Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

This review organizes ideas on the evolution of life histories. The key life-history traits are brood size, size of young, the age distribution of reproductive effort, the interaction of reproductive effort with adutl mortality, and the variation in these traits among an individual's progeny. The general theoretical problem is to predict which combinations of traits will evolve in organisms living in specified circumstances. First consider single traits. Theorists have made the following predictions: (1) Where adult exceeds juvenile mortality, the organism should reproduce only once in its lifetime. Where juvenile exceeds adult mortality, the organism should reproduce several times. (2) Brood size should maximize the number of young surviving to maturity, summed over the lifetime of the parent. But when optimum brood-size varies unpredictably in time, smaller broods should be favored because they decrease the chances of total failure on a given attempt. (3) In expanding populations, selection should minim...

Life-history tactics: a review of the ideas.

Whether inbreeding affects the demography and persistence of natural populations has been questioned. However, new pedigree data from field populations and molecular and analytical tools for tracing patterns of relationship and inbreeding have now enhanced our ability to detect inbreeding depression within and among wild populations. This work reveals that levels of inbreeding depression vary across taxa, populations and environments, but are usually substantial enough to affect both individual and population performance. Data from bird and mammal populations suggest that inbreeding depression often significantly affects birth weight, survival, reproduction and resistance to disease, predation and environmental stress. Plant studies, based mostly on comparing populations that differ in size or levels of genetic variation, also reveal significant inbreeding effects on seed set, germination, survival and resistance to stress. Data from butterflies, birds and plants demonstrate that populations with reduced genetic diversity often experience reduced growth and increased extinction rates. Crosses between such populations often result in heterosis. Such a genetic rescue effect might reflect the masking of fixed deleterious mutations. Thus, it might be necessary to retain gene flow among increasingly fragmented habitat patches to sustain populations that are sensitive to inbreeding.

Inbreeding effects in wild populations.

Conservation biology has two threads: the small-population paradigm which deals with the erect of smallness on the persistence of a population, and the declining-population paradigm which deals with the cause of smallness and its cure. The processes relevant to the small-population paradigm are amenable to theoretical examination because they generalize across species and are subsumed by an inclusive higher category: stochasticity. In contrast, the processes relevant to the declining-population paradigm are essentially humdrum, being not one but many. So far they have defied tight generalization and hence are of scant theoretical interest. The small-population paradigm has not yet contributed significantly to conserving endangered species in the wild because it treats an erect (smallness) as if it were a cause

Directions in conservation biology

http://webpages.icav.up.pt/PTDC/BIA-BEC/099934/2008/papers/Frankham_2005_Biological_Conservation.pdf

Genetics and extinction

Analysis of vertebrate populations

Methods of obtaining life table data are outlined and the assumptions implicit in such treatment are defined. Most treatments assume a stationary are distribution, but published methods of testing the stationary nature of a single distribution are invalid. Samples from natural populations tend to be biased in the yound age classes and therefore, because it is least affected by bias, the mortality rate curve (qx) is the most efficient life table series for comparing the pattern of mortality with age in different populations. A life table and fecundity table are presented for females of the ungulate Hemitragus jemlahicus, based on a population sample that was first tested for bias. They give estimates of mean generation length as 5.4 yr, annual mortality rate as 0.25, and mean life expectancy at birth as 3.5 yr. The life table for Hemitragus is compared with those of Ovis aries, O. dalli, man, Rattus norvegicus, Micortus agrestis, and M. orcadensis to show that despite taxonomic and ecological differences the life table have common characteristics. This suggests the hypotheses that most mammalian species have life tables of a common form, and that the pattern of age—specific mortality within species assumes an approximately constant form irrespective of the proximate causes of mortality.

Mortality Patterns in Mammals

IntroductionThe Units Of ConservationExtinctions In PrehistoryHistorical Extinctions And Near ExtinctionsThe Risks Faced By Small PopulationsPopulation Viability AnalysisDiagnosis Of DeclinesTreatment Of DeclinesHabitat Change And FragmentationThe Role Of ReservesConservation And EconomicsLegislation And TreatiesRecovery PlansConclusions

Graeme Caughley

Papers

Analysis of vertebrate populations

Directions in conservation biology

Mortality Patterns in Mammals

Conservation biology in theory and practice

Conservation Biology in Theory and Practice