KEVIN J GASTON

Armsworth, P.R., Fishburn, I.S., Davies, Z.G., Gilbert, J., Leaver, N. & Gaston, K.J. 2012. The size, concentration, and growth of biodiversity-conservation nonprofits. BioScience 62, 271-281.

Nonprofit organizations have a vital role to play in biological conservation, at local, regional and global scales. Understanding how the structure of conservation nonprofits influences their effectiveness in improving the plight of biodiversity has been identified as a priority research topic. We review empirical patterns in the size, concentration, and growth of over 1700 biodiversity-conservation nonprofits registered for tax purposes in the United States within the context of relevant economic theory. Conservation-nonprofit sizes vary by six to seven orders of magnitude and are positively skewed. Larger nonprofits access more revenue streams and hold more of their assets in land and buildings than smaller or midsized nonprofits do. The size of conservation nonprofits varies with the ecological focus of the organization, but the growth rates of nonprofits do not.

Many congratulations to Barbara Goettsch on receiving the Harry Messel Award for Conservation Leadership. This recognizes exemplary service to the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of IUCN, especially from individuals who have made a specific contribution to species conservation on the ground or through their leadership, as part of the work of an SSC Specialist Group or Task Force. It is much deserved.

Hanley, N., Acs, S., Dallimer, M., Gaston, K.J., Graves, A., Morris, J. & Armsworth, P.R. 2012. Farm-scale ecological and economic impacts of agricultural change in the uplands. Land Use Policy 29, 587-597.

Recent decades have witnessed substantial losses of biodiversity in Europe, partly driven by the intensification of agricultural production. Future trends for upland birds will likely be impacted by changes in agricultural support regimes, such as those currently envisaged in on-going reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy. Using integrated ecological-economic models, we show that the impacts of future agricultural scenarios on farm incomes, land use and biodiversity are very diverse across policy scenarios and farm types. Moreover, each policy scenario produces unequal distributions of farm income changes and gains and losses in alternative biodiversity indicators. This shows that generalisations of the effects of policy and pricing changes on farm incomes, land uses and biodiversity can be misleading.

Dallimer, M., Skinner, A.M.J., Davies, Z.G., Armsworth, P.R. & Gaston, K.J. 2012. Multiple habitat associations: the role of offsite habitat in determining onsite avian density and species richness. Ecography 35, 134-145.

Here we document an example of what is probably a widespread but poorly understood phenomenon, namely how the abundances of individual species and of assemblages depend not only on characteristics of a given site on which they occur but also on the characteristics of sites comprising other habitats on which they are dependent. Such interdependencies are fundamentally important to conservation management, particularly because many threatened species move between different habitats daily or seasonally.

Dallimer, M., Irvine, K.N., Skinner, A.M.J., Davies, Z.G., Rouquette, J.R., Armsworth, P.R., Maltby, L., Warren, P.H., Gaston, K.J. 2012. Biodiversity and the feel-good factor: understanding associations between self-reported human well-being and species richness. BioScience 62, 46-55.

The natural environment provides humankind with a diverse array of benefits. Not all of these are well understood. For example, there is substantial evidence that people living in cities gain benefits to psychological well-being from greenspaces, but which components of those spaces are most important in this regard are unclear. Here we report the lack of a consistent relationship between actual plant, butterfly, and bird species richness and the psychological well-being of urban greenspace visitors. Instead, well-being shows a positive relationship with the richness that the greenspace users perceived to be present. One plausible explanation for this discrepancy, which we investigate, is that people generally have poor biodiversity-identification skills. The apparent importance of perceived species richness and the mismatch between reality and perception pose a serious challenge for aligning conservation and human well-being agendas.

The last of our recent flurry of new additions to the research group started work today. It is a pleasure to have Stefano Casalegno join us as a postdoctoral researcher mapping and analysing the distribution of ecosystem goods and services across Cornwall.

Maru Correa joins the research group today as a PhD student. We hope that she thoroughly enjoys her new life by the sea!

Two new additions to the research group today. Rich Inger joins as the group manager and a postdoctoral researcher working on the ecosystem services provided by wild birds. Maria Avila-Jimenez joins as a postdoctoral researcher working on the EPSRC-funded SECURE project. We hope to make both converts to the benefits of interdisciplinary research…

Sandel, B., Arge, L., Dalsgaard, B., Davies, R.G., Gaston, K.J., Sutherland, W.J. & Svenning, J-C. 2011. The influence of late Quaternary climate-change velocity on species endemism. Science 334, 660-664.

We show that areas of the Earth that have experienced low rates of climate-change velocity (the rate of climate displacement) are essential refuges for many small-ranged species.

Eigenbrod, F., Bell, V.A., Davies, H.N., Heinemeyer, A., Armsworth, P.R. & Gaston, K.J. 2011. The impact of projected increases in urbanization on ecosystem services. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278, 3201-3208.

We examine some of the challenges of meeting future demands on and patterns of ecosystem services in the face of increasing urbanization, determining the relative influence on different services of sprawl and densification solutions to housing projected population growth across Britain (media coverage: BBC)