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Study Finds Protected Areas Vulnerable to Food Security Concerns

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Protected areas are critical to mitigating extinction of species; however, they may also be in conflict with efforts to feed the growing human population.

Paul Armsworth, professor of ecology and researcher with the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is the co-author of a new study showing croplands are prevalent in protected areas, which challenges their efficacy meeting conversation goals. Varsha Vijay, a researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) is the lead author.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that 6% of all global terrestrial protected areas are already made up of cropland, a heavily modified habitat that is often not suitable for supporting wildlife. Worse, 22% of this cropland occurs in areas supposedly enjoying the strictest levels of protection, the keystone of global biodiversity protection efforts.

In order to comprehensively examine global cropland impacts in protected areas for the first time, the authors synthesized a number of remotely sensed cropland estimates and diverse socio-environmental datasets.

Read more about the study at sesync.org.

No Fortuitous Short-Cuts When Deciding Conservation Priorities

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The Armsworth Lab has a new open-access publication out in Nature Communications: “Factoring economic costs into conservation planning may not improve agreement over priorities for protection.”  It is a collaboration between an interdisciplinary team of UT researchers with scientists at The Nature Conservancy and focuses on how best to identify candidate areas for establishing nature reserves.

Co-authors include Research Assistant Professor Heather Jackson, former graduate students Gwen Iacona (PhD 2014, now a postdoc at the University of Queensland) and Nate Sutton (MS 2014, now a data scientist for MedAmerica), and former postdoc Eric Larson (now faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

The abstract is pasted below.

Conservation organizations must redouble efforts to protect habitat given continuing biodiversity declines. Prioritization of future areas for protection is hampered by disagreements over what the ecological targets of conservation should be. Here we test the claim that such disagreements will become less important as conservation moves away from prioritizing areas for protection based only on ecological considerations and accounts for varying costs of protection using return-on-investment (ROI) methods. We combine a simulation approach with a case study of forests in the eastern United States, paying particular attention to how covariation between ecological benefits and economic costs influences agreement levels. For many conservation goals, agreement over spatial priorities improves with ROI methods. However, we also show that a reliance on ROI-based prioritization can sometimes exacerbate disagreements over priorities. As such, accounting for costs in conservation planning does not enable society to sidestep careful consideration of the ecological goals of conservation.

Stachowiak Fellowship Finalist

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Graduate Student Chad Stachowiak (Armsworth Lab), is a finalist for a 2018 Presidential Management Fellowship.

“The PMF Program is a flagship leadership development program at the entry level for advanced degree candidates. It was created more than three decades ago by Executive Order and has gone through many changes over the years. The Program attracts and selects the best candidates possible, but is really designed with a more narrow focus – developing a cadre of potential government leaders. It provides some sustenance during the first years of employment and encourages development of leadership capabilities. The PMF Program inculcates a lasting bond as well as a spirit of public service, ultimately encouraging and leading to a career in the government.”

Approximately 6,040 applications were received and 425 applicants were selected as Finalists. The 2018 Finalists’ pool represents approximately 69 different disciplines, 161 academic institutions, and 15% are veterans.

Milt (PhD 2015) Recognized by Conservation Biology

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Austin Milt (PhD 2015, now a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin) won third place in Conservation Biology’s ‘Rising Star’ award for his manuscript, “The Costs of Avoiding Environmental Impacts from Shale-Gas Surface Infrastructure.” The Rising Star award considers all student led papers published in Conservation Biology in 2016. This award is judged by a group of Senior Editors and aims to recognize outstanding student researchers and communicators.

Milt (PhD 2015) Research Featured in New Book

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Austin Milt’s PhD (2015, Armsworth Lab) work is featured in a nice, one-page color spread in a new book by Craig Groves and Eddie Game: Conservation Planning: Informed Decisions for a Healthier Planet.

The book “will be very well-read within its field – likely the industry leading text for the next 5-6 years if recent history is anything to go by and widely read by grad students and conservation practitioners the world over,” said Milt’s former advisor, Paul Armsworth.

Read more of NIMBioS’s press release.

Milt is currently a Post Doc at the Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 

Societal Impact Award for Ward

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Congratulations to Shelby Ward (Armsworth Lab) who was selected to receive the Margaret “Tina” Riedinger Societal Impact Award for the First Annual Women in STEM Research Symposium for your significant contribution to the research finding or technological innovation that has resulted in, or has great potential to have, a positive impact on society in the presentation entitled: “Exploring how Clean Water Act enforcement influences stream macro-invertebrate communities”.