McNeely, Jeffrey A.

RERO DOC Digital Library

threats to, and new ideas for the conservationof, bats on Madagascar, the tropical Paciﬁcislands and insular South-East Asia, andNew Zealand. The penultimate chapter inparticular, in which O’Donnell examines theecology and conservation of New Zealandbats, presents some pleasingly positive ideasregarding the achievability of successful batconservation on the island, some of whichone hopes could be applicable to otherislands. This section and the whole book issuperbly concluded by a poignant chaptercontributed by Jones et al., providing anoverview of the importance, challenges andopportunities to island bats on a global scale.This format of back-to-back researchpapers makes the book a challenging andsometimes taxing read. However, the chap-ters compliment and ﬂow into one anotherin a logistically pleasing manner that isimmensely helpful to the reader. The bookcontains full referencing throughout anda comprehensive array of tables and ﬁgures,including a colour photo gallery, that sup-port the information provided in the in-dividual chapters effectively. These factors,combined with the impressive collection ofnew research covering the vast breadth ofthis complex subject matter, make thisbook an encyclopaedic goldmine for re-searchers studying island bats, as well as anexcellent starting point for novices to thesubject, such as myself. I have no doubtthat this book will prove an importantprotagonist for triggering new and excitingresearch into the diverse range of factorsinﬂuencing the evolution, ecology and con-servation of island bats.HARRIET E. HENLEY Bat Conservation Trust,London UK. E-mail hhenley@bats.org.ukBiodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, &Human Wellbeing: An Ecological andEconomic Perspective edited by ShahidNaeem, Daniel E. Bunker, Andy Hector,Michel Loreau and Charles Perrings (2009),xiv +368 pp., Oxford University Press, Oxford,UK. ISBN 9780199547951 (hbk), GBP 75.00;ISBN 9780199547968 (pbk), GBP 37.50.When the Millennium Ecosystem Assess-ment (MA) was published in 2005,it popularized the concept of ecosystemservices—the beneﬁts that people (and theecosystems themselves) receive from thefunctions of ecosystems, which captureenergy from the sun to yield food, water,energy, and much else besides. Biodiversitywas not considered an ecosystem servicebut rather a fundamental contributor to allof the ecosystem services. However, therelationship among biodiversity, ecosystemfunction, and human wellbeing remainedpoorly explored, though with hints scat-tered throughout the assessment (full dis-closure: I was a Coordinating Lead Authorfor the MA chapter on biodiversity in itsResponses volume).But now we have a book that bringstogether the latest thinking from over 60 ofthe leading scientists who are working tounravel the many complex relationshipsamong these important variables. The vol-ume does not provide the ﬁnal answers, butgives some early results and lays out a de-tailed research programme that will un-doubtedly provide new insights that willunravel the interactions between biodiver-sity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystemservices, and human wellbeing. The editorsexpect that this will ﬁnally clarify theconsequences of excessive rates of biodi-versity loss. And, one hopes, this will leadto improved policy responses, though thisstep is not taken in the book.Following a comprehensive introduc-tion that summarizes over a decade of workon the ecological and social implications ofthe changes that biodiversity is undergoing,largely at the hands (and machines) ofhumans, several chapters lay out the natu-ral science foundations that explain thecomplexity of ecosystem functioning, howvarious scenarios of extinction will leadto declining ecosystem services, and thecontribution of work on food webs to abetter understanding of biodiversity andecosystem functioning. This section in-cludes a nice balance among controlledlaboratory experiments and observationsin the wild.The third section tackles the challengeof linking ecosystem services to humanwell-being, with links to climate change,ecosystems managed to provide increasedamounts of products for people, croppollination, disease, and invasive species—all highly topical issues. The section closeswith three excellent chapters on economicaspects of the issues, with a detailed dis-cussion of the economics of biodiversityand ecosystem services (by Charles Per-rings and colleagues), the valuation ofecosystem services (by Edward Barbierand colleagues), and modelling biodiversityand ecosystem services in coupled ecolog-ical-economic systems (by William Brockand colleagues). This is where the bookbreaks new ground, and these chaptersare particularly commended to ecologistsseeking to understand how they can useeconomics to broaden the appeal of bio-diversity conservation for decision-makers.Finally, the two closing chapters syn-thesize the main messages by stressing theimportance of collecting and sharing dataon the traits of species (emphasizing Trait-Net, a research coordination network) andasking whether the effects of global changeon biodiversity loss and ecosystem func-tioning can be predicted. They provide nodeﬁnitive answer to the question they pose,but they do present an improved and morecomprehensive conceptual framework thatgoes beyond that of the MA by includingconsideration of market forces in the globaleconomy and how ecosystems are linked bybiogeochemical ﬂuxes through the atmo-sphere and hydrosphere.This is not a book for the general reader,being aimed at a professional audience oradvanced university students. It wouldhave been more user-friendly if it hadincluded an abstract for each chapter, butit makes up for this shortcoming by pro-viding a comprehensive set of referencesand an excellent index. It states very clearlythat its main message ‘is that biodiversityconservation is an essential element in anystrategy for sustainable development.’ Thereaders of this journal will surely applaudthis message, while perhaps wishing thatthe concept of biodiversity were used moreconsistently throughout the book. Canbiodiversity, deﬁned as ‘the number, abun-dance and identity of genotypes, popula-tions, species, functional groups and traits,and landscape units present in a givenecosystem’ (p. 150, the ﬁrst time this criticalconcept was deﬁned) ever be ‘used’? Per-haps that is a question for debate in agraduate seminar.JEFFREY A. MCNEELY IUCN, Gland,Switzerland. E-mail JAM@iucn.orgª 2010 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 44(3), 459–461Publications 461https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605310000670Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 09:44:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

Book Review: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, & Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, & Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective edited by NaeemShahid, BunkerDaniel E., HectorAndy, LoreauMichel and PerringsCharles (2009), xiv +368 pp., Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 9780199547951 (hbk), GBP 75.00; ISBN 9780199547968 (pbk), GBP 37.50

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

RERO DOC Digital Library