This book brings together a selection of 22 original studies submitted
to Biodiversity and Conservation that address aspects of methods and
practice in biodiversity conservation. The contributions deal with a
wide variety of approaches to site selection and management, especially
the use of bioindicators, surrogates, and other approaches to site
selection. As no complete inventory of all taxa in any one site has yet
been achieved, alternative strategies are essential and bioindicators or
surrogates come to the fore. The articles included cover a wide range of
organisms used in such approaches to in situ conservation: annelids,
anurans, arthropods, birds, bryophytes, butterflies, collembolans,
flowering pants, a lobster, molluscs, rodents, and turtles. Further, the
habitats considered here embrace estuaries, forests, freshwater,
grasslands, the marine, mountains, and sand-dunes, and are drawn from a
wide range of countries - notably Australia, Brazil, India, Italy,
Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, and the U. K.
Cryopreservation, well established for ex situ preservation of bacteria
and fungi, is shown here also applied to bryophyte conservation. Finance
is always a problem, and the final contribution examines the sources of
money available for conservation action in an examplar country, Mexico.
Collectively, the studies presented here provide a snap-shot of the
range of methods and practices in use in the conservation of
biodiversity today. This makes the volume especially valuable for use in
conservation biology and biodiversity management courses.
Reprinted from Biodiversity and Conservation, Volume 18 No 5 (2009).
