Taking Stock of Conservation Biology: Old Problems and New Directions

A s scientists in a maturing discipline, conservation biologists are still formulating methodologies, identifying and prioritizing the problems they must solve, and forging and understanding their relation to other disciplines such as ecology, geography, and sociology. These two books make valuable contributions to conservation biology and document some of its progress, both theoretical and empirical. They display some of the challenges the new discipline faces and mark some of the crucial issues it has so far failed to address adequately. They also provide glimpses into the unique nature of conservation biology as a young science with a characteristically normative agenda. Conservation Biology: Research Priorities for the Next Decade has two objectives: to summarize the knowledge gathered in the principal fields of conservation biology and to propose agendas to guide research. It is the culmination of the April 2000 meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, which focused on updating the research priorities set forth over a decade earlier (Soulé and Kohm 1989). Soulé, one of the founders of the society, and Orians, a distinguished behavioral and community ecologist, spearheaded the development of 10 focus topics. Prominent conservation biologists , almost exclusively from the United States, contributed essays, based on these topics, that constitute the anthology's core chapters. The project is ambitious. The proposed agendas should " provide a meter stick to measure progress " (p. x) that " in-spire[s] conservation biologists addressing new as well as long-established problems " (p. xi). Surprisingly, in approximately 300 pages, the volume does a remarkable job of fulfilling its goals. The chapters canvass many traditional conservation concerns in thorough detail: viability analysis, anthropogenic alteration of food webs, management of exotic species, habitat fragmentation, global climate change, and restoration ecology. Topics that receive less attention in the literature , such as conserving soil and sediment invertebrates, marine conservation biology, the relation of conservation biology to the health sciences, and conservation decisionmaking strategies are also thoroughly discussed. Each chapter includes a clear presentation of the main facets of the topic, a helpful summary of what is theoretically and empirically known about the topic, and a list of research priorities. A comprehensive bibliography , which refers to classic papers as well as recent publications, makes this volume an asset to any aspiring or veteran conservation biologist. Some important controversies, however , receive insufficient attention. For example, corridors are often invoked as a possible solution to many conservation …