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The biodiversity extinction numbers game
© Ferahgo the Assassin Not an easy task, measuring extinction. For the most part, we must use techniques to estimate extinction rates because, well, it’s just bloody difficult to observe when (and...
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The elusive Allee effect
© D. Bishop, Getty Images In keeping with the theme of extinctions from my last post, I want to highlight a paper we’ve recently had published online early in Ecology entitled Limited evidence for the...
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Inbreeding does matter
I’ve been busy with Bill Laurance visiting the University of Adelaide over the last few days, and will be so over the next few as well (and Bill has promised us a guest post shortly), but I wanted to...
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Species’ Ability to Forestall Extinction – AudioBoo
Here’s a little interview I just did on the SAFE index with ABC AM: Download: 324902-species-ability-to-forestall-extinction-safe.mp3 Not a bad job, really. And here’s another one from Radio New...
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Not magic, but necessary
In April this year, some American colleagues of ours wrote a rather detailed, 10-page article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution that attacked our concept of generalizing minimum viable population...
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Conservation catastrophes
David Reed The title of this post serves two functions: (1) to introduce the concept of ecological catastrophes in population viability modelling, and (2) to acknowledge the passing of the bloke who...
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Ecology is a Tower of Babel
The term ‘ecology’ in 16 different languages overlaid on the oil on board ‘The Tower of Babel’ by Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563). In his song ‘Balada de Babel’, the Spanish...
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Science immortalised in cartoon
Well, this is a first for me (us). I’ve never had a paper of ours turned into a cartoon. The illustrious and brilliant ‘First Dog on the Moon‘ (a.k.a. Andrew Marlton) who is chief cartoonist for...
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Too small to avoid catastrophic biodiversity meltdown
Chiew Larn Reservoir is surrounded by Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary and Khao Sok National Park, which together make up part of the largest block of rainforest habitat in southern Thailand (> 3500...
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50/500 or 100/1000 debate not about time frame
As you might recall, Dick Frankham, Barry Brook and I recently wrote a review in Biological Conservation challenging the status quo regarding the famous 50/500 ‘rule’ in conservation management...
View ArticleRare just tastes better
I had written this a while ago for publication, but my timing was out and no one had room to publish it. So, I’m reproducing it here as an extension to a previous post (That looks rare – I’ll kill that...
View ArticleWobbling to extinction
I’ve been meaning to highlight for a while a paper that I’m finding more and more pertinent as a citation in my own work. The general theme is concerned with estimating extinction risk of a particular...
View ArticleNot so ‘looming’– Anthropocene extinctions
Yesterday I was asked to do a quick interview on ABC television (Midday Report) about the release of the 2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. I’ve blogged about the importance of the Red List...
View ArticleWhy populations can’t be saved by a single breeding pair
I published this last week on The Conversation, and now reproducing it here for CB.com readers. — Two days ago, the last male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) died. His passing...
View ArticleGlobal warming causes the worst kind of extinction domino effect
Just under two weeks ago, Giovanni Strona and I published a paper in Scientific Reports on measuring the co-extinction effect from climate change. What we found even made me — an acknowledged pessimist...
View ArticleWhat is a ‘mass extinction’ and are we in one now?
(reproduced from The Conversation) — For more than 3.5 billion years, living organisms have thrived, multiplied and diversified to occupy every ecosystem on Earth. The flip side to this explosion of...
View ArticleThe biggest and slowest don’t always bite it first
For many years I’ve been interested in modelling the extinction dynamics of megafauna. Apart from co-authoring a few demographically simplified (or largely demographically free) models about how...
View ArticleNeo-colonialist attitudes ignoring poachernomics will ensure more extinctions
No matter most people’s best intentions, poaching of species in Sub-Saharan Africa for horn and ivory continues unabated. Despite decades of policies, restrictions, interventions, protections, and...
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