Reconciliation ecology and the future of species diversity

Species-area relationships (SPARs) dictate a people reduce the area available to wild species, they impose a linear reduction of the earth’s species diversity sea change in the strategies of biodiversity conservation. SPARs exist at three ecological scales: Sample-area SPARs that will follow the largest of these scales, i.e. each 1% reduction of natural area will cost about 1% of steady(a larger area within a biogeographical province will tend to include more habitat types, and thus more species, state diversity. Reserving small tracts of wild habitat can only delay these reductions. But we can stop most of them than a smaller one), Archipelagic SPARs (the islands of an archipelago show SPARs that combine the habitatby redesigning anthropogenic habitats so that their use is compatible with use by a broad array of other species. sampling process with the problem of dispersal to an island), and Interprovincial SPARs (other things being That is reconciliation ecology. Many pilot projects, whether intentionally or inadvertently espousing reconciliation equal, the speciation rates of larger biogeographical provinces are higher and their extinction rates are lower, ecology, are demonstrating that it can be done. leading to diversities in proportion to provincial area). SPARs are the products of steady-state dynamics in