From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity [electronic resource] : Conceptual and Practical Challenges /
Casetta, Elena.editor.
Marques da Silva, Jorge.editor.
Vecchi, Davide.editor.
This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so? The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.
Part I. Characterizing Biodiversity: Beyond the Species Approach -- Chapter 1. Beyond Biodiversity and Speciation – Disparity and Evolvability (Alessandro Minelli) -- Chapter 2. Can Plasticity Lead to the Emergence of Novel Units of Biodiversity? (Davide Vecchi, Rob Mills) -- Chapter 3. Between Explanans and Explanandum: Biodiversity and the Theoretical Unity of Ecology (Philippe Huneman) -- Chapter 4. Functional Biodiversity and the Idea that Organisms Fulfil Functional Roles within Ecological Units (Antoine C. Dussault) -- Chapter 5. The Importance of Scaling in Biodiversity (Luís Borda de Agua) -- Part II. Estimating Biodiversity: Limitation and Challenges -- Chapter 6. A Multidisciplinary Research to Understand and to Correct the Impacts of Species Concepts and Ignored Cryptic Species on Biodiversity Assessments (Anne Chenuil) -- Chapter 7. Statistical Measures of Biological Diversity: A Unified Framework and Discussion (Vincenzo Crupi) -- Chapter 8. Measuring Biodiversity from Traits to Landscapes (Cristina Branquino) -- Part III. Representing Biodiversity: Cognitive Representation and Representation by Specimen -- Chapter 9. The Representations of Biodiversity (Anouk Barberousse) -- Chapter 10. Natural History Collections as Models of the Diversity of the Natural World (Judite Alves) -- Chapter 11. News from the Battlefield: Bridging Epistemologies and Ontologies in the Field of Biodiversity (Marie Roué) -- Chapter 12. On the Impossibility and Dispensability of Defining ‘Biodiversity’ – and its Function as a Mediator Between Heterogeneous Fields (Georg Toepfer) -- Chapter 13. Value-Ladeness of Biodiversity. A Post-Normal Conceptual Analysis (Matthias Kaiser) -- Part IV. Conserving Biodiversity: From Science to Policies -- Chapter 14. Conservation Sovereignty and Biodiversity (Marku Oksanen & Timo Vuorisalo) -- Chapter 15. The Vagueness of “Biodiversity” and its Implications in Conservation Practice (Yves Meinard, Sylvain Coq, Bernhard Schmid) -- Chapter 16. The Role of Communities in Biodiversity Conservation. The Case of Multispecies Biofilms (Jorge Marques da Silva, Elena Casetta) -- Chapter 17. Modification of Habitats and Introduction of Exotic Species in Marine and Estuarine Environments: Always a Threat or Sometimes an Opportunity to Increase Biodiversity and to Enhance Biodiversity Conservation? (José Lino Costa, et al) -- Chapter 18. Ordinary Biodiversity. The Case of Food (Andrea Borghini).
This open access book features essays written by philosophers, biologists, ecologists and conservation scientists facing the current biodiversity crisis. Despite increasing communication, accelerating policy and management responses, and notwithstanding improving ecosystem assessment and endangered species knowledge, conserving biodiversity continues to be more a concern than an accomplished task. Why is it so? The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’ refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.
Biology
Biodiversity.
Ecology.
Endangered ecosystems.
Philosophy of Biology.
Biodiversity.
Geoecology/Natural Processes.
Ecosystems.

Open Access