Gaps in knowledge

Scientists now know enough about the distribution of biological diversity, the threats that it faces, and the conservation techniques available to maintain it, to expand conservation efforts considerably without fear of wasting effort or money.

But remaining gaps in knowledge will continue to hinder conservation and limit the benefits that biological resources can provide to humanity unless research programs are greatly strengthened.

It seems self-evident that increasing knowledge about the kind and variety of organisms that inhabit the earth -- and the ways that these organisms relate to each other and to humans -- must be a foundation of conservation action.

Information for a variety of needs

Government agencies, local communities, and conservation organizations all need information to enable them to manage their biological resources more effectively. Information tools that can help meet this need include:

• basic descriptions of fauna and flora,
• practical handbooks for field identification,
• rapid inventory techniques, and
• basic computer programs for use with micro-computers.

The information needs in the tropics are particularly important, because these areas hold the majority of the world's biological diversity and they are losing species at rates that far exceed the world's capacity to record them.

Highest priority for basic inventory work should be given to the sites of greatest diversity and local endemism coupled with the greatest threat, for the information contained by the species in these areas could disappear before humanity even knows what it is losing.

Development agencies should support national efforts to establish local, sectoral, and national information management systems, through:

• demonstrating methodologies,

• providing training opportunities for taxonomists and biologists, and

• subsidizing the publication of status reports.

Universities, research institutions, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) need to be strengthened so that they can help governments assess their biological resources.

Closing working relationships should be established between museums and other taxonomic-oriented institutions and those concerned with conservation of biological diversity.

Research needed

The following studies should be undertaken:

• Determine the impacts of land- and water-use changes on species diversity and ecological processes.

• Elucidate the role of of biodiversity in ecological processes, including water and nutrient cycling, energy flow in ecosystems, ecosystem stability, and soil formation.

• Determine the consequences of anthropogenic and other environmental changes on the evolution of species.

• Expand systematics research to provide a stable nomenclature and to enhance the ability to use inferential techniques to mobilize biodiversity's benefits.

• Inventory genetic, species, habitat, and ecosystem diversity -- document the wealth of the world's species of plants and animals, involving museums, zoos, aquaria, botanic gardens, universities, and research stations. Determine how fast biological diversity is changing and how change will affect community structure and ecosystem processes. Accelerate research on the determinants of diversity.

• Accelerate research on the biology of rare and declining species and develop the scientific information needed to sustain populations, and determine the value and viability of these species.

• Determine patterns and indicators of ecological responses to stress so that the technologies needed to assess the status of ecological systems, to forecast and assess stress, and to monitor the recovery of damaged ecological systems can be developed.

• Develop and test principles of restoration ecology -- develop new mechanisms for ex situ conservation, including both captive propagation and eventual release into "natural" ecosystems.

• Advance, test, and apply ecological principles for the design and use of sustainable, managed ecological systems at the bioregional scale. Assess the ecological differences between relatively large but minimally disturbed ecosystems and ecosystems that have been heavily affected by humans, as a basis for enhancing productivity and restoring degraded ecosystems to a more productive state.

• Investigate the changes on ecosystem diversity and function as the influences of humans become more pervasive -- monitor the impacts of climate change, deforestation, and various forms of pollution and explore means of mitigating damages.

• Expand and improve the monitoring of biodiversity and ecological processes. Carry out ecological fieldwork to show how the various pieces fit together, discover the population dynamics of species of particular concern, assess the effects of fragmentation of natural habitats, and determine what management steps are required to enable ecosystems to flourish with their full complements of species.

• Intensify research in population ecology.

• Screen species for features of potential value to humanity.

• Support long-term ecological research at selected sites to advance scientists' understanding of ecosystem composition, structure, and function.

Advancing this research agenda will require intensified cooperation between developed and developing countries. Some of the highest-ranking research needs focus on tropical ecosystems, but developing tropical countries lack the funds and trained personnel to address them.