroecological patterns are very different for...

Knowledge of mammalian diversity is still surprisingly disparate, both regionally and taxonomically. Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status and distribution of the world's mammals. Data, compiled by 1700+ experts, cover all 5487 species, including marine mammals. Global macroecological patterns are very different for...

The world's governments have identified reducing the rate of biodiversity loss as a global priority. However, we lack robust measures of progress toward this target. Developing indicators that are generally representative of trends in global biodiversity has presented the scientific community with a significant challenge. Here we discuss the develo...

The 2010 biodiversity target adopted globally and in Europe is an important political commitment for improved biodiversity conservation and management. Whether or not it is achieved will be judged by a set of biodiversity indicators now under development. We reviewed the development of these indicators in Europe and globally, paying particular atte...

The Second International Mongolian Biodiversity Databank Workshop was held at the National University of Mongolia and Hustai National Park from 11th to 15th September 2006. Participants assessed the conservation status of all Mongolian amphibians and reptiles using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. The existing Mongolian Biodiversity Datab...

The fourth report in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides a comprehensive, scientifically credible, policy-relevant and up-to-date assessment of, and outlook for, the state of the global environment. GEO-4 is published 20 years after the landmark World Commission on Sustainable De...

Evolutionary Distinctiveness for primates under two species concepts. This table lists ED scores for primates under the biological species concept i[.e. the taxonomy of ref 35], the number of phylogenetic species into which the biological species was split [36] and the estimated ED score of each phylogenetic species. See Materials and Methods for f...

Evolutionary Distinctiveness and EDGE scores for mammals. This table shows Evolutionary Distinctiveness (ED) and EDGE scores for all species included in the mammal supertree [31] ranked by their EDGE score. Species that could not be assigned EDGE scores are appended to the bottom of the list, sorted by status and ED score. Species taxonomy follows...

Conservation priority setting based on phylogenetic diversity has frequently been proposed but rarely implemented. Here, we define a simple index that measures the contribution made by different species to phylogenetic diversity and show how the index might contribute towards species-based conservation priorities. We describe procedures to control...

The Red List Index uses information from the IUCN Red List to track trends in the projected overall extinction risk of sets of species. It has been widely recognised as an important component of the suite of indicators needed to measure progress towards the international target of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Howeve...

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a major threat to global biodiversity and as a result ‘trends in IAS’ has been selected as one of 22 headline indicators to measure progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s target of reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. Whilst the CBD has suggested ‘numbers and cost’ of IAS as potentia...

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/01/14540534/summary-conservation-action-plans-mongolian-fishes