Protected-area targets of 10% of a biome, of a country, or of the planet have often been used in conservation planning. The new World Database on Protected Areas shows that terrestrial protected-area coverage now approaches 12% worldwide. Does this mean that the establishment of new protected areas can cease? This was the core question of the "Building Comprehensive Protected Area Systems" stream of the Fifth World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, in 2003. To answer it requires global gap analysis, the subject of the special section of BioScience for which this article serves as an introduction. We also provide an overview of the extraordinary data sets now available to allow global gap analysis and, based on these, an assessment of the degree to which existing protected-area systems represent biodiversity. Coverage varies geographically, but is less than 2% for some bioregions, and more than 12% of 11,633 bird, mammal, amphibian, and turtle species are wholly unrepresented. The global protected-area systems are far from complete

Akcakaya, H. Resit

Andelman, Sandy J.

Bakarr, Mohamed I.

Boitani, Luigi

Brooks, Thomas M.

Chanson, Janice S.

Da Fonseca, Gustavo A.B.

Fishpool, Lincoln D.C.

Gaston, Kevin J.

Hoffmann, Michael

Marquet, Pablo A.

Pilgrim, John D.

Pressey, Robert L.

Rodrigues, Ana S. L.

Schipper, Jan

Sechrest, Wes

Stuart, Simon N.

Underhill, Les G.

Waller, Robert W.

Watts, Matthew E. J.

Yan, Xie

Crossref

Because the response of ecosystem patterns and processes to disturbance is rarely linear, the dynamic regime concept offers a more realistic construct

than linear models for understanding ecosystems. Dynamic regimes, and shifts between them, have been reported for a diversity of ecosystem types

(e.g., terrestrial, marine, aquatic) at a variety of scales (e.g., from small lakes to the global climate). Ecosystem regimes that are obvious at one scale

may not be at another. Regimes are maintained by internal relationships and feedbacks between species, and these internal dynamics can interact

with large-scale external forces (such as global weather patterns) and trigger shifts to alternative regimes. The dynamic regime concept is commonly

used in ecosystem management, restoration, and sustainability efforts, in what are known as “state-and-transition,” “threshold,” or “alternative

stable state” models. Here we review the application of this concept to ecosystem management and restoration, and discuss how dynamic

processes at multiple scales can affect this application

Mayer, A.

Rietkerk, M.G.

NARCIS 

The dynamic regime concept for ecosystem management and restoration

Because the response of ecosystem patterns and processes to disturbance is rarely linear, the dynamic regime concept offers a more realistic construct
than linear models for understanding ecosystems. Dynamic regimes, and shifts between them, have been reported for a diversity of ecosystem types
(e.g., terrestrial, marine, aquatic) at a variety of scales (e.g., from small lakes to the global climate). Ecosystem regimes that are obvious at one scale
may not be at another. Regimes are maintained by internal relationships and feedbacks between species, and these internal dynamics can interact
with large-scale external forces (such as global weather patterns) and trigger shifts to alternative regimes. The dynamic regime concept is commonly
used in ecosystem management, restoration, and sustainability efforts, in what are known as “state-and-transition,” “threshold,” or “alternative
stable state” models. Here we review the application of this concept to ecosystem management and restoration, and discuss how dynamic
processes at multiple scales can affect this application

Utrecht University Repository

Organisms are shaped contemporaneously by ecological processes and over long periods of time by evolution, processes that have led to the diversification of life. But is the diversity of life all biodiversity is? We argue that biodiversity is the conclusion drawn both from the variety of life forms and from the variety of processes that have shaped them. One cannot talk about biodiversity in a scientifically meaningful way without going beyond taxonomic considerations.

Emphasizing taxonomic descriptions and ignoring process descriptions draws attention to genes and organisms rather than to the dynamic interactions between them. When environmental changes reduce the number of species, it is not just the list of present organisms that changes. Possibly unique interactions may also be lost forever, and with their loss, we may lose the potential for generation of a new diversity of life

Bøhn, Thomas

Amundsen, Per-Arne

NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives

BioScience

Ecological interactions and evolution: Forgotten parts of biodiversity?

Covich, AP

Austen, MC

Barlocher, F

Chauvet, E

Cardinale, BJ

Biles, CL

Inchausti, P

Dangles, O

Statzner, B

Solan, M

Moss, BR

Asmus, H

Plymouth Marine Science Electronic Archive (PlyMSEA)

The role of biodiversity in the functioning of freshwater and marine benthic ecosystems: review of current evidence and future research needs

Because the response of ecosystem patterns and processes to disturbance is rarely linear, the dynamic regime concept offers a more realistic construct than linear models for understanding ecosystems. Dynamic regimes, and shifts between them, have been reported for a diversity of ecosystem types (e. g., terrestrial, marine, aquatic) at a variety of scales (e. g., from small lakes to the global climate). Ecosystem regimes that are obvious at one scale may not be at another. Regimes are maintained by internal relationships and feedbacks between species, and these internal dynamics can interact with large-scale external forces (such as global weather patterns) and trigger shifts to alternative regimes. The dynamic regime concept is commonly used in ecosystem management, restoration, and sustainability efforts, in what are known as "state-and-transition," "threshold," or "alternative stable state" models. Here we review the application of this concept to ecosystem management and restoration, and discuss how dynamic processes at multiple scales can affect this application

Mayer, A.L.

Rietkerk, M.

The Dynamic Regime Concept for Ecosystem Management and Restoration

Empirical studies investigating the role of species diversity in sustaining ecosystem processes have focused primarily on terrestrial plant and soil communities. Eighteen representative studies drawn from post-1999 literature specifically examined how changes in biodiversity affect benthic ecosystem processes. Results from these small-scale, low-diversity manipulative studies indicate that the effects of changes in biodiversity (mostly synonymous with local species richness) are highly variable over space and time and frequently depend on specific biological traits or functional roles of individual species. Future studies of freshwater and marine ecosystems will require the development of new experimental designs at larger spatial and temporal scales. Furthermore, to successfully integrate field and laboratory studies, the derivation of realistic models and appropriate experiments will require approaches different from those already used in terrestrial systems

Covich, A. P.

Austen, M. C.

Barlocher, F.

Chauvet, E.

Cardinale, B. J.

Biles, C. L.

Inchausti, P.

Dangles, O.

Solan, M.

Gessner, M. O.

Statzner, B.

Moss, B.

Southampton (e-Prints Soton)

The role of Biodiversity in the functioning of freshwater and marine benthic ecosystems

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01320956