Conservation Biology
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Conservation Biology
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the protection and recovery of biological diversity. Developed as a distinct discipline during the late twentieth century, it has often been described as a multidisciplinary and crisis-oriented science: one concerned not simply with understanding the natural world, but with applying scientific knowledge while species, populations, habitats, and ecological processes are being lost.
The field brings together ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, geography, environmental science, economics, behavioral science, social science, and public policy. Its concerns range from preventing the extinction of individual species to maintaining functioning ecosystems and conserving genetic, taxonomic, functional, and evolutionary diversity. Increasingly, conservation biology also examines the relationships between biodiversity, human welfare, development, governance, land use, and economic systems.
Biodiversity Loss and Conservation Priorities
Conservation biology developed in response to evidence that human activities were producing unusually rapid declines in biodiversity. Habitat destruction, fragmentation, exploitation, invasive species, pollution, disease, altered fire regimes, urbanization, infrastructure development, and climate change can operate separately or together to reduce populations and transform ecosystems.
Because conservation resources are limited, a central problem is deciding where protection will have the greatest effect. Concepts such as biodiversity hotspots, priority ecoregions, Key Biodiversity Areas, and systematic conservation planning attempt to identify places whose protection can conserve unusually large or important portions of biological diversity.
Modern conservation planning goes beyond simply counting species. Taxonomic diversity, evolutionary history, ecological function, habitat representation, connectivity, vulnerability, and future environmental change can all influence conservation priorities.
Protected areas remain one of the principal tools of biodiversity conservation, but the amount of land or sea formally protected does not by itself determine success. Protected areas may be located where development pressure was already low, may fail to encompass important biodiversity, or may remain vulnerable to activities occurring beyond their boundaries. Effective conservation therefore requires attention to location, management quality, ecological representation, connectivity, human pressures, governance, and long-term monitoring.
Other effective area-based conservation measures can complement traditional parks and reserves by recognizing places where biodiversity is successfully conserved even when conservation is not the sole purpose of land or sea management.
Restoration, Connectivity, and Species Recovery
Protecting intact habitat is only part of modern conservation biology. Extensive ecological degradation has made restoration an increasingly important strategy. Forests, wetlands, grasslands, rivers, and other ecosystems may recover biodiversity and ecosystem functions when damaging pressures are removed and ecological processes are restored.
Natural regeneration can sometimes produce strong recovery without intensive intervention, while other systems require active measures such as planting native vegetation, restoring hydrology, controlling invasive species, or reconstructing habitat. Restoration outcomes are highly dependent on ecological conditions, surrounding landscapes, past disturbance, and the goals used to define success.
Habitat fragmentation presents a related challenge. Populations isolated in small habitat patches may become more vulnerable to demographic decline, genetic problems, environmental disturbance, and local extinction. Wildlife corridors and connected networks of habitat can therefore be important components of landscape-scale conservation. Roads and other infrastructure can weaken this connectivity even inside or near protected areas.
Rewilding extends some restoration concepts by emphasizing the recovery of ecological processes, interactions, and greater ecosystem self-organization. Its objectives can overlap with conventional ecological restoration, although the two approaches sometimes differ over historical baselines and the desired degree of continuing human management.
For species already at high risk of extinction, reducing threats may not be enough. Captive breeding, intensive population management, habitat restoration, veterinary intervention, reintroduction, and conservation translocation can all form part of targeted recovery programs.
Translocations range from returning organisms to portions of their former range to assisted colonization intended to establish populations in areas expected to remain suitable in the future. Their success depends on habitat conditions, animal behavior, genetics, physiology, post-release monitoring, social acceptance, and clear definitions of what constitutes recovery.
Genetics, Genomics, and Climate Adaptation
Small or declining populations can lose genetic diversity and experience inbreeding, reducing their capacity to adapt to future environmental change. Conservation genetics therefore examines population structure, gene flow, inbreeding, genetic variation, and evolutionary potential.
Genomic technologies have greatly expanded the amount of biological information available to conservationists. Whole genomes, museum specimens, population sampling, and other genetic resources can reveal historical population changes, connectivity, adaptation, and genetic risks that would otherwise be difficult to detect. An important challenge is translating these rapidly advancing techniques into practical management decisions and extinction-risk assessments.
Climate change adds another dimension because conserved habitats themselves may change. Species ranges can shift, climatic conditions inside existing reserves can become unsuitable, and ecological interactions may be disrupted. Climate-smart conservation consequently includes protecting climate refugia, improving landscape connectivity, reducing non-climatic pressures, restoring resilient ecosystems, and anticipating future rather than only historical habitat distributions.
Assisted migration remains one of the more controversial possibilities. Deliberately moving species toward areas expected to remain climatically suitable might prevent some extinctions, but it introduces ecological uncertainty and forces conservationists to weigh the risks of intervention against those of inaction.
Communities, Indigenous Stewardship, and Human Behavior
Conservation is not solely a biological problem. Land ownership, governance, economic incentives, institutions, cultural values, and relationships between communities and natural resources strongly influence conservation outcomes.
Research on Indigenous lands and locally managed areas demonstrates the importance of governance and stewardship outside conventional state-managed protected areas. Indigenous and community conservation can contribute substantially to maintaining forests and biodiversity, particularly when local people have meaningful authority and conservation institutions are viewed as legitimate and equitable.
Human-wildlife conflict illustrates why ecological and social considerations must be addressed together. Wildlife recovery may impose costs on people through crop loss, livestock predation, property damage, or threats to safety. Successful conservation increasingly seeks coexistence strategies rather than treating people and wildlife as separate components of a landscape.
Behavioral science has similarly become important to conservation. Environmental outcomes ultimately depend on human actions, including consumption, land use, hunting, fishing, transportation, political behavior, and support for conservation policies. Education alone may not produce change. Conservation programs increasingly investigate incentives, social norms, communication, participation, and the design of interventions intended to change behavior.
Animal behavior is also important. Knowledge of dispersal, habitat selection, habituation, predator avoidance, social behavior, and responses to humans can improve reserve design, captive breeding, wildlife translocations, and efforts to reduce conflict.
Monitoring, Technology, and Evidence-Based Conservation
Conservation decisions depend on knowing what species and populations exist, where they occur, how they are changing, and whether interventions are working. New technologies are expanding this capacity.
Environmental DNA, or eDNA, allows researchers to detect organisms from genetic material left in water, soil, and other environmental samples. It can provide relatively non-invasive biodiversity monitoring and can be particularly useful for rare, elusive, aquatic, or otherwise difficult-to-survey organisms. Interpretation nevertheless requires caution because DNA can move through environments, persist after organisms have disappeared, degrade at different rates, or produce false detections.
Artificial intelligence and automated identification systems are also becoming conservation tools. Image analysis and individual wildlife re-identification can potentially make large monitoring programs faster and more accessible.
Technology does not remove the need for careful study design. Conservation biology has increasingly emphasized evidence-based management: testing whether conservation interventions actually produce the desired outcomes rather than assuming that commonly used practices are effective.
This principle applies to protected areas, restoration, translocations, community programs, financial incentives, and other interventions. Adaptive management complements this approach by treating management itself as a process of learning, monitoring results, and changing strategies as new evidence becomes available.
Major Conservation Challenges
The conservation problems represented across the scientific literature differ among ecosystems but frequently interact.
Freshwater ecosystems contain exceptional biodiversity while facing habitat alteration, dams, disrupted environmental flows, pollution, exploitation, invasive species, disease, salinization, and climate change. Their conservation often requires managing entire watersheds and reconnecting rivers rather than protecting isolated sites.
Invasive alien species can restructure ecosystems, threaten native populations, alter pollination networks, and contribute to extinction. Prevention and early detection are generally important because established invasions can be expensive or impossible to reverse. On islands, however, eradication of invasive vertebrates has become an important restoration technique.
Fire illustrates the difficulty of defining disturbance simply as beneficial or harmful. Many ecosystems evolved with fire, but biodiversity depends on the frequency, intensity, season, spatial pattern, and ecological context of burning. Both fire suppression and altered or excessively frequent fire can create conservation problems.
Cities are also conservation landscapes. Urbanization commonly removes and fragments habitat and promotes biological homogenization, but cities can retain substantial biodiversity. Gardens, parks, vacant lots, wetlands, street vegetation, and connected blue-green spaces can collectively provide habitat, particularly when vegetation is structurally complex and management is less intensive.
Wildlife disease has become another major conservation concern. Amphibian chytrid fungi and white-nose syndrome in bats demonstrate that infectious disease can produce rapid population collapses across large geographic areas. In some cases, eliminating a pathogen may be unrealistic, shifting the conservation goal toward creating conditions that allow vulnerable wildlife populations to persist alongside disease.
Economics, Conservation Finance, and Biodiversity Offsets
Conservation requires financial resources, and persistent underinvestment has encouraged interest in new forms of conservation finance. Payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity-linked loans, bonds, credits, private investment, sustainable tourism, and other financial mechanisms seek to connect economic activity with biodiversity protection.
The effectiveness of financial incentives cannot simply be assumed. Payments may encourage conservation behavior in some circumstances while weakening voluntary motivations in others. Conservation investments therefore require the same empirical evaluation expected of other interventions.
Biodiversity offsets are especially controversial. They attempt to compensate for environmental damage in one location through conservation or restoration elsewhere. Research has identified recurring difficulties involving ecological equivalence, additionality, compliance, measurement, time delays, and whether promised conservation gains actually occur.
Simple measures of area or habitat condition may fail to capture the ecological complexity lost through development. Consequently, claims of "no net loss" depend heavily on how biodiversity is defined, measured, monitored, and compared.
Conclusion
Conservation biology has expanded from an emergency-oriented effort to prevent extinction into a broad science of how biological diversity can persist in a human-dominated and rapidly changing world. Protected areas remain essential, but the field increasingly recognizes that reserves alone cannot address the biodiversity crisis.
Effective conservation can require protecting intact ecosystems, reconnecting fragmented landscapes, restoring degraded habitats, controlling invasive species, adapting to climate change, recovering threatened populations, preserving genetic diversity, reducing destructive human pressures, and improving the institutions that govern land and natural resources.
The field has also become increasingly concerned with whether interventions actually work. Better monitoring, genomics, environmental DNA, artificial intelligence, systematic evidence reviews, and adaptive management provide new tools, but scientific knowledge must be combined with effective governance, adequate finance, community participation, and long-term commitment.
The central lesson of modern conservation biology is therefore one of integration. Biodiversity loss has many interacting causes, and lasting conservation is unlikely to come from a single technique. Protecting biological diversity requires coordinated strategies operating from genes and populations to landscapes, ecosystems, economies, institutions, and human behavior.
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Foundations of Conservation Biology
| Sandra Díaz et al. | Science | 2019-12-13
Pervasive Human-Driven Decline of Life on Earth Points to the Need for Transformative Change. Synthesizes evidence for worldwide degradation of species, ecosystems, ecological functions, and human relationships with nature.
| Gerardo Ceballos et al. | Science Advances | 2015-06-19
Accelerated Modern Human-Induced Species Losses: Entering the Sixth Mass Extinction. Evaluates modern extinction rates and concludes that vertebrate losses substantially exceed expected background rates.
| Peter Kareiva and Michelle Marvier | BioScience | 2012-11-01
What Is Conservation Science? Argues for a broader conservation science that integrates biodiversity protection with human welfare, economics, development, and social realities.
| Sahotra Sarkar and Frank M. David | Nature Education Knowledge | 2012
Conservation Biology: Ethical Foundations. Examines the ethical assumptions underlying biodiversity conservation and the difficult question of why species, ecosystems, and ecological processes should be protected.
| Stuart H. M. Butchart et al. | Science | 2010-05-28
Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines. Uses multiple global indicators to show continued biodiversity deterioration despite conservation commitments and documents increasing pressures on species and ecosystems.
| Leah R. Gerber | Nature Education Knowledge | 2010
Conservation Biology. An accessible overview of the discipline, including extinction, population viability, habitat protection, ecosystem management, and the scientific basis of conservation decisions.
| David M. Olson and Eric Dinerstein | Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden | 2002
The Global 200: Priority Ecoregions for Global Conservation. Identifies terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecoregions considered especially important for conserving the breadth of Earth's biodiversity.
| C. R. Margules and R. L. Pressey | Nature | 2000-05-11
Systematic Conservation Planning. A landmark framework explaining how conservation areas can be selected systematically to represent biodiversity efficiently while accounting for competing land uses.
| Norman Myers et al. | Nature | 2000-02-24
Biodiversity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities. Establishes the influential biodiversity-hotspot approach for concentrating limited conservation resources in exceptionally diverse and highly threatened regions.
| Michael E. Soulé | BioScience | 1985-12-01
What Is Conservation Biology? A foundational statement defining conservation biology as a multidisciplinary, crisis-oriented science focused on maintaining biological diversity and ecological processes.
Global Priorities, Biodiversity Loss, and Conservation Strategy
| Suvarna Khadakkar | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-05-27
Human-Driven Decline of Nature. Reviews evidence showing that human activities are transforming biodiversity and emphasizes the need for conservation responses that address underlying drivers.
| Georgina G. Gurney et al. | Nature | 2021-07-26
Biodiversity Needs Every Tool in the Box: Use OECMs. Explains how other effective area-based conservation measures can complement formal protected areas while recognizing diverse forms of land and sea stewardship.
| Sean L. Maxwell et al. | Nature | 2020-10-07
Area-Based Conservation in the Twenty-First Century. Assesses shortcomings of existing protected-area networks and outlines principles for more representative, connected, effective, and equitable conservation systems.
| David Leclère et al. | Nature | 2020-09-10
Bending the Curve of Terrestrial Biodiversity Needs an Integrated Strategy. Models how conservation, restoration, sustainable food production, and reduced consumption pressures could together reverse biodiversity decline.
| Georgina M. Mace et al. | Nature Sustainability | 2018-09-14
Aiming Higher to Bend the Curve of Biodiversity Loss. Calls for measurable and ambitious post-2020 conservation targets capable of reversing rather than merely slowing biodiversity decline.
| Fernanda T. Brum et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2017
Global Priorities for Conservation Across Multiple Dimensions of Mammalian Diversity. Maps priorities using taxonomic, functional, and evolutionary diversity rather than relying on species richness alone.
| William F. Laurance et al. | Nature | 2014
A Global Strategy for Road Building. Proposes balancing development and biodiversity by directing roads toward areas of agricultural value while avoiding environmentally sensitive regions.
| Emma Marris | Nature | 2009-11-04
Conservation Biology: Reflecting the Past. Reviews the history and changing assumptions of conservation biology and considers how conservation thinking has evolved.
| Thomas M. Brooks et al. | Conservation Biology | 2002-08-01
Habitat Loss and Extinction in the Hotspots of Biodiversity. Examines remaining natural habitat and extinction risk within biodiversity hotspots, strengthening the case for geographically targeted conservation.
| Katherine Ralls | Nature | 1995-11-01
Conservation Biology Defined. Discusses the emerging identity and scope of conservation biology during a period when the field was becoming established as a distinct scientific discipline.
Protected Areas and Systematic Conservation Planning
| Yanjie Xu et al. | Conservation Biology | 2026-05-14
Continental-Wide Prioritization of Protected Areas to Address Global and Habitat-Specific Goals for Avian Biodiversity Conservation. Develops spatial priorities for improving protected-area representation of birds across habitats.
| Andrew J. Plumptre et al. | Conservation Biology | 2025-09-30
Changes in Key Biodiversity Area Networks Following National Comprehensive Assessments. Examines how systematic national assessments alter networks of sites identified as globally important for biodiversity.
| Zhining Wang et al. | Conservation Biology | 2024-06-10
Effects of Protected Area Coverage and Research on Conservation Status of Primates Globally. Investigates relationships among protection, scientific attention, and conservation outcomes for primate species.
| Katherine Pulido-Chadid, Elina Virtanen and Jonas Geldmann | Environmental Evidence | 2023-09-08
How Effective Are Protected Areas for Reducing Threats to Biodiversity? A Systematic Review Protocol. Establishes a framework for evaluating evidence about whether protected areas actually reduce human pressures on biodiversity.
| América P. Durán, Olga Barbosa and Kevin J. Gaston | Journal for Nature Conservation | 2022
Understanding the Interacting Factors That Determine Ecological Effectiveness of Terrestrial Protected Areas. Reviews the ecological, management, landscape, and socioeconomic factors affecting protected-area performance.
| Narelle K. Hill et al. | Conservation Biology | 2020-09-24
Global Protected-Area Coverage and Human Pressure on Tidal Flats. Assesses protection and anthropogenic pressure on tidal-flat ecosystems, an important but frequently overlooked coastal habitat.
| Soizic Le Saout et al. | Science | 2013-11-15
Protected Areas and Effective Biodiversity Conservation. Evaluates the global protected-area network against important biodiversity sites and highlights major gaps in effective coverage.
| Lucas N. Joppa and Alexander Pfaff | PLOS ONE | 2009-12-14
High and Far: Biases in the Location of Protected Areas. Demonstrates that protected areas are disproportionately situated in remote, steep, high-elevation locations where development pressure is often relatively low.
| Kwaw S. Andam et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2008-10-14
Measuring the Effectiveness of Protected Area Networks in Reducing Deforestation. Uses statistical matching to distinguish genuine protected-area effects from biases caused by where reserves are located.
| Stuart Chape et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2005-02-28
Measuring the Extent and Effectiveness of Protected Areas as an Indicator for Meeting Global Biodiversity Targets. Discusses how protected-area coverage and management effectiveness can be measured meaningfully.
Connectivity, Landscapes, Restoration, and Rewilding
| Marco Iannella et al. | Conservation Biology | 2026-02-15
Biodiversity-Driven Spatial Conservation Planning to Delineate Temporally Stable Regions. Develops a planning approach for identifying areas likely to retain conservation importance through time.
| Norris et al. | Conservation Biology | 2025-09-09
Land Tenure Contributions to Protected Area Growth Under Alternative Conservation Targets in the Australian Monsoon Tropics. Examines how differing land-tenure arrangements affect opportunities for expanding conservation networks.
| Daan Lichtenberg et al. | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2025-09-08
Landscape Connectivity for Biodiversity Conservation: A Mammal-Based Multi-Species Corridor Approach. Uses multiple mammal species to design a more biologically meaningful regional connectivity network in South Africa.
| Ewan A. Macdonald, David W. Macdonald and Samuel A. Cushman | Landscape Ecology | 2025-08-11
Using Simulation Modelling to Evaluate the Relative Efficacy of Core Area and Corridor-Based Conservation Designs. Compares alternative spatial designs for maintaining biodiversity under landscape fragmentation.
| Mayara Guimarães Beltrão et al. | Scientific Reports | 2024-12-28
Priority Areas and Implementation of Ecological Corridor Through Forest Restoration to Safeguard Biodiversity. Identifies restoration priorities for reconnecting fragmented habitat through ecological corridors.
| Michael J. Samways et al. | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2024-12-18
Heterogeneous Conservation Corridors of Remnant Vegetation Protect Biodiversity in South African Timber Mosaics. Shows how retained habitat corridors can support biodiversity within intensively managed production landscapes.
| Joe Atkinson et al. | Ecology Letters | 2022-05-12
Terrestrial Ecosystem Restoration Increases Biodiversity and Reduces Its Variability, but Not to Reference Levels. A global synthesis showing substantial restoration gains while emphasizing persistent differences from intact ecosystems.
| Renato Crouzeilles et al. | Nature Communications | 2016-05-19
A Global Meta-Analysis on the Ecological Drivers of Forest Restoration Success. Identifies ecological and landscape conditions associated with stronger biodiversity recovery in restored forests.
| Andrew Nelson and Kenneth M. Chomitz | PLOS ONE | 2011-08-16
Effectiveness of Strict vs. Multiple Use Protected Areas in Reducing Tropical Forest Fires. Finds that different protection and governance arrangements can reduce forest loss, with effectiveness varying among regions.
| José M. Rey Benayas et al. | Science | 2009-08-28
Enhancement of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by Ecological Restoration: A Meta-Analysis. Finds that ecological restoration generally improves both biodiversity and ecosystem services relative to degraded systems.
Restoration, Rewilding, and Conservation Genetics
| Chloee M. McLaughlin et al. | Conservation Genetics | 2025-01-10
Redlisting Genetics: Towards Inclusion of Genetic Data in IUCN Red List Assessments. Explores how genetic information could be incorporated more systematically into assessments of extinction risk.
| Sean Hoban et al. | Conservation Genetics | 2024-08-21
DNA-Based Studies and Genetic Diversity Indicator Assessments Are Complementary Approaches to Conserving Evolutionary Potential. Explains how population genetic studies and broad biodiversity indicators can jointly guide conservation.
| Franziska Elsner-Gearing et al. | Conservation Genetics | 2024-03-22
Admixture and Reproductive Skew Shape the Conservation Value of Ex Situ Populations of the Critically Endangered Eastern Black Rhino. Uses genetics to assess the management value of captive populations.
| Clémentine Mutillod et al. | Biological Reviews | 2024-02-12
Ecological Restoration and Rewilding: Two Approaches with Complementary Goals? Compares restoration and rewilding and argues that their differing philosophies and methods can often operate complementarily.
| Steve Carver et al. | Conservation Biology | 2021-06-04
Guiding Principles for Rewilding. Proposes widely applicable principles for restoring ecological processes, reducing human control, and allowing ecosystems greater capacity for self-organization.
| Renato Crouzeilles et al. | Science Advances | 2017
Ecological Restoration Success Is Higher for Natural Regeneration Than for Active Restoration in Tropical Forests. Finds that natural forest regeneration can outperform active restoration under suitable ecological conditions.
| Jamie Lorimer et al. | Annual Review of Environment and Resources | 2015-11-04
Rewilding: Science, Practice, and Politics. Reviews competing definitions of rewilding, its ecological techniques, historical baselines, case studies, and associated social and political controversies.
| Katharine Suding et al. | Science | 2015-05-08
Committing to Ecological Restoration. Sets out scientific and policy principles for scaling ecosystem restoration while maintaining clear ecological goals and accountability.
| Paula Meli et al. | PLOS ONE | 2014-04-17
Restoration Enhances Wetland Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Supply, but Results Are Context-Dependent. Meta-analysis finds substantial gains following wetland restoration while showing that outcomes depend strongly on local conditions.
| Cynthia C. Steiner et al. | Annual Review of Animal Biosciences | 2013-01-01
Conservation Genomics of Threatened Animal Species. Reviews how genomic technologies can reveal population structure, inbreeding, adaptive variation, and other information relevant to threatened-species management.
Conservation Genomics and Climate Adaptation
| Kristine Camille V. Buenafe et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-04-08
Current Approaches and Future Opportunities for Climate-Smart Protected Areas. Reviews ways protected areas can be planned and managed to remain effective as species ranges and ecological conditions shift.
| Carolyn J. Hogg | Nature Reviews Genetics | 2023-11-27
Translating Genomic Advances into Biodiversity Conservation. Focuses on moving genomic knowledge from research laboratories into routine conservation planning and wildlife management.
| William M. Twardek et al. | Biological Conservation | 2023
The Application of Assisted Migration as a Climate Change Adaptation Tactic: An Evidence Map and Synthesis. Reviews evidence surrounding deliberate movement of species threatened by changing climates.
| Jose V. Lopez et al. | Annual Review of Animal Biosciences | 2019
Multiple Facets of Marine Invertebrate Conservation Genomics. Reviews genomic methods and conservation challenges affecting marine invertebrates, a diverse group often underrepresented in conservation planning.
| Megan A. Supple and Beth Shapiro | Genome Biology | 2018-09-11
Conservation of Biodiversity in the Genomics Era. Reviews practical applications of genomics to conservation while addressing limitations, costs, sampling, and translation into management decisions.
| Suliman Khan et al. | International Journal of Genomics | 2016-11-29
Overview on the Role of Advance Genomics in Conservation Biology of Endangered Species. Surveys genomic approaches for understanding and managing endangered populations.
| Barry J. McMahon, Emma C. Teeling and Jacob Höglund | Evolutionary Applications | 2014
How and Why Should We Implement Genomics into Conservation? Discusses both the scientific value and practical challenges of incorporating genomic information into conservation decision-making.
| Ary A. Hoffmann and Carla M. Sgrò | Nature | 2011-02-23
Climate Change and Evolutionary Adaptation. Reviews evidence for evolutionary responses to environmental change and their implications for predicting species persistence.
| Fred W. Allendorf, Paul A. Hohenlohe and Gordon Luikart | Nature Reviews Genetics | 2010-09-17
Genomics and the Future of Conservation Genetics. Explains how rapidly expanding genomic data can improve understanding of adaptation, population history, connectivity, and extinction vulnerability.
| Jonathan R. Mawdsley, Robin O'Malley and Dennis S. Ojima | Conservation Biology | 2009-09-14
A Review of Climate-Change Adaptation Strategies for Wildlife Management and Biodiversity Conservation. Catalogues management approaches for helping species and ecosystems cope with climatic change.
Climate Change, Adaptation, and Community Conservation
| Nur Arafeh-Dalmau et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2026
Identifying Marine Climate Refugia to Advance Climate-Smart Conservation. Examines how relatively climate-buffered marine areas can be identified and incorporated into conservation planning.
| Jeffrey Wall et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-05-09
Indigenous-Led Conservation Improves Outcomes in Protected Areas. Highlights growing evidence that Indigenous governance and leadership can produce strong ecological and social conservation outcomes.
| Yiming Zhang et al. | Annual Review of Environment and Resources | 2023
Governance and Conservation Effectiveness in Protected Areas and Indigenous and Locally Managed Areas. Reviews how governance systems influence ecological effectiveness, legitimacy, participation, and equity.
| Brooke C. McLaughlin et al. | Biological Conservation | 2022
Conservation Strategies for the Climate Crisis. Reviews three decades of scientific recommendations for managing biodiversity under climate change and identifies recurring adaptation strategies.
| Natasha Butt et al. | Conservation Biology | 2020-10-13
Importance of Species Translocations Under Rapid Climate Change. Examines the growing role and associated risks of moving species when their existing habitats become climatically unsuitable.
| Viktoriia Radchuk et al. | Nature Communications | 2019
Adaptive Responses of Animals to Climate Change Are Most Likely Insufficient. Compares observed biological responses with changing climate conditions and finds widespread evidence that adaptation may not keep pace.
| Maria Hällfors et al. | PLOS ONE | 2014
Coming to Terms with the Concept of Moving Species Threatened by Climate Change. Systematically reviews terminology and concepts surrounding assisted migration and conservation translocation.
Assessing Community-Based Conservation Projects. Systematic review examines ecological and human outcomes and identifies conditions associated with successful community conservation.
| Nicole E. Heller and Erika S. Zavaleta | Biological Conservation | 2009
Biodiversity Management in the Face of Climate Change: A Review of 22 Years of Recommendations. Synthesizes early climate-adaptation guidance and identifies common strategies for conservation managers.
| Emma Marris | Nature Climate Change | 2008-08-28
Moving on Assisted Migration. Explores the controversial proposal to deliberately move species beyond historical ranges to help them survive climate change.
Indigenous and Community Conservation and Biodiversity Monitoring
| Julien Blanco et al. | Biological Conservation | 2025-06-26
Strategies to Engage Local Communities in Forest Biodiversity Conservation Had Limited Effectiveness in Madagascar. Reviews ecological and socioeconomic outcomes of conservation approaches in a major biodiversity hotspot.
| Neil M. Dawson et al. | One Earth | 2024-06-21
Is It Just Conservation? A Typology of Indigenous Peoples' and Local Communities' Roles in Conserving Biodiversity. Finds more equitable local control is frequently associated with better reported ecological outcomes.
| Jocelyne S. Sze et al. | Current Biology | 2022-10-26
Indigenous Lands in Protected Areas Have High Forest Integrity Across the Tropics. Finds particularly high tropical-forest integrity where protected areas overlap Indigenous lands.
| Nathan Karres et al. | Journal of Environmental Management | 2022-09-22
How Effective Is Community-Based Management of Freshwater Resources? A Review. Finds promising biodiversity and human-welfare outcomes but identifies substantial evidence and research-design limitations.
| Stephen T. Garnett et al. | Nature Sustainability | 2018-07-16
A Spatial Overview of the Global Importance of Indigenous Lands for Conservation. Maps Indigenous lands globally and shows their extensive overlap with protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes.
| Colleen Corrigan et al. | Biological Conservation | 2018
Quantifying the Contribution to Biodiversity Conservation of Protected Areas Governed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Compares conservation contributions of community-governed areas with other protected-area arrangements.
| Meghna Agarwala and Joshua R. Ginsberg | Conservation Biology | 2017-09-25
Untangling Outcomes of De Jure and De Facto Community-Based Management of Natural Resources. Examines how formal rules and actual local governance can produce different conservation outcomes.
| Matthew A. Barnes and Cameron R. Turner | Conservation Genetics | 2015-09-08
The Ecology of Environmental DNA and Implications for Conservation Genetics. Examines the production, movement, persistence, and degradation of environmental DNA and why these processes matter for interpreting surveys.
| Philip Francis Thomsen and Eske Willerslev | Biological Conservation | 2015
Environmental DNA – An Emerging Tool in Conservation for Monitoring Past and Present Biodiversity. Reviews the rapidly developing use of environmental DNA in biodiversity surveys and conservation.
| Kristine Bohmann et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2014
Environmental DNA for Wildlife Biology and Biodiversity Monitoring. Introduces eDNA as a powerful non-invasive method for detecting organisms and monitoring biological communities.
Environmental DNA, Technology, and Marine Conservation
| Mizanur Rahman et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2026-07-30
Environmental DNA for Endangered Freshwater Mussel Monitoring. Reviews eDNA approaches for detecting and managing threatened freshwater mussel populations.
| Shahrzad Gholami et al. | Scientific Reports | 2026-05-30
An Accurate, Efficient, and Accessible AI-Powered Solution for Wildlife Re-Identification in Conservation. Demonstrates how artificial intelligence can help identify individual wild animals and improve population monitoring.
| Fidji Sandré, Marie-Pier Brochu and Valérie S. Langlois | Methods in Ecology and Evolution | 2026
Passive Environmental DNA Sampling: A Review. Assesses passive eDNA collection approaches that may enable longer, cheaper, and less labor-intensive biodiversity monitoring.
| Basanta Kumar Das, Biswajit Mandal and Vikash Kumar | Frontiers in Marine Science | 2026
Environmental DNA as a Tool for Ecosystem Monitoring and Conservation Biology. Reviews eDNA applications for ecosystem assessment, species detection, biodiversity surveys, and conservation management.
| Ashish Sahu et al. | Ecological Indicators | 2025-04-06
A Systematic Review on Environmental DNA Science. Reviews eDNA as a low-impact biodiversity survey method applicable to conservation and restoration of fragile ecosystems.
| Harildon M. Ferreira et al. | Journal of Environmental Management | 2022-01-01
Drivers of Ecological Effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas. Meta-analysis identifies management and ecological characteristics associated with successful marine protected areas in Brazil.
| Pritam Banerjee et al. | Biology | 2021-11-23
Reinforcement of Environmental DNA Based Methods in Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation: A Review. Surveys developments in eDNA detection and its expanding role in ecological monitoring.
| Sarah Ohayon, Itai Granot and Jonathan Belmaker | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2021-07-05
A Meta-Analysis Reveals Edge Effects Within Marine Protected Areas. Finds that proximity to reserve boundaries can weaken ecological benefits and has implications for MPA size and design.
| Krista M. Ruppert, Richard J. Kline and Md Saydur Rahman | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2019
Past, Present, and Future Perspectives of Environmental DNA Metabarcoding. Systematically reviews eDNA metabarcoding methods and applications across habitats and taxonomic groups.
Uses and Misuses of Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Science and Conservation. Reviews the promise of eDNA while emphasizing validation, false detections, transport, degradation, and interpretation problems.
Marine Conservation, Coexistence, and Evidence-Based Management
| Nigel G. Taylor | Ecological Solutions and Evidence | 2026-04-26
On the Evidence for Evidence-Based Conservation. Examines how conservation practice uses evidence and the challenges involved in determining whether interventions genuinely work.
| Hui Chen et al. | Discover Sustainability | 2026-04-22
A Bibliometric Synthesis Reveals Human-Wildlife Conflict Research Maturing into a Solution-Oriented Interdisciplinary Science. Traces how conflict research has expanded from documenting problems toward developing coexistence solutions.
| Katie A. Adler, Meredith L. Gore and Christine E. Wilkinson | Ambio | 2025-11-07
The Gendered Costs of Human–Wildlife Conflict: A Global Systematic Review. Shows that human–wildlife conflict can affect people differently according to gender and other social circumstances.
| Jedediah F. Brodie et al. | Nature Communications | 2025-08-23
The Contribution of Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures to Protecting Global Biodiversity. Tests whether OECMs complement protected areas and finds substantial but geographically variable conservation potential.
How Genomics Can Help Biodiversity Conservation. Reviews the expanding genomic toolbox and argues that reference genomes should become standard resources for biodiversity research and conservation management.
| Phred M. Benham and Rauri C. K. Bowie | Journal of Heredity | 2022-12-13
Natural History Collections as a Resource for Conservation Genomics. Explains how historical museum specimens can reveal genetic changes caused by habitat loss, exploitation, climate change, and population decline.
| David Rodríguez-Rodríguez and Javier Martínez-Vega | Advances in Marine Biology | 2022-08-10
Ecological Effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas Across the Globe in the Scientific Literature. Reviews rigorous evaluations of MPA biodiversity outcomes and finds stronger results from more restrictive reserves.
| Sharma et al. | Ecology and Evolution | 2021-08-02
Human–Wildlife Conflict in the Roof of the World. Systematic review examines conflict patterns, research gaps, affected species, and mitigation approaches across the Himalayan region.
| Lindsey Gillson et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2018-11-15
Finding Common Ground Between Adaptive Management and Evidence-Based Approaches to Biodiversity Conservation. Shows how systematic evidence and learning-by-doing can be integrated rather than treated as competing approaches.
| Philip J. Nyhus | Annual Review of Environment and Resources | 2016
Human–Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence. Comprehensive review of the ecological, social, economic, and institutional dimensions of conflicts between people and wildlife.
Threatened Species and Population Recovery
| Pauline Van Leeuwen et al. | Conservation Biology | 2026-03-28
Assessing Conservation Translocation Outcomes with Standardized Metrics Based on IUCN Case Studies. Develops more consistent measures for evaluating whether conservation translocations actually achieve their intended outcomes.
| Xiang-Yi Li Richter et al. | Nature Communications | 2026
Inbreeding and Demography Interact to Impact the Recovery of a Bottlenecked Crested Ibis Population. Uses the spectacular recovery of the crested ibis to examine how demography and inbreeding interact during population restoration.
| Thomas E. Lacher Jr. et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-06-25
The Status, Threats and Conservation of Critically Endangered Species. Reviews geographic patterns, threats, protection gaps, and interventions needed to prevent extinction among the world's most imperiled species.
| Louise Mair | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025-06-24
Threat Reduction and Targeted Recovery Are Both Essential. Explains why removing threats alone may not save highly endangered species and why active recovery measures can also be necessary.
| Philip J. Seddon and Kent H. Redford | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-02-06
Current and Future Challenges to Conservation Translocations. Reviews how translocation science has developed and examines ecological, ethical, technological, climatic, and social challenges facing future programs.
| Michael W. Belitz et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-01-20
A Case for Assemblage-Level Conservation to Address the Biodiversity Crisis. Proposes conserving groups of interacting or ecologically similar species as a bridge between single-species recovery and ecosystem management.
| Rebecca A. Senior et al. | Nature | 2024-06-05
Global Shortfalls in Documented Actions to Conserve Biodiversity. Finds major gaps between the conservation needs of threatened species and the actions actually documented as being implemented for them.
| Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis, Sarah Endicott and Jessica M. Guezen | Scientific Data | 2022-06-09
CAN-SAR: A Database of Canadian Species at Risk Information. Provides a large standardized dataset covering threatened-species status assessments, threats, recovery measures, and conservation actions.
| Judy P. Che-Castaldo, Shelly A. Grow and Lisa J. Faust | Scientific Reports | 2018-06-28
Evaluating the Contribution of North American Zoos and Aquariums to Endangered Species Recovery. Examines how captive breeding, research, veterinary care, education, and reintroduction programs contribute to species recovery.
| Nisha Gaind | Nature | 2016-08-17
US Endangered-Species Recovery Surges to Record High. Reports an unusually large number of recoveries and delistings under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Reintroduction and Conservation Translocations
| Various Authors | Animal Behaviour | 2025-11
Leveraging Animal Behaviour Can Improve Translocation Success in the Face of Anthropogenic Stressors. Reviews how behavioral knowledge can improve releases affected by climate change, invasive species, pollution, harvesting, and human conflict.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2024
Rethinking the Evaluation of Animal Translocations. Argues that translocation success should incorporate ecological, methodological, social, and political outcomes rather than simple establishment criteria.
| Oded Berger-Tal et al. | Animal Conservation | 2019-08-31
Conservation Translocations: A Review of Common Difficulties and Promising Directions. Analyzes hundreds of IUCN translocation case studies to identify recurring causes of success and failure.
| Natasha M. Resende et al. | Biological Conservation | 2019
Conservation Translocations and Post-Release Monitoring: Identifying Trends in Failures, Biases, and Challenges from Around the World. Reviews more than 500 translocation cases and highlights inadequate long-term monitoring as a major limitation.
| Gemma Taylor et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2017-11-01
Is Reintroduction Biology an Effective Applied Science? Evaluates whether decades of reintroduction research have produced knowledge that actually improves conservation decisions.
| John F. Tarszisz et al. | Conservation Physiology | 2014
Physiology in Conservation Translocations. Shows how stress physiology, health, energetics, and other physiological measures can improve survival during wildlife translocations.
| Philip J. Seddon, W. Maartin Strauss and John Innes | Wiley / Reintroduction Biology | 2012-01-06
Animal Translocations: What Are They and Why Do We Do Them? Provides a conceptual overview of conservation translocations, population restoration, ecological replacement, and assisted colonization.
| Philip J. Seddon | Restoration Ecology | 2010
From Reintroduction to Assisted Colonization: Moving Along the Conservation Translocation Spectrum. Describes the continuum from traditional reintroduction inside historical ranges to assisted colonization beyond them.
| Doug P. Armstrong and Philip J. Seddon | Conservation Biology | 2008
Directions in Reintroduction Biology. Identifies research priorities required to transform reintroduction programs into a more predictive and rigorous conservation science.
| Joern Fischer and David B. Lindenmayer | Biological Conservation | 2000
An Assessment of the Published Results of Animal Relocations. Reviews wildlife relocation projects and identifies factors associated with successful and unsuccessful releases.
Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Connectivity
| Maryam Mostajeran et al. | Scientific Reports | 2026-07-14
Road Infrastructure Drives Habitat Fragmentation and Connectivity Loss for Large Mammals in Central Iranian Protected Area. Shows that roads can undermine wildlife connectivity even inside formally protected landscapes.
| Robert J. Fletcher Jr. et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-06-17
Landscape Quality Drives Ecological Responses to Habitat Loss and Fragmentation. Experimental evidence demonstrates that the condition of the surrounding landscape can strongly influence species survival in fragmented habitats.
| Juan Pablo Ramírez-Delgado et al. | Nature Communications | 2022-02-01
Matrix Condition Mediates the Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Species Extinction Risk. Shows that degraded landscapes surrounding habitat fragments magnify extinction risk for terrestrial mammals.
| Erin E. Poor, Brian K. Scheick and Jennifer M. Mullinax | Scientific Reports | 2020-10-20
Multiscale Consensus Habitat Modeling for Landscape-Level Conservation Prioritization. Demonstrates how habitat models can identify connectivity priorities for fragmented wildlife populations.
| Andrew P. Jacobson et al. | Scientific Reports | 2019-10-02
Global Areas of Low Human Impact and Fragmentation of the Natural World. Maps relatively intact landscapes and shows that even many low-impact regions are substantially fragmented.
| Ádám Kun, Beáta Oborny and Ulf Dieckmann | Scientific Reports | 2019-07-31
Five Main Phases of Landscape Degradation Revealed by a Dynamic Mesoscale Model. Examines how habitat patches split, shrink, and disappear as landscape degradation intensifies.
| Kevin R. Crooks et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2017
Quantification of Habitat Fragmentation Reveals Extinction Risk in Terrestrial Mammals. Demonstrates a global relationship between fragmented habitat distributions and elevated mammal extinction risk.
| Bernardo B. S. Niebuhr et al. | Scientific Reports | 2015-07-07
Survival in Patchy Landscapes: The Interplay Between Dispersal, Habitat Loss and Fragmentation. Models how habitat amount, configuration, and movement ability interact to determine population persistence.
| Nick M. Haddad et al. | Science Advances | 2015-03-20
Habitat Fragmentation and Its Lasting Impact on Earth's Ecosystems. Synthesizes long-running fragmentation experiments showing persistent effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
| Ilkka Hanski and Otso Ovaskainen | Nature | 2000-04-13
The Metapopulation Capacity of a Fragmented Landscape. Introduces a theoretical measure for evaluating whether networks of habitat patches can sustain persistent populations.
Freshwater Conservation Biology
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2024-11
Prioritising Challenges and Actions for Freshwater Conservation in a Tropical Biodiversity Hotspot. Uses expert assessment to identify the most urgent scientific, policy, and implementation challenges facing tropical fresh waters.
| David Dudgeon and David L. Strayer | Biological Reviews | 2024-09-02
Bending the Curve of Global Freshwater Biodiversity Loss: What Are the Prospects? Reassesses whether current conservation responses are sufficient given accelerating pressures on rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
| Various Authors | Conservation Science and Practice | 2023
Freshwater Biodiversity: A RACE to Save the World's Most Threatened Ecosystems. Calls for reshaping societal relationships with freshwater, recognizing Indigenous knowledge, connecting science to action, and elevating freshwater conservation.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2022-05
Developing a National Level Evidence-Based Toolbox for Addressing Freshwater Biodiversity Threats. Synthesizes hundreds of evidence reviews into a practical resource for freshwater conservation decisions.
| William M. Twardek et al. | Conservation Science and Practice | 2021
Mobilizing Practitioners to Support the Emergency Recovery Plan for Freshwater Biodiversity. Examines how researchers, managers, governments, and conservation organizations can convert freshwater recovery recommendations into action.
| David Tickner et al. | BioScience | 2020
Bending the Curve of Global Freshwater Biodiversity Loss: An Emergency Recovery Plan. Proposes six major actions addressing environmental flows, water quality, habitat loss, exploitation, invasive species, and river connectivity.
| Andrea J. Reid et al. | Biological Reviews | 2019
Emerging Threats and Persistent Conservation Challenges for Freshwater Biodiversity. Reviews established and emerging pressures including hydropower, disease, contaminants, microplastics, salinization, noise, and climate change.
| W. R. T. Darwall et al. | Biological Conservation | 2012-04
Conservation Priorities for Freshwater Biodiversity: The Key Biodiversity Area Approach Refined and Tested for Continental Africa. Adapts Key Biodiversity Area methods to rivers and lakes using thousands of freshwater species.
| David L. Strayer and David Dudgeon | Journal of the North American Benthological Society | 2010
Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation: Recent Progress and Future Challenges. Reviews the exceptional richness and vulnerability of freshwater systems and priorities for improving their protection.
| David Dudgeon et al. | Biological Reviews | 2006
Freshwater Biodiversity: Importance, Threats, Status and Conservation Challenges. A major synthesis describing why rivers, lakes, wetlands, and streams contain disproportionately high biodiversity and extinction risk.
Invasive Species and Conservation
| Ramiro R. Ripa, Yves P. Klinger and Jorgelina Franzese | npj Biodiversity | 2026-06-19
The Rarest Invaders: Systematic Global Evidence for the Conservation-Invasion Paradox in Plants. Identifies species that are simultaneously threatened in their native ranges and invasive elsewhere.
| Octavia D. M. Brayley et al. | npj Biodiversity | 2026-05-22
Impacts of Non-Native Invertebrates and Plants on Polar Soil Systems. Reviews growing biological-invasion threats to highly vulnerable polar ecosystems.
| Ninad Avinash Mungi et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-07-14
Alien Plants and Novel Ecosystems in the Greater Tropics. Examines how alien plants interact with climate, land-use change, fire, and native biodiversity throughout tropical regions.
| Helen E. Roy et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2024-06-03
Curbing the Major and Growing Threats from Invasive Alien Species Is Urgent and Achievable. Summarizes the IPBES global invasive-species assessment and identifies prevention, early detection, control, and governance priorities.
| Nick Holmes et al. | Scientific Reports | 2022-08-10
The Global Contribution of Invasive Vertebrate Eradication as a Key Island Restoration Tool. Reviews more than a century of island eradication programs and documents high overall success rates.
| Petr Pyšek et al. | Biological Reviews | 2020
Scientists' Warning on Invasive Alien Species. Summarizes accelerating invasion trends and identifies major research, policy, and management needs.
| Adam J. Vanbergen, Anahí Espíndola and Marcelo A. Aizen | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2017-12-14
Risks to Pollinators and Pollination from Invasive Alien Species. Reviews how invasive plants, predators, pollinators, and pathogens restructure pollination systems.
| Regan Early et al. | Nature Communications | 2016-08-23
Global Threats from Invasive Alien Species in the Twenty-First Century and National Response Capacities. Maps future invasion vulnerability and highlights regions where high biodiversity coincides with limited management capacity.
| Holly P. Jones et al. | Nature Communications | 2016
Past and Estimated Future Impact of Invasive Alien Mammals on Insular Threatened Vertebrate Populations. Quantifies extinction risks caused by invasive mammals on islands and the potential benefits of controlling them.
| Céline Bellard et al. | Biology Letters | 2016
Alien Species as a Driver of Recent Extinctions. Demonstrates the substantial role of introduced species in documented animal and plant extinctions.
Fire Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation
| Zihan Zhang et al. | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2026-04
The Response of Aboveground Traits to Prescribed Burning: A Global Meta-Analysis. Synthesizes evidence on how prescribed fire alters vegetation biomass, fuel loads, productivity, and plant diversity.
| Various Authors | Frontiers in Forests and Global Change | 2026
Creative Destruction: From Fire Ecology to Management Principles. Reviews fire as both an ecological disturbance and a management process capable of sustaining biodiversity when appropriate regimes are maintained.
| David Lindenmayer et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-09-18
The Response and Management of Species Sensitive to Altered Fire Regimes. Reviews why some species are especially vulnerable to changes in fire and evaluates management strategies for protecting them.
| Sparkle L. Malone et al. | Scientific Data | 2025
Contemporary Fire Regimes of the Subtropical Everglades. Compiles decades of fire history to reveal changing patterns of wildfire and prescribed burning across a major wetland ecosystem.
| Luke T. Kelly et al. | Science | 2020-11-20
Fire and Biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Explains how altered fire regimes interact with climate, invasive species, land use, and human management to reshape biodiversity.
| Jacqualyn Eales et al. | Environmental Evidence | 2018-08-20
What Is the Effect of Prescribed Burning in Temperate and Boreal Forest on Biodiversity? Systematically reviews hundreds of studies assessing how prescribed burning affects species richness and diversity.
| Morgan W. Tingley et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2016
Pyrodiversity Promotes Avian Diversity Over the Decade Following Forest Fire. Shows how variation in fire severity and post-fire habitat can support diverse bird communities.
| L. A. Burkle, J. A. Myers and R. T. Belote | Ecology | 2015
Wildfire Disturbance and Productivity as Drivers of Plant Species Diversity Across Spatial Scales. Examines how fire and environmental productivity interact to structure plant communities.
| Don A. Driscoll et al. | Biological Conservation | 2010-09
Fire Management for Biodiversity Conservation: Key Research Questions and Our Capacity to Answer Them. Identifies critical uncertainties in understanding species responses to fire frequency, intensity, season, and spatial pattern.
| Catherine L. Parr and Alan N. Andersen | Conservation Biology | 2006
Patch Mosaic Burning for Biodiversity Conservation: A Critique of the Pyrodiversity Paradigm. Questions the assumption that simply increasing variation in fire patterns necessarily maximizes biodiversity.
Urban Conservation Biology
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2026-04
The Bees' Knees: A Review and Meta-Analysis of Urban Green-Space Habitats for Insect Pollinators. Identifies vegetation complexity, floral resources, and connected green spaces as important components of urban insect conservation.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2025-07
Responses of Birds with Different Habitat Preferences to Urban Blue-Green Spaces. Global meta-analysis shows that vegetation complexity, green-space area, and reduced disturbance improve habitat for many urban birds.
| Various Authors | Landscape and Urban Planning | 2024
The Association Between Maintenance and Biodiversity in Urban Green Spaces: A Review. Finds that intensive mowing and chemical management commonly reduce urban plant and invertebrate diversity.
| Various Authors | Science of the Total Environment | 2021-08-01
What Do We Know About the Role of Urban Habitats as Ecological Traps? Reviews whether animals are attracted to urban habitats that ultimately reduce their survival or reproduction.
| Christopher D. D. Rupprecht et al. | Urban Forestry & Urban Greening | 2015
Informal Urban Green Space: A Trilingual Systematic Review of Its Role for Biodiversity. Finds that vacant lots, railway verges, brownfields, and other informal spaces can provide substantial wildlife habitat.
| Myla F. J. Aronson et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2014
A Global Analysis of the Impacts of Urbanization on Bird and Plant Diversity Reveals Key Anthropogenic Drivers. Demonstrates that cities retain significant native biodiversity but strongly filter which species survive.
Global Forecasts of Urban Expansion to 2030 and Direct Impacts on Biodiversity and Carbon Pools. Projects urban growth into biodiversity hotspots and other ecologically important landscapes.
| Donald C. Dearborn and Salit Kark | Conservation Biology | 2010
Motivations for Conserving Urban Biodiversity. Describes ecological, educational, ethical, and social reasons for making biodiversity conservation an explicit goal of urban planning.
| Mark A. Goddard, Andrew J. Dougill and Tim G. Benton | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2010
Scaling Up from Gardens: Biodiversity Conservation in Urban Environments. Shows how private gardens and other small green spaces can collectively form significant urban habitat networks.
| Michael L. McKinney | Biological Conservation | 2006
Urbanization as a Major Cause of Biotic Homogenization. Explains how urban development tends to replace unique native communities with increasingly similar sets of widespread species.
Wildlife Disease and Conservation
| Joseph R. Hoyt, A. Marm Kilpatrick and Kate E. Langwig | Nature Reviews Microbiology | 2021-01-18
Ecology and Impacts of White-Nose Syndrome on Bats. Reviews the fungal disease that has caused massive population collapses among North American hibernating bats.
| Matthew C. Fisher and Trenton W. J. Garner | Nature Reviews Microbiology | 2020-02-25
Chytrid Fungi and Global Amphibian Declines. Reviews the origins, spread, pathology, and conservation implications of the fungal diseases devastating amphibians worldwide.
| Various Authors | Mammalian Biology | 2019-09
White-Nose Syndrome Dramatically Altered the Summer Bat Assemblage in a Temperate Southern Appalachian Forest. Documents 82–99% declines in several once-common bat species following disease emergence.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2019-08
Living with the Enemy: Facilitating Amphibian Coexistence with Disease. Argues that managing environments to help susceptible amphibians coexist with chytrid may be more feasible than eradicating the pathogen.
| Ben C. Scheele et al. | Science | 2019-03-29
Amphibian Fungal Panzootic Causes Catastrophic and Ongoing Loss of Biodiversity. Documents chytrid-driven declines in more than 500 amphibian species and dozens of probable extinctions.
| Simon J. O'Hanlon et al. | Science | 2018-05-11
Recent Asian Origin of Chytrid Fungi Causing Global Amphibian Declines. Uses genomic evidence to trace the emergence and international spread of amphibian chytrid lineages.
| Wayne E. Thogmartin et al. | Biological Conservation | 2013-04
White-Nose Syndrome Is Likely to Extirpate the Endangered Indiana Bat Over Large Parts of Its Range. Uses population models to estimate the severe extinction risk created by the fungal disease.
| Winifred F. Frick et al. | Science | 2010-08-06
An Emerging Disease Causes Regional Population Collapse of a Common North American Bat Species. Documents catastrophic declines of little brown bats following the emergence of white-nose syndrome.
| Catherine A. Bradley and Sonia Altizer | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2007-02
Urbanization and the Ecology of Wildlife Diseases. Explores how cities alter host densities, parasite communities, disease transmission, and wildlife health.
| Peter Daszak, Andrew A. Cunningham and Alex D. Hyatt | Science | 2000-01-21
Emerging Infectious Diseases of Wildlife—Threats to Biodiversity and Human Health. Helped establish wildlife disease as both a conservation concern and a component of emerging global health threats.
Conservation Behavior and Human Dimensions
| Tobias Vorlaufer, Ivo Steimanis and Jan Plassenberg | Ecosystem Services | 2025-08
Payment for Ecosystem Services and Crowding of Conservation Behavior. Meta-analysis examines whether monetary incentives undermine or reinforce voluntary conservation behavior.
| Various Authors | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2023
The Ethics of Intervening in Animal Behaviour for Conservation. Develops a framework for weighing welfare and ethical implications of manipulating wildlife behavior.
| Kristian Steensen Nielsen et al. | Nature Human Behaviour | 2021-05-13
Biodiversity Conservation as a Promising Frontier for Behavioural Science. Argues that biodiversity loss cannot be reversed without understanding and changing the human behaviors driving it.
| Matthew J. Bowie et al. | Conservation Science and Practice | 2020-10-07
Co-Designing Behavior Change Interventions to Conserve Biodiversity. Shows why conservation campaigns are more likely to succeed when target communities participate in designing interventions.
| David T. Blumstein | Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences | 2016-12
Behavior and Conservation, Conservation and Behavior. Distinguishes merely documenting animal responses to people from using behavioral science to solve conservation problems.
| Daniel T. Blumstein | Animal Behaviour | 2016-10
Habituation and Sensitization: New Thoughts About Old Ideas. Reviews how wildlife tolerance or sensitization to humans can shape conservation and management decisions.
| Diogo Veríssimo | Environmental Conservation | 2013
Influencing Human Behaviour: An Underutilised Tool for Biodiversity Management. Discusses marketing and behavior-change approaches as conservation interventions.
| Oded Berger-Tal et al. | Behavioral Ecology | 2011
Integrating Animal Behavior and Conservation Biology: A Conceptual Framework. Shows where behavioral research can contribute directly to diagnosing and solving conservation problems.
| P. Wesley Schultz | Conservation Biology | 2011
Conservation Means Behavior. Argues that conservation outcomes ultimately depend on changing human actions rather than merely changing environmental attitudes.
| Ronald R. Swaisgood | Applied Animal Behaviour Science | 2007-02
Current Status and Future Directions of Applied Behavioral Research for Animal Welfare and Conservation. Reviews how animal behavior can improve captive breeding, release programs, corridor design, and management of human disturbance.
Evidence, Economics, Finance, and Biodiversity Offsets
| Various Authors | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026
Demystifying Biodiversity Finance. Explains biodiversity-linked loans, bonds, equity investments, credits, and other financial mechanisms being developed to fund conservation and restoration.
| Martine Maron et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025-02-28
Biodiversity Offsets, Their Effectiveness and Their Role in a Nature Positive Future. Reviews evidence showing that offsets frequently fail to achieve true no-net-loss outcomes and identifies ways to improve them.
| Various Authors | Finance Research Letters | 2024-06
A Bibliometric and Systemic Literature Review of Biodiversity Finance. Maps the emerging research field connecting biodiversity conservation, financial markets, risk, and capital allocation.
| Ritika Chopra et al. | Sustainable Futures | 2024
Investing in Nature: Unpacking Trends and Gaps in Biodiversity Finance Research. Reviews work on ecosystem-service payments, offsets, green bonds, sustainable tourism, and conservation finance.
| Various Authors | Journal of Environmental Management | 2023-06-15
Conservation Finance: What Are We Not Doing? A Review and Research Agenda. Reviews mechanisms for financing biodiversity protection and highlights persistent global underinvestment.
| Sebastian Theis et al. | Conservation Biology | 2020-02
Compliance with and Ecosystem Function of Biodiversity Offsets in North American and European Freshwaters. Reviews hundreds of freshwater offset projects and asks whether they comply with requirements and restore ecosystem functions.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2020-01
What Are We Measuring? A Review of Metrics Used to Describe Biodiversity in Offset Exchanges. Shows that offset programs often rely on simple area and habitat-condition measures that miss ecological complexity.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2018-12
Effectiveness of Biodiversity Offsets: An Assessment of a Controversial Offset in Perth, Western Australia. Case study finds significant shortcomings in habitat equivalence, additionality, and delivery of promised conservation gains.
| Various Authors | Biological Conservation | 2015-12
Tracking the Origins and Development of Biodiversity Offsetting in Academic Research and Its Implications for Conservation. Reviews the emergence of biodiversity offsetting and its contested role in reconciling development with conservation.
| Paul J. Ferraro and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak | PLOS Biology | 2006
Money for Nothing? A Call for Empirical Evaluation of Biodiversity Conservation Investments. Influential argument that conservation programs should be evaluated with rigorous counterfactual methods to determine whether spending actually causes environmental improvements.
