Jump to content

Flagship species: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
doi
Line 10: Line 10:


== Definitions ==
== Definitions ==
Several definitions have been advanced for the flagship species concept and for some time there has been confusion even in the academic literature.<ref name="Veríssimo Framework">Veríssimo, D., MacMillan, D. C.; Smith, R. J. 2011. Toward a systematic approach for identifying conservation flagships. Conservation Letters 4:1-8.</ref> Most of the latest definitions focus on the strategic and socio-economical character of the concept, with a recent publication establishing a clear link with the marketing field.<ref name="Veríssimo Framework" /><ref name="Ducarme2012">{{cite journal |last=Ducarme |first=Frédéric |last2=Luque |first2=Gloria M. |last3=Courchamp |first3=Franck |title=What are "charismatic species" for conservation biologists ? |url=http://biologie.ens-lyon.fr/ressources/bibliographies/m1-11-12-biosci-reviews-ducarme-f-1c-m.xml |journal=BioSciences Master Reviews |year=2012 |accessdate=19 December 2013}}</ref>
Several definitions have been advanced for the flagship species concept and for some time there has been confusion even in the academic literature.<ref name="Veríssimo Framework">{{cite journal | last=Verissimo | first=Diogo | last2=MacMillan | first2=Douglas C. | last3=Smith | first3=Robert J. | title=Toward a systematic approach for identifying conservation flagships | journal=Conservation Letters | volume=4 | issue=1 | date=2010-11-29 | doi=10.1111/j.1755-263x.2010.00151.x | pages=1–8}}</ref> Most of the latest definitions focus on the strategic and socio-economical character of the concept, with a recent publication establishing a clear link with the marketing field.<ref name="Veríssimo Framework" /><ref name="Ducarme2012">{{cite journal |last=Ducarme |first=Frédéric |last2=Luque |first2=Gloria M. |last3=Courchamp |first3=Franck |title=What are "charismatic species" for conservation biologists ? |url=http://biologie.ens-lyon.fr/ressources/bibliographies/m1-11-12-biosci-reviews-ducarme-f-1c-m.xml |journal=BioSciences Master Reviews |year=2012 |accessdate=19 December 2013}}</ref>


* "a species used as the focus of a broader conservation marketing campaign based on its possession of one or more traits that appeal to the target audience".<ref name="Veríssimo Framework" />
* "a species used as the focus of a broader conservation marketing campaign based on its possession of one or more traits that appeal to the target audience".<ref name="Veríssimo Framework" />
* "species that have the ability to capture the imagination of the public and induce people to support conservation action and/or to donate funds"<ref>Walpole, M. J., Leader-Williams N. (2002). Tourism and flagship species in conservation. Biodiversity Conservation 11: 543–547.</ref>
* "species that have the ability to capture the imagination of the public and induce people to support conservation action and/or to donate funds"<ref>{{cite journal | last=Walpole | first=Matthew J. | last2=Leader‐Williams | first2=Nigel | journal=Biodiversity and Conservation | volume=11 | issue=3 | year=2002 | doi=10.1023/a:1014864708777 | pages=543–547}}</ref>
* "popular, charismatic species that serve as symbols and rallying points to stimulate conservation awareness and action"<ref>{{cite book |author=Heywood, V. H. |date=1995 |title=Global Biodiversity Assessment |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521564816}}<!-- cited in Ducarme 2013, next ref--></ref><ref name="Ducarme2012"/>
* "popular, charismatic species that serve as symbols and rallying points to stimulate conservation awareness and action"<ref>{{cite book |author=Heywood, V. H. |date=1995 |title=Global Biodiversity Assessment |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521564816}}<!-- cited in Ducarme 2012, next ref--></ref><ref name="Ducarme2012"/>


The term flagship is linked to the [[metaphor]] of representation. In its popular usage, flagships are viewed as ambassadors or icons for a conservation project or movement. Maan Barua noted that metaphors influence what people understand and how they act; that mammals are disproportionately chosen; and that biologists need to come to grips with language to improve the public's knowledge of conservation.<ref name="Barua Metaphor">{{cite journal | last=Barua | first=Maan | title=Mobilizing metaphors: the popular use of keystone, flagship and umbrella species concepts | journal=Biodiversity and Conservation| volume=20 | issue=7 | year=2011 | doi=10.1007/s10531-011-0035-y | pages=1427–1440}}</ref>
The term flagship is linked to the [[metaphor]] of representation. In its popular usage, flagships are viewed as ambassadors or icons for a conservation project or movement. Maan Barua noted that metaphors influence what people understand and how they act; that mammals are disproportionately chosen; and that biologists need to come to grips with language to improve the public's knowledge of conservation.<ref name="Barua Metaphor">{{cite journal | last=Barua | first=Maan | title=Mobilizing metaphors: the popular use of keystone, flagship and umbrella species concepts | journal=Biodiversity and Conservation| volume=20 | issue=7 | year=2011 | doi=10.1007/s10531-011-0035-y | pages=1427–1440}}</ref>

Revision as of 08:37, 22 April 2018

Zanzibar red colobus as flagship species for a conservation organization in Zanzibar, Tanzania

In conservation biology, a flagship species is a species chosen to raise support for biodiversity conservation in a chosen place or context. Definitions have varied, but they have tended to focus on the strategic and socio-economical character of the concept, to support the marketing of a conservation effort. The chosen species are agreed to need to be popular, able to act as symbols or icons, and to stimulate people to provide money or support.

Species chosen since the 1980s include widely recognised and charismatic species like the black rhinoceros, the Bengal tiger, and the Asian elephant. More locally significant species like the Chesapeake blue crab and the Pemba flying fox have been chosen to suit a cultural and social context.

Choosing a flagship species has limitations. It can skew management and conservation priorities; these may conflict; and loss of the flagship species can negatively affect stakeholders. It may have limited effect, and the approach may not protect the species from extinction: all of the top ten charismatic groups of animal including tigers, lions, elephants and giraffes are endangered.

Ecologically, flagship species are sometimes also keystone species, those which like the African lion have an important controlling role in their ecosystems.

Definitions

Several definitions have been advanced for the flagship species concept and for some time there has been confusion even in the academic literature.[1] Most of the latest definitions focus on the strategic and socio-economical character of the concept, with a recent publication establishing a clear link with the marketing field.[1][2]

  • "a species used as the focus of a broader conservation marketing campaign based on its possession of one or more traits that appeal to the target audience".[1]
  • "species that have the ability to capture the imagination of the public and induce people to support conservation action and/or to donate funds"[3]
  • "popular, charismatic species that serve as symbols and rallying points to stimulate conservation awareness and action"[4][2]

The term flagship is linked to the metaphor of representation. In its popular usage, flagships are viewed as ambassadors or icons for a conservation project or movement. Maan Barua noted that metaphors influence what people understand and how they act; that mammals are disproportionately chosen; and that biologists need to come to grips with language to improve the public's knowledge of conservation.[5]

More recently, work in microbiology[6][7] has started to use the concept of flagship species in a distinct way. This work relates to the biogeography of micro-organisms and uses particular species because "eyecatching "flagships" with conspicuous size and/or morphology are the best distribution indicators".[6]

Chosen species

The twenty-five biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities (green)[8]

Twenty-five biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities have been identified.[8]

Examples of flagship species include the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris), the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), the Golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia), the African elephant (Loxodonta sp.) and Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).[1][9] However, because flagship species are always selected according to the priority audience they are hoping to influence, these species can also belong to traditionally uncharismatic groups, if the cultural and social content is right.[10][1] Examples of less charismatic but locally significant species include the use of the Pemba flying fox as a flagship in Tanzania,[10] and of the Chesapeake blue crab as a flagship in the USA.[11]

Some flagship species are apex predators, like the African lion, which once had an important role as a keystone species: it used to control the populations of large herbivores, protecting ecosystems across the entire landscape.[12][13] The WWF distinguishes flagship, keystone, and indicator species, those which act as a usefully measurable proxy for the health of an ecosystem or process within an ecosystem; it selects either a flagship or a keystone species as a "priority species" for its own purposes.[14]

Flagship species can represent an environmental feature (e.g. a species or ecosystem), cause (e.g. climate change or ocean acidification), organization (e.g. NGO or government department) or geographic region (e.g. state or protected area).[1][15][16]

  • Eurasian lynx as flagship species for a protected area in Poland
    Eurasian lynx as flagship species for a protected area in Poland
  • Bald eagle as flagship species for forests in the United States
    Bald eagle as flagship species for forests in the United States
  • Tiger as flagship species for a campaign at Berijam lake in Kodaikanal, India
    Tiger as flagship species for a campaign at Berijam lake in Kodaikanal, India
  • 5000 Tanzanian shillings bank note with Black rhinoceros as a flagship species for the country's wildlife
    5000 Tanzanian shillings bank note with Black rhinoceros as a flagship species for the country's wildlife

History

The flagship species concept appears to have become popular around the mid 1980s[17] within the debate on how to prioritise species for conservation. The first widely available references to use the flagship concept applied it to both neotropical primates[18] and African elephants and rhinos,[19] in the typical mammal centric approach that still dominates how the concept is used today[9][16][20] The use of flagship species has been dominated by large bodied animals,[21] especially mammals,[20] although members of other taxonomic groups have occasionally been used.[22]

Selection

Flagship species can be selected according to many different characteristics depending on what is valued by the audience they try to target.[1][16] This is best illustrated by the differences in recommendations made for flagship species selection targeting different target audiences such as local communities.[23] and tourists.[21]

Limitations

Several limitations have been recognized on the use of flagship species:[24]

  • The use of flagship species can skew the management and conservation priorities in their favour and to the detriment of more threatened species[25]
  • The managements of different flagships can conflict[25]
  • The disappearance of the flagship can have negative impacts on the attitudes of the conservation stakeholders[25]

Flagship species may have limited impact on the behaviour of donors, if the donors cannot dedicate much time to processing the campaign message.[26]

However, charisma does not seem to protect such species against extinction. All ten of the most charismatic groups[a] of animal, namely tiger, lion, elephant, giraffe, leopard, panda, cheetah, polar bear, wolf, and gorilla, are currently endangered; only the giant panda shows a demographic growth from an extremely small population. The public has ignored the "high risk of imminent extinction in the wild" of these species; Franck Courchamp and colleagues suggest that this may be because of their "observed biased perception of their abundance" from the ubiquity of images of these animals in popular culture. The use of images of charismatic animals in marketing may thus be harming their conservation. The authors also observe that this is despite the fact that "conservation efforts are indeed probably disproportionately focused" on these most charismatic species.[27]

A major challenge for the deployment of several flagship species in non-Western contexts is that they may come into conflict with local communities, thereby jeopardizing well-intended conservation actions. This has been termed 'flagship mutiny' and is exemplified by the Asian elephant in countries where there is human-elephant conflict.[9]

Other types of conservation flagships

Conservation flagships can also appear at broader levels, for example as ecosystems (such as coral reefs or rainforests or protected areas (Serengeti or Yellowstone).[1] A number of recent initiatives has developed new conservation flagships based on conservation values of particular areas or species. Examples of these are the EDGE project run by the Zoological Society of London and the Hotspots run by Conservation International.[1]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Elephant includes African savannah, African forest, and Asian species; giraffe has been split into four species.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Verissimo, Diogo; MacMillan, Douglas C.; Smith, Robert J. (2010-11-29). "Toward a systematic approach for identifying conservation flagships". Conservation Letters. 4 (1): 1–8. doi:10.1111/j.1755-263x.2010.00151.x.
  2. ^ a b Ducarme, Frédéric; Luque, Gloria M.; Courchamp, Franck (2012). "What are "charismatic species" for conservation biologists ?". BioSciences Master Reviews. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  3. ^ Walpole, Matthew J.; Leader‐Williams, Nigel (2002). Biodiversity and Conservation. 11 (3): 543–547. doi:10.1023/a:1014864708777. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ^ Heywood, V. H. (1995). Global Biodiversity Assessment. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521564816.
  5. ^ Barua, Maan (2011). "Mobilizing metaphors: the popular use of keystone, flagship and umbrella species concepts". Biodiversity and Conservation. 20 (7): 1427–1440. doi:10.1007/s10531-011-0035-y.
  6. ^ a b Foissner, Wilhelm (April 2005). "Two new "flagship" ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Venezuela: Sleighophrys pustulata and Luporinophrys micelae". European Journal of Protistology. 41 (2): 99–117. doi:10.1016/j.ejop.2004.10.002.
  7. ^ Foissner, W.; Stoeck, T. (2006), "Rigidothrix goiseri nov gen., nov spec. (Rigidotrichidae nov fam.), a new "flagship" ciliate from the Niger floodplain breaks the flexibility-dogma in the classification of stichotrichine spirotrichs (Ciliophora, Spirotrichea)", European Journal of Protistology, 42: 249–267, doi:10.1016/j.ejop.2006.07.003
  8. ^ a b Myers, N., et al. (2000) "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities." Nature 403:853–858.
  9. ^ a b c Barua, M., J. Tamuly, and R.A.Ahmed. 2010. Mutiny or clear sailing: examining the role of the Asian elephant as a flagship species. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 15(2):145-160.
  10. ^ a b Bowen-Jones, Evan; Entwistle, Abigail (2002). "Identifying appropriate flagship species: the importance of culture and local contexts". Oryx. 36 (2): 189–195. doi:10.1017/S0030605302000261.
  11. ^ "Save the Crabs – Then Eat 'Em | The NSMC". www.thensmc.com. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
  12. ^ "The African lion: what faster decline of apex predator means for ecosystems". The Conversation. 26 October 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
  13. ^ Hale, Sarah L.; Koprowski, John L. (February 2018). "Ecosystem-level effects of keystone species reintroduction: a literature review". Restoration Ecology. Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1111/rec.12684.
  14. ^ "Global Species Programe: how WWF classifies species | Know your flagship, keystone, priority and indicator species". WWF. 2017. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
  15. ^ Veríssimo, D., D. C. MacMillan, and R. J. Smith. 2011. Marketing diversity: a response to Joseph and colleagues. Conservation Letters 4:326-327.
  16. ^ a b c Barua, Maan; Root-Bernstein, Meredith; Ladle, Richard J.; Jepson, Paul (2011-01-04). "Defining Flagship Uses is Critical for Flagship Selection: A Critique of the IUCN Climate Change Flagship Fleet". AMBIO. 40 (4): 431–435. doi:10.1007/s13280-010-0116-2.
  17. ^ Frazier, J. 2005. Marine turtles: the role of flagship species in interactions between people and the Sea MAST, 3(2) and 4(1),5–38
  18. ^ Mittermeier, R. 1988. Primate diversity and the tropical forest. Pages 145-154 in E. O. Wilson, editor. Biodiversity. National Academy Press. Washington, DC.
  19. ^ Mittermeier, R. A. 1986. Primate conservation priorities in the Neotropical region. Pages 221–240 in K. Benirschke, (ed.) Primates: The road to self-sustaining populations. SpringerVerlag, New York
  20. ^ a b Leader-Williams, N.; Dublin, H. T. (2000). Entwistle, Abigail (ed.). Charismatic megafauna as 'flagship species'. Cambridge University Press. pp. 53–81. ISBN 978-0-521-77536-6. OCLC 42682803. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ a b Veríssimo, D.; Fraser, I.; Groombridge, J.; Bristol, R.; MacMillan, D. C. (2009-07-03). "Birds as tourism flagship species: a case study of tropical islands". Animal Conservation. 12 (6). Wiley-Blackwell: 549–558. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1795.2009.00282.x.
  22. ^ Guiney, Margaret; Oberhauser, Karen (2009-02-01). "Insects as flagship conservation species". Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews. 1 (2). Brill Academic Publishers: 111–123. doi:10.1163/187498308x414733.
  23. ^ Bowen-Jones E., Entwistle A. (2002) Identifying appropriate flagship species: the importance of culture and local contexts. Oryx 36, 189-195.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Charisma was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ a b c Simberloff D. (1998) Flagships, umbrellas, and keystones: Is single-species management passe in the landscape era? Biological Conservation 83, 247-257.
  26. ^ Veríssimo, Diogo; Campbell, Hamish A.; Tollington, Simon; MacMillan, Douglas C.; Smith, Robert J. (2018-01-25). "Why do people donate to conservation? Insights from a 'real world' campaign". PLOS ONE. 13 (1): e0191888. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0191888. ISSN 1932-6203.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  27. ^ Courchamp, F.; Jaric, I.; Albert, C.; Meinard, Y.; Ripple, W. J.; Chapron, G. (April 2018). "The paradoxical extinction of the most charismatic animals". PLOS Biology. 16 (4): e2003997. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2003997.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flagship_species&oldid=837674748"