Inter-disciplinary Analysis of Biodiversity Conservation
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 9805
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental sustainability; science-policy interface for sustainability; biodiversity conservation and management; effects of climate change on Mediterranean biodiversity; ecology and management of Mediterranean wetlands
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: socio-ecological systems; sustainable water management; water indicators
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Biodiversity constitutes a basic component of life at the different scales at which it is expressed, from the genetic variability of populations to the total number of taxons existing on Earth and the many intermediate levels existing in between. Biodiversity is essential to support the variety of ecosystem services (including those still unknown) which benefit human populations, from food to the maintenance of landscape and scenic values, as well as for providing basic resources for physical and emotional health. However, Global Change is fueling an accelerated loss of biodiversity, with cascading effects in many other problems. The reduction of biodiversity is taking place at multiple scales, from loss of genetic variability to extinction of species at local and global levels, where the mass extinction of species is estimated at rates several hundred or thousands of times higher than background or natural extinctions. Many scientists openly speak of a Sixth Mass Extinction on a planetary scale.
The loss of biodiversity is destroying multiple biological and ecological interactions, increasing the vulnerability of organisms, species, and ecosystems and making them less resilient to climate change and other processes of global change. Another important problem is the breakdown of the main biogeographic barriers, which are key for the evolutionary processes and for the conservation of local or endemic biotas. Biological communities are increasingly similar to each other, regardless of their geographical location, due to the differential extinction of endemisms and the expansion of exotic and invasive species. Furthermore, this is also favoring the spread of diseases and pests. This massive loss of species is also very worrying in economic terms: It is estimated that biodiversity has a value between 10 and 100 times greater than the cost of its conservation. Part of this value is linked to the services that ecosystems provide us free of charge. It is considered that in the first decade of the 21st century, services worth around 50,000 million euros per year have been lost worldwide, only in terrestrial ecosystems.
The purpose of this Special Issue is to present the state-of-art regarding theoretical and practical approaches to the conservation of biodiversity, focusing on interdisciplinary approaches linking ecological, social, and economic perspectives to show a) how biodiversity is linked to the needs of society, b) how biodiversity can be better conserved, and c) how the services that biodiversity provide and the ways biodiversity can be conserved in addition to flagship species are widely understood and supported by people, including local communities, the public opinion, and the entire society.
Dr. Miguel Angel Esteve-Selma
Dr. Julia Martínez-Fernández
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- interdisciplinary approaches
- biodiversity conservation
- species extinction
- genetic erosion
- ecosystem services provided by biodiversity
- social support to biodiversity conservation
- economic value of biodiversity
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