Views of a Conservation Biologist

• Author: Dan L. Perlman
• Pages: 23-41

chapter two

Views of a Conservation Biologist

Dan L. Perlman

Many aspects of modern human society draw heavily on the basic sciences.

Good engineering depends on a solid understanding of physics, just as mate-

rials science and public health depend on chemistry and basic biomedical

sciences respectively. Land use planning calls on conservation biology for

guidance, and conservation biology is based in turn on the science of ecology;

yet these applications of science are very different from the previous exam-

ples. It is worth examining how the relationships among land use planning,

conservation biology, and ecology differ from the relationships between the

previously mentioned applied and basic sciences.

First, there is the matter of goals. Highway bridges, automobiles, cookware,

and pajamas must meet standards for safety, longevity, and eff‌iciency that are

set by governments and the marketplace. The goals of public health are more

diff‌icult to pin down, perhaps in part because there is no marketplace to set

standards; instead, we depend on international bodies, governments, and non-

governmental agencies to set targets for lowered death or disease rates. Setting

conservation goals is even more diff‌icult, since they include targets such as:

increased ecosystem health (if human health appears difficult to measure,

ecosystem health is far worse); increased populations and augmented genetic

diversity of endangered species; decreased populations of invasive species;

improved management of disturbances (such as fire) throughout a region;

increased public awareness and support; and improved public access to pro-

tected lands. In short, designing a highway bridge is in some ways far easier

than designing a conservation plan, because there the goals can be relatively

easily def‌ined. Conservation planners face an additional problem: the ecosys-

tems and human communities where they work frequently shift in fundamental

ways, such that the conservation goals must shift as well.

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Second, the underlying sciences of physics, chemistry,and biomedical stud-

ies differ greatly from ecology and conservation biology. Physics, chemistry,

cell biology,and genetics all focus, by def‌inition, on discovering universal under-

standings and general laws. In contrast, while ecologists and conservation

biologists would like to uncover general laws, their sciences are among the

most historical of all, since past ecological conditions place great constraints

on the present and on future ecological possibilities. In fact, it is frequently

stated that the First Law of Ecology is: “It Depends.”

To highlight the difference among sciences,recall that in 1989, scientists at

the University of Utah announced that they had achieved “cold fusion”—the

release of large amounts of energy by fusing atoms at a relatively low temper-

ature. Within months,labs around the world were attempting to duplicate these

experiments, but none were able to replicate the findings. This pattern of

attempting replication of results occurs in other laboratory sciences as well,

when potentially important f‌indings are reported. In ecology and conservation

biology, however, stunning new reports do not lead to f‌lurries of replication—

in large part, because it is simply impossible to truly replicate a conservation

biology or ecology study (see Figures 2.1-2.4).

For example, consider a recent study demonstrating that conservation cor-

ridors can be useful in linking subpopulations of Florida black bears (Ursus

americanus f‌loridanus) in the Osceola and Ocala National Forests.1This result,

however, does not necessarily mean that a similar corridor between the Ten-

sas and Atchafalaya river basins in Louisiana will help the threatened Louisiana

black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus)—even though it is a closely related

subspecies in a nearby region. If cold fusion works in Utah, it will work in

New York. But if conservation corridors work for black bears in northern and

central Florida, they may or may not be effective for black bears in Louisiana,

or for Florida panthers in southern Florida, or for wolves in Montana. By def-

inition, historical differences always exist between different populations,

subspecies, and species—and the landscapes that they inhabit differ as well.

If 1 lab claims that cold fusion works while 20 labs using the same procedures

say that it does not work, we can be conf‌ident that we have discovered a uni-

versal truth about the functioning of the universe. But when 1 conservation

biology study claims that a conservation corridor worked while 20 others dis-

agree, all we can say is that historical conditions may have allowed the 1 to

work.

There are surprisingly few universal truths in ecology and conservation

biology. While engineers and materials scientists can turn to physics and

24 nature friendly land use practices at multiple scales