Poor availability of context-specific evidence hampers decision-making in conservation
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Evidence-based conservation relies on reliable and relevant evidence. Practitioners often prefer locally relevant studies whose results are more likely to be transferable to the context of planned conservation interventions. To quantify the availability of relevant evidence for amphibian and bird conservation we reviewed Conservation Evidence, a database of quantitative tests of conservation interventions. Studies were geographically clustered, and few locally conducted studies were found in Western sub-Saharan Africa, Russia, South East Asia, and Eastern South America. Globally there were extremely low densities of studies per intervention - fewer than one study within 2000 km of a given location. The availability of relevant evidence was extremely low when we restricted studies to those studying biomes or taxonomic orders containing high percentages of threatened species, compared to the most frequently studied biomes and taxonomic orders. Further constraining the evidence by study design showed that only 17–20% of amphibian and bird studies used reliable designs. Our results highlight the paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of conservation interventions, and the disparity in evidence for local contexts that are frequently studied and those where conservation needs are greatest. Addressing the serious global shortfall in context-specific evidence requires a step change in the frequency of testing conservation interventions, greater use of reliable study designs and standardized metrics, and methodological advances to analyze patchy evidence bases.
Date Issued
2020-08-01
Date Acceptance
2020-06-05
Citation
Biological Conservation, 2020, 248
ISSN
0006-3207
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Biological Conservation
Volume
248
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000556843900027&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
BIODIVERSITY
Biodiversity & Conservation
Biodiversity Conservation
CHALLENGES
Conservation evidence
Ecology
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Evidence-based conservation
External validity
Generalizability
INDICATORS
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
LIMIT
METAANALYSIS
SCIENCE
Science & Technology
Study design
Synthesis
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
108666
Date Publish Online
2020-07-01