Publications BIOTROPICA
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BIOTROPICA - September 2010SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITYTo celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity BIOTROPICA has invited 16 personal narratives on biodiversity from leading scientists. This series of commentaries collectively offers diverse, thought-provoking and often challenging perspectives. The Special Section is published in the September issue of BIOTROPICA Volume 42, Issue 5, Pages 521–629 - Content |
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Rob Dunn is an ecologist and writer in the department of biology at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on biogeography of organisms. Often that includes work on the biogeography of societies (whether those are 
K. N. GaneshaiahDepartment of Genetics and Plant Breeding |
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R. Uma ShaankerDepartment of Crop Physiology and |
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SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Is There Enough Science for Conservation Action? (pages 563–565) by Ramanan U. Shaanker and Kotiganahalli N. Ganeshaiah
About the authors' study
Professors Ganeshaiah and Uma Shaanker have collaborated for almost thirty years, pursuing their joint interests in the broad areas of evolutionary biology, conservation biology, conservation genetics, biodiversity documentation and bioprospecting. Their early collaboration was on understanding the reproductive strategies of tropical forest trees. They were among the first to apply the animal-derived concepts of sexual selection, parent–offspring conflict, and sibling rivalry to plants (Bawa et al. 1989; Uma Shaanker et al. 1988). They documented, for the first time in plants, genetic, kin-based seed abortion (Mohana et al. 2001).
During early 1990s, Ganeshaiah and Uma Shaanker collaborated with Professor Kamal Bawa, University of Massachusetts, Boston to launch several comprehensive and novel research programs to assess, document, measure, map and manage biodiversity (Uma Shaanker et al. 2004). Their work contributed fundamentally to the development of new concepts and approaches in the emerging field of biodiversity science in India. Along with Professor Kamal Bawa, Ganeshaiah, and Uma Shaanker founded the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).
Along with colleagues at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Ganeshaiah and Uma Shaanker founded the School of Ecology and Conservation. As a part of the school, they pioneered the development of digital databases of bio resources of the country. Besides, their group was the first in the country to develop microsatellite markers for Indian trees. Using these markers, they have demonstrated the loss of genetic diversity in native trees due to indiscriminate harvesting of forest products (Nageswara Rao et al. 2007; Ramesha et al. 2008). More recently, Ganeshaiah and Uma Shaanker’s group has initiated efforts to bioprospect the Indian bioresources for high value metabolites such as camptothecin, an anti-cancer metabolite, galanthamine, an anti-Alzheimer’s metabolite and shikimic acid, an important precursor in the synthesis of Tamiflu, a drug against bird and swine flu (Ganeshaiah et al. 2007; Singh et al. 2010). These studies have been widely covered in the popular press, especially after the HINI virus pandemic last year.
References (complete citations at Authors' Homepage)
- Bawa, K.S. et al. 1989. Nature 342: 625‑626.
- Ganeshaiah, K.N et al. 2007 Current Science 93(2): 140-146
- Mohana, G.S. et al. 2001. American Journal of Botany 88: 1181-1188.
- Nageswara, Rao M. et al. 2007. Conservation Genetics 8, 925-935.
- Uma Shaanker, R. et al. 1988. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 19: 177‑205.
- Uma Shaanker. R et al. 2004. Conservation & Society 2: 347-363.
- Ramesha, B.T. et al. 2008. Molecular Ecology Resources 9:365-367.
- Singh, S. et al. 2010.Phytochemistry 71:117-22.
Websites
- India's trees are potential Tamiflu source by T. V. Padma from SciDev.Net (Science and Development Network) - 1 April 2009
- Indian Bioresources Information Network (IBIN)
- Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
Jaboury Ghazoul
Ecosystem ManagementETH Zurich
Universitätsstrasse 16
8092 Zurich
Switzerland
(Photo : J. Ghazoul © ATBC, Marburg, 2009)
SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Christopher Herndon, M.D.
Clinical Fellow,
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility
University of California,
San Francisco
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
About Christopher Herndon's study
The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest and its greatest repository of botanical diversity. A few hectares of forest in certain biodiverse hotspots may contain as many species of trees as can be found within the entire continental United States. The extraordinary medicinal plant knowledge of its native peoples is widely recognized in scientific literature and celebrated in popular lore. Tribal pharmacopeias derived through ethnobotanical inventory commonly number in the dozens, if not hundreds, of plant species. Yet, the knowledge of disease that guides indigenous utilization of botanical diversity for healing remains poorly characterized and understood. Utilizing an original metholodology, we undertook the first study to examine patterns of actual disease recognition and treatment by Amazonian tribal healers, systematically analyzing diseases treated and medicinal plants utilized over a four-year period by elder shamans of the Trio tribe in the Suriname rainforest. Our findings indicate that their use of medicinal plants is guided by a previously unappreciated complex and sophisticated understanding of disease. Their healing system is a fragile product of accumulated knowledge of past generations as well as deep ties—spiritual and physical—to the natural environment. In a world in which forests are being destroyed and cultural change is profoundly transforming traditional societies, the healing knowledge of the shaman is rapidly disappearing.
Photos : Top - Paramount shaman of the Sikiyana tribe in the Suriname rainforest teaching Herndon treatment for kidney infections ; Bottom: Christopher Herndon with Eñepa healer and family, Venezuela. © C. Herndon.
Reference
Herndon, C.N., Uiterloo, M., Uremaru, A., Plotkin, M.J., Emanuels-Smith, G. & Jitan, J. 2009. Disease concepts and treatment by tribal healers of an Amazonian forest culture. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 5:27
Daniel H. Janzen
Professor of Biology
Thomas G. and Louise E. DiMaura Term Chair
Department of Biology
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Hope for Tropical Biodiversity through True Bioliteracy (pages 540–542) by Daniel H. Janzen
About Dan Janzen's Study
Why do caterpillars eat the species of plants they eat? Why do parasitoids (wasps and flies) eat the species of caterpillars they eat? And why are they so choosy in a complex dry forest, rain forest and cloud forest in northwestern Costa Rica called Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG)? I have long pursued these questions because I am curious about answers to them. But the answers, and the research processes themselves, also have very broad application to how one may use the biodiversity of a large and complex conserved tropical wildland without destroying it - in other words, biodiversity development.
How can we insure that serious samples of tropical wildlands, and all of their biodiversity, are still with us centuries from now? Through non-destructive use of lands explicitly allocated to this land use; they need to pay their bills to society. But to use biodiversity without damage requires detailed natural history knowledge, tracking of demography, and ecosystem-level understanding. And to use requires users and open iterative communication with them.
My research is done where the organisms are, i.e., Costa Rica.
Read More
- National System of Conservation Areas in Costa Rica (SINAC)
- Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica
- The Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund (GDFCF)
- "Insects That Can't Beat Them Scare Them" by Sean B. Carroll from The New York Times.
- "A Simple Plan to ID Every Creature on Earth" by Gary Wolf from Wired Magazine.
Illustrations: 100 caterpillars: portraits from the tropical forests of Costa Rica by Jeff C. Miller, Daniel H. Janzen, and Winifred Hallwachs. 2010. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press ; 100 Butterflies and Moths: Portraits from the Tropical Forests of Costa Rica by Jeff C. Miller, Daniel H. Janzen, and Winifred Hallwachs. 2007. Harvard University Press; Costa Rican Natural History by Daniel H. Janzen (Editor). 1983. University of Chicago Press. Book cover of Molecular Ecology Resources Special Issue, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
John T. Longino
The Evergreen State College,
Olympia WA 98505
USA
(See also John T. Longino Costa Rica Ant Curator. Antweb)
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
About John T. Longino's study
My research is on the taxonomy and diversity patterns of ants, with a focus on those of Central America. I carry out faunal inventory of ants, using the collected specimens to characterize species and understand geographic ranges. I provide identification keys to select groups of Central American ants and describe new species when they are discovered. I make identification guides, images, and detailed specimen data available on the Web. I am also interested in species diversity patterns, especially the distribution of ant species along elevational gradients in the tropics. How species are distributed along such gradients is a key component to understanding and predicting faunal response to climate change. Currently I direct a major arthropod inventory project called "Leaf Litter Arthropods of MesoAmerica" (LLAMA). The highest concentration of biodiversity in tropical wet forests is found in the leaf litter on the forest floor. With teams of undergraduate students from Canada, the U.S., and Latin America, we are collecting arthropods from this rich but poorly known microhabitat, across a broad range of elevations and over a wide geographic area (southern Mexico to Nicaragua). (Illustration : Pheidole bigote, a new species described by J. T. Longino from material collected on the LLAMA project).
Websites
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Ariel Lugo
Institute of Tropical Forestry
USDA Forest Service,
Rio Piedras PR
Homepage
San Juan Urban Long-Term Research Area (ULTRA)
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Let's Not Forget the Biodiversity of the Cities (pages 576–577) by Ariel E. Lugo
About the Images
The Dynamics of the Biodiversity of a CityThe three images that accompany this write up illustrate how dynamic the biodiversity of a city is. These dynamics are at the core of our research on the socioecology of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the 1930’s the landscape was agricultural and the topography was intact (keep an eye on the deforested limestone hills) (Top). Then, the limestone hills were sacrificed for housing and the establishment of a naval base, suggesting the end for green open spaces (1951). (Middle). The last image shows a novel forest and a reforested hill in 2007 after the abandonment and demolition of the naval base. (Below) Our studies show native species and native forests on the surviving limestone hill, and novel forests dominated by introduced species on the flatlands where the base stood. Endangered species co-mingle with introduced ones in the novel forest, and the forest functions as native forests do. Neighborhoods derive services from the novel forest in terms of noise buffering, recreation, lower air temperatures, etc. The conservation of this forest complex is the result of citizen actions and requires continued interaction with government in light of continuing pressure to urbanize. The whole situation illustrates the dynamics of change in the city and the need for socioecological approaches to the conservation of biodiversity in urban environments. San Juan, Puerto Rico at Wikipedia San Juan, Puerto Rico at Google Earth |
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Anne E. Magurran
Scottish Oceans Institute, East Sands
University of St Andrews
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 8LB - UK
Helder Queiroz
Deputy Director
Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development
St Andrews' Homepage
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Evaluating Tropical Biodiversity: Do We Need a More Refined Approach? (pages 537–539) by Anne E. Magurran and Helder Queiroz
More about the authors' study
Erik Meijaard
Forest Director
People & Nature Consulting International
Bali, Indonesia
emeijaard@pnc‐int.com
emeijaard@gmail.com
(Photo: in the Highlands, Scotland © Erik Meijaard)
Interview at Mongabay.com -
Orangutans can survive in timber plantations, selectively logged forests by Rhett A. Butler, Mongabay.com - September 23, 2010
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Purity and Prejudice: Deluding Ourselves About Biodiversity Conservation (pages 566–568) by Douglas Sheil and Erik Meijaard
More about Erik Meijaard's study
My research background is in ecology, taxonomy, evolution, and biogeography of SE Asian mammals. Increasingly, I am focusing on various aspects of conservation science, including research on the value of logged forest for tropical wildlife, the role of hunting in wildlife depletion, conservation economics and international development, strategic conservation planning (and how to make it work in the tropics), conservation effectiveness monitoring, and most recently conservation psychology, which also involves study of the role of NGOs in shaping the conservation agenda and how effective they actually are. I am using all these different angles at the moment to gain much better insights into how the continuously failing conservation of the Bornean orangutan can be turned into effective conservation that produces real results on the ground.
Other recent article
- Meijaard E, Albar G, Nardiyono, Rayadin Y, Ancrenaz M, et al. 2010. Unexpected Ecological Resilience in Bornean Orangutans and Implications for Pulp and Paper Plantation Management. PLoS ONE 5(9): e12813. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012813
(Photo: Top : Orangutan in Borneo © Nardiyono ; Bottom : Indonesian rainforest © Erik Meijaard)
Vojtech Novotny
Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology
Institute of Entomology
Branisovska 31
CZ 370 05 Ceske Budejovice
Czech Republic
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Rain Forest Conservation in a Tribal World: Why Forest Dwellers Prefer Loggers to Conservationists (pages 546–549) by Vojtech Novotny
More about Vojtech Novotny's study
Vojtech Novotny is directing New Guinea Binatang Research Center in Papua New Guinea, one of the leading institutions in training parabiologists (as well as postgraduate students) for surveys of tropical biodiversity.
The research projects hosted by the Centre include the study of enormous species diversity of insects on the island of New Guinea, estimated to be 5% of the global total (in collaboration with S. Miller, Smithsonian Institution) and the study of forest dynamics, based on a 50-ha forest plot where each of approximately 300,000 stems larger than 1 cm in diameter is being mapped and identified with the help of indigenous forest-dwelling communities (in collaboration with G. Weiblen, University of Minnesota).
Villagers from Wanang village in Papua New Guinea rainforest decided to declare their 10,000 ha of rainforest a village conservation area (Photo below shows the village at the margins of the primary forest included in the Conservation Area) instead of commercial logging. They attracted biological research to their conservation project as a means of getting employment opportunities and other financial benefits from conservation. Photos show parabiologist Roll Lilip (above) rearing leaf mining insects (in plastic bags), and parabiologists John Auga and Kenneth Molem (right) surveying 50-ha permanent plant plot in the conservation area. (Photos: © V. Novotny)
Christine Padoch |
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Matthew Calbraith Perry Curator of Economic Botany
Christine Padoch with a group of women farmers and children in the Karen village of Tee Cha in northern Thailand. (© Christine Padoch) |
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Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez |
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Director of International Programs Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez with Doña Santos Izuisa Ojanama, her husband Don Angel Lomas Guerra and their niece Clotilde Inuma Ojanama all shifting cultivators and residents of Mguel's natal village, Dos de Mayo on the Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon. Taking a rest from work in the field. (© Christine Padoch) |
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BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Saving Slash-and-Burn to Save Biodiversity (pages 550–552) by Christine Padoch and Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez
More about Authors' study
Christine Padoch is the Matthew Calbraith Perry Curator of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden. An ecological anthropologist by training, for the last three decades she has been doing research on smallholder patterns of agriculture, agroforestry and forest management in the humid tropics of Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez is a forest ecologist and the Director of International Programs at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation of Columbia University. A native of the lowland Amazon of Peru, he has conducted research throughout Amazonia on forest management, especially on the production and management of timber by small farmers.
Padoch and Pinedo-Vasquez have frequently worked together on research, training, and demonstration projects that focus on biodiversity in traditional agriculture and forest management. Their joint activities have included collaboration with the People, Land Management, and Environmental Change (PLEC) project that carried out research and demonstration of high-biodiversity production systems in twelve tropical countries. More recently they have worked with multi-disciplinary research teams on the changing patterns of smallholder management of forest resources in the Amazon estuarine floodplain and on factors that are contributing to the rising incidence of escaped fires in the Western Amazon. Padoch has also recently collaborated with an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers who are looking into the causes of the apparent near demise of swidden cultivation in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. (Photo : Don Juan Tapullima Shipingahua standing in his agroforestry field. Don Juan produces a great variety of products (fruits, medicianls and timber, including mahogany and tropical cedar that he planted) in this field. It was once a swidden (slash-and-burn field). © Christine Padoch).
Published books
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Brookfield, H., C. Padoch, H. Parsons & M. Stocking. 2002. Cultivating Biodiversity: The understanding, analysis and use of agrodiversity. ITDG Publishing: London. Jarvis, Devra I., C. Padoch & H. D. Cooper (eds). 2007. Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems. Columbia University Press.Padoch, C., J. M. Ayres, M. Pinedo-Vasquez & A. Henderson (eds.). 1998. Varzea: Diversity, Development, and Conservation of Amazonia's Whitewater Floodplain. New York Botanical Garden Press. Pinedo-Vasquez, M.A., Ruffino, M., Padoch, C.J. & Brondízio, E.S. (eds.) 2011. The Amazon Várzea. The Decade Past and the Decade Ahead. Springer. Forthcoming January 2011. |
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Current project
A rice swidden in East Kalimantan (Indonesia). (© Christine Padoch)
Douglas Sheil
Director Institute for Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC), 
Mbarara University of Science and Technology,
Located in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (at Ruhija), Kabale, Uganda.
Postal address: Box 44, Kabale, Uganda.
Senior research associate, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia
Postal address: Center for International Forestry Research, PO Box 0113 BOCBD, Bogor 16000, Indonesia. Contact
Bwindi Researchers' blog - Former Homepage
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Purity and Prejudice: Deluding Ourselves About Biodiversity Conservation (pages 566–568) by Douglas Sheil and Erik Meijaard
More about Douglas Sheil's study
Douglas Sheil’s interests are in the assessment, ecology and conservation of tropical forests. He is an ecologist interested in reconciling conservation with other demands. He is now director of the Institute for Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC) in the Bwindi Impenetrable World Heritage site in Uganda. He worked with CIFOR in Indonesia from 1998 to 2008 and remains a senior research associate. One aspect of his work has been to develop and implement biodiversity assessment methods that consider local preferences and to use these to inform better forest management and policy. Douglas Sheil co-authored with Jaboury Ghazoul the book Tropical Rain Forest Ecology, Diversity, and Conservation .
(Photo : Douglas Sheil in Mamberamo, Papua (Indonesian New Guinea). © D. Sheil)
Hans ter Steege
Associate Professor ‘Plant Ecology and Biodiversity’
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Utrecht, The Netherlands
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Will Tropical Biodiversity Survive our Approach to Global Change? (pages 561–562) by Hans Ter Steege
More about Hans ter Steege's study
My interest in Tropical rainforest stems from my MSc time, when I studied the ecology of vascular epiphytes in standing trees in rain forest I central Guyana. At present my research focuses on understanding the origin and regulation of biodiversity, which I investigate In the Framework of the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN) and the RAINFOR Programme. I am particularly interested in causes for tree alpha- and beta-diversity. For our research on alpha-diversity we draw on a network of over 50 researchers across the Amazon and we are trying to separate actuo from palaeo-signal in our diversity data. While trees are my personal pet-plants, we also work on topics such as biodiversity research of Herbarium material (how can Herbarium data be used in biodiversity assessment), Bryophytes (neutral models with no dispersal limitation) and lately I have also picked up the sampling and studying of vascular epiphytes, through MSc projects.
(Photo : Nasau Rainforest, Suriname. © Hans ter Steege)
Marcello Tabarelli
Professor Adjunto
Departamento de Botânica
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco-UFPE /
Laboratório de Ecologia Vegetal
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
About Marcello Tabarelli's study
M. Tabarelli research is focused on plant ecology and conservation, particularly tropical forest response to human disturbances. Current investigation examines the major shifts experienced by the Atlantic Forest and the role played by human-modified landscapes in terms of biodiversity retention and ecosystem services, with the consequent links to public policies and conservation strategies.
Marcelo Tabarelli during the 2010 field course "Ecology and Conservation of Caatinga Vegetal" a tropical dry forest restricted to northeast Brazil. (Photo : © M. Tabarelli)
Douglas Yu
School of Biological Sciences,University of East Anglia,
Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7TJ, UK
Ecology, Conservation, & Environment Center (ECEC),
Kunming Institute of Zoology
#338, 32 Jiaochang Dong Lu, Kunming,
Yunnan 650223, China,
BIOTROPICA SPECIAL SECTION: 2010 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY
Conservation in Low-Governance Environments (pages 569–571) by Douglas W. Yu, Taal Levi and Glenn H. Shepard
More about Douglas Yu's study
Most of my work is devoted to the theme of cooperation. My two study areas are mutualisms (cooperation between species) and conservation (cooperation between humans and nature). I study these topics in collaboration with economists, anthropologists, and other experimental and theoretical biologists.
Our empirical work in mutualisms is focused on ant-plant and fig-wasp symbioses, and we have used these model systems to develop and test models of spatial ecology and mutualism. We have demonstrated that a spatial mechanism, the dispersal-fecundity tradeoff, explains the coexistence of multiple ants on a single species of ant-plant, that limited dispersal can select for reduced virulence in an ant castration parasite, and that interference competition is what stabilizes the fig-wasp conflict over seed fate. In theoretical work, we are using microeconomic “contract” models to reformulate mutualism theory, most recently showing that punishment is unlikely to evolve in hosts, that Partner Fidelity Feedback is the most likely explanation for what appears to be punishment of misbehaving symbionts, and that hosts are able to screen out parasites and screen in mutualists simply by setting up appropriate living environments, without the need for further monitoring, thus providing a mechanism for Partner Choice.
In conservation work, we have also started taking a “contract” view. For instance, the primary obstacle in managing the overexploitation of wild game species is the inability to observe hunter behavior, which impedes proposals to set quotas, fines, or rewards. We have developed models and software to infer hunting pressure merely by knowing the spatial distribution of human settlements, allowing managers to limit hunting via the expedient of limiting settlement spread. What was unobservable now becomes observable. We have also shown that an ecotourism cluster in Amazonian Peru invests in conservation actions and that the econo-political landscape in this area meets the conditions predicted by a previously published contract model of ecotourism.
Photos from top to bottom: the author © Douglas Yu; Matsigenka indigenous person by a tropical canopy tree that has been galled by the ant Myrmelachista schumannii © Douglas Yu; Allomerus ant brood, including new queen larvae, in the ant-plant Cordia nodosa © Mark Moffett; Matsigenka indigenous hunter with a woolly monkey (Lagothrix cana) © Glenn Shepard ; Sunrise in Manu National Park, Peru. © Douglas Yu.