Making optimal adaptive management accessible to everyone

Author Sam Nicol describes his team’s latest research developing a new model to help managers easily identify and employ adaptive management interventions to protect threatened species. Adaptive management—what’s the problem? Adaptive management has been the coolest thing in conservation for almost 40 years – everyone wants to do it. Way back in the ‘80s, the elegant seminal formulations by Hollings and Walters proposed that conservation … Continue reading Making optimal adaptive management accessible to everyone

Age is a better indicator of biodiversity for road verges than surrounding landscape

In their recently published article, Alistair Auffret and Evelina Lindgren show how historical maps can be a useful tool to identify which road verges can best support grassland habitats. Here the authors provide a summary of their work Road verges are by now quite well known to provide valuable habitat for grassland species if they are managed appropriately (Phillips et al., 2019; Vanneste et al., … Continue reading Age is a better indicator of biodiversity for road verges than surrounding landscape

Managing non-native species and building a risk assessment checklist

Helen Roy discusses her recent Policy Direction, Developing a framework of minimum standards for the risk assessment of alien species and the challenges of producing a 14-step checklist for quality assurance in invasive species risk assessment. The dramatic rise in numbers of non-native species worldwide is increasingly recognised as problematic. While some non-native species have minimal effects on biodiversity*, and a few may be beneficial, about … Continue reading Managing non-native species and building a risk assessment checklist