Wildlife Habitat Conservation: Concepts, Challenges, and Solutions. Wildlife Management and Conservation. Edited by Michael L. Morrison and Heather A. Mathewson. Published in association with The Wildlife Society by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. $75.00. xi + 185 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-1-4214 -1610-6 (hc); 978-1-4214-1611-3 (eb). 2015.

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Previous articleNext article FreeConservation BiologyWildlife Habitat Conservation: Concepts, Challenges, and Solutions. Wildlife Management and Conservation. Edited by Michael L. Morrison and Heather A. Mathewson. Published in association with The Wildlife Society by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. $75.00. xi + 185 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-1-4214 -1610-6 (hc); 978-1-4214-1611-3 (eb). 2015.Brian A. MaurerBrian A. MaurerFisheries & Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan Search for more articles by this author Fisheries & Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MichiganPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreHumans are consuming the biomass and energy generated by the Earth’s ecosystems at an accelerating rate. As more is used by humans, less is left for other species. This process of energy and biomass consumption is globally anisotropic. The uneven spatial distribution of human consumption means that understanding its consequences requires the ability to represent how nonhuman species are supported by ecosystem processes across the remaining space.The major conceptual tool, developed over the past century, for understanding the use of space by populations of plants and animals is related to the concept of “habitat.” Wildlife Habitat Conservation is a modern survey of this concept and how it is used to preserve ecosystems capable of supporting a rich diversity of species.The editors begin with an idea-dense discussion of how modern biologists use the term. One of the most important ideas is that habitat is explicitly applied to populations (or aggregates of populations) of biological species. Hence, “waterfowl habitat” is sensible to use, but “wetland habitat” is not. The problem with the latter term is that there is no explicit connection between the area being considered and some set of biological populations. In the next chapter, the concept of “habitat quality” is examined. The basic idea here is that the only sensible measures of quality must be based on the fitness consequences of the habitat for a species (or set of species). This is a great challenge since such data are very difficult to come by. Chapter 3 seeks to conceptualize how a given spatial location is related to the population dynamics of the species inhabiting it. This is a key issue that we need to understand. Although somewhat simplistic, relying at times on logistic population growth, the central message is clear: for any given species, understanding how the life history of that species plays out in space is a necessary component of any explanation for the value of that space for the species.A key assumption of habitat conservation is that preserving areas that have high fitness for a species will conserve the species itself by providing regions of positive population growth. As pointed out in Chapter 4, things are usually not nearly so simple, since the ecological attributes of a habitat can change rapidly over time (e.g., the consequences of global warming for a local habitat). These first four chapters form a strong conceptual picture upon which specific explanations for specific systems could be based. I recommend that every ecologist and conservation biologist studying human impacts and designing management activities to respond to such impacts read and study these chapters carefully.Unfortunately, I found the rest of the book a little less successful. Chapters on habitats in peril varied in the degree to which they were able to integrate the insights of the first part of the volume into discussions of habitat loss, genetics, fragmentation, and invasive species. Chapters on research and conservation seemed conceptually fragmented. Despite these issues, there were many useful ideas discussed in these two parts. Taken as a whole, this collection of chapters will provide a benchmark for understanding how we are to understand the global consequences of human consumption. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 92, Number 1March 2017 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/690862 Views: 424Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.