Diminishing return of investment in genetic diversity
Author
Summary, in English
Motive: Priorities in conservation management are often difficult to determine because we lack comparable biodiversity metrics. So that actions can be cost-effective, conservation decision-making and management needs such metrics. Question: What suitable metrics can compare efforts and investments in biodiversity conservation? How can established measures of genetic diversity be combined with the economic return-of-investment paradigm? Method: Use the return-of-investment approach, which has previously been restricted to issues of species diversity. Extend it to include genetic diversity. Use Taylor's power law to relate mean abundance, rates of genetic deterioration, and principles of return-of-investment. Key assumptions: We can specify the relationship between cost of conservation and population size. Time-series data are available for each population. We can approximate the effective population size (N-e) of a fluctuating population as the harmonic mean population size. Conclusion: As the financial investment in conservation increases, the estimated marginal increase in genetic diversity diminishes. One can rank actions that increase mean population size according to their associated marginal increases in genetic diversity, thus evaluating which improvements offer the most value for money.
Publishing year
2012
Language
English
Pages
793-801
Publication/Series
Evolutionary Ecology Research
Volume
14
Issue
7
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Evolutionary Ecology Ltd
Topic
- Biological Sciences
Keywords
- adaptive potential
- biodiversity
- conservation
- diminishing returns
- genetic diversity
- return of investment
Status
Published
Research group
- Theoretical Population Ecology and Evolution Group
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1522-0613