Critically EndangeredAn IUCN Red List Critically Endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of 2021, of the 120,372 species currently tracked by the IUCN, there are 8,404 species that are considered to be Critically Endangered. The IUCN Red List provides the public with information regarding the conservation status of animal, fungi, and plant species.
Adaptive managementAdaptive management, also known as adaptive resource management or adaptive environmental assessment and management, is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty over time via system monitoring. In this way, decision making simultaneously meets one or more resource management objectives and, either passively or actively, accrues information needed to improve future management.
Urban wildlifeUrban wildlife is wildlife that can live or thrive in urban/suburban environments or around densely populated human settlements such as townships. Some urban wildlife, such as house mice, are synanthropic, ecologically associated with and even evolved to become entirely dependent on human habitats. For instance, the range of many synanthropic species is expanded to latitudes at which they could not survive the winter outside of the shelterings provided by human settlements.
Biodiversity bankingBiodiversity banking, also known as biodiversity trading or conservation banking, biodiversity mitigation banks, compensatory habitat, set-asides, biodiversity offsets, are conservation activities that compensate for the loss of biodiversity with the goal of biodiversity maintenance through a framework which allows biodiversity to be reliably measured, and market based solutions applied to improving biodiversity. Biodiversity banking provides a means to place a monetary value on ecosystem services.
Mountain gorillaThe mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN as of 2018. There are two populations: One is found in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central/East Africa, within three National Parks: Mgahinga, in southwest Uganda; Volcanoes, in northwest Rwanda; and Virunga, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The other population is found in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
MetapopulationA metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The term metapopulation was coined by Richard Levins in 1969 to describe a model of population dynamics of insect pests in agricultural fields, but the idea has been most broadly applied to species in naturally or artificially fragmented habitats. In Levins' own words, it consists of "a population of populations".
Biodiversity hotspotA biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in The Environmentalist in 1988 and 1990, after which the concept was revised following thorough analysis by Myers and others into “Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions” and a paper published in the journal Nature, both in 2000.
Ecological Society of AmericaThe Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. It holds an annual meeting at different locations in the USA and Canada. In addition to its publications and annual meeting, ESA is engaged in public policy, science, education and diversity issues. ESA's 9,000 members are researchers, educators, natural resource managers, and students in over 90 countries.
Species complexIn biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each other, further blurring any distinctions. Terms that are sometimes used synonymously but have more precise meanings are cryptic species for two or more species hidden under one species name, sibling species for two (or more) species that are each other's closest relative, and species flock for a group of closely related species that live in the same habitat.
Population viability analysisPopulation viability analysis (PVA) is a species-specific method of risk assessment frequently used in conservation biology. It is traditionally defined as the process that determines the probability that a population will go extinct within a given number of years. More recently, PVA has been described as a marriage of ecology and statistics that brings together species characteristics and environmental variability to forecast population health and extinction risk.
