Conservation by Color
Researchers have come up with a new way to help decide where areas for conservation can be set aside, what type of land is needed, and how much land should be used. They do this by taking a map and plotting biodiversity "hot spots" on it. This was done for Madagascar.
The colors on the map show what areas were/are being protected, and what areas are recommended for protection. The areas are chosen with the help of a computer system. This computer program has information on 2,300 different species in Madagascar. It can tell the researchers which species are most likely to go extinct before another, and what habitats should be preserved. With this information biodiversity on Madagascar can be saved. The researchers were also confident that this software can also be used in other areas of the world to help preserve biodiversity there as well. More on this topic can be found here.Posted by Jennifer McGrath Group C
posted by PWH @ 2:14 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Well-written article. This is very similar to the process that my group and I will use in order to complete our field experiment for the class.
Posted by Vanessa raphael
Good post. It is always good to see that some people, although not enough, care about preserving biodiversity. The world is more fragile than many of us realize, and small steps like this can really make a difference. I hope that this strategy really works, and if it does work I hope it can be applied to the rest of the world.
Posted by Ben Tummino
Is this a new technology? It seems as though these biodiversity maps have been around for awhile now, but maybe this is an innovative program. It seems like there would be one major corporation that pioneered this new plotting technology for the all of the research being done in field ecology. This system simplifies the legwork that scientist must do in searching for conservation land. My main concern would pertain to the thoroughness and accuracy of this mapping technology. What happens if they are certain lands with endangered habitats/species that are overlooked by this system. How does this program define what it is looking at and avoid such crucial errors?
--Thomas FitzGerald
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