Spring 2021 update | FAQ page | Class flexibility for students | Novel coronavirus updates
January 26, 2022
Kailin Kroetz, Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainability, has been appointed to the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of
the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Kailin serves as the CBO Program Lead for Economics and Biodiversity, bringing her knowledge of aquatic and terrestrial species management and economics.
December 9, 2021
The first global assessment of dragonflies via the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species indicated that the destruction of wetlands is a
major contributing factor to the decline of dragonfly populations across the globe. The marshes, swamps and rivers that these insects inhabit and breed are being lost to the expansion of unsustainable agricultural practices and urbanization. Dragonflies are just one of 142,577 species marked as being threatened by human action.
December 8, 2021
The International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) will be
hosted virtually from December 13th through the 17th. Pre-congress sessions, including workshops and training courses led by CBO faculty and affiliates, will take place on December 6th through 8th.
October 8, 2021
Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a delisting of 23 species that are believed to be extinct in the United States, joining about 900 species that have been documented as extinct around the world.
Even though the Fish and Wildlife Service produces this list annually, the numbers are becoming accelerated, according to Leah Gerber, a professor of conservation science in Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences.
September 30, 2021
Peru’s natural resources are under threat of overconsumption due to unsustainable land use, rapid development and poor land management. Entrepreneurs in Peru also lack resources to build viable enterprises that are reliant on those natural resources.
To tackle these issues, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the Amazon Business Alliance (formerly the Amazon Development Entrepreneurial & Learning Alliance (ADELA) program) to “engage investors, entrepreneurs and conservation-focused businesses to promote green growth, and decrease deforestation and natural resource degradation, while improving community livelihoods.”Peru’s natural resources are under threat of overconsumption due to unsustainable land use, rapid development and poor land management.
September 24, 2021
Plastic pollution in the oceans is one of the biggest issues we face as a planet.
To identify potential solutions, members of the Conservation Innovation Lab, including PhD student Erin Murphy and CBO founding director Leah Gerber, recently published “A decision framework for estimating the cost of marine plastic pollution interventions”, in Conservation Biology. The paper, published with members of the Plastic Pollution Emissions Working Group, presents a framework for evaluating the net cost of marine plastic pollution interventions. The researchers also applied the framework to two quantitative case studies and four qualitative case studies to explore how context of implementation influenced net costs.
Download the paper here: Murphy et al. 2021
News adapted from Conservation Innovation Lab
September 7, 2021
Newly released research from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) of the
status of commercial tunas was compiled by a team of ASU researchers, led by associate center director of CBO Beth Polidoro, in collaboration with assistant research professor David Shiffman, post-doc Krista Kempinnen, and the IUCN SSC Tuna and Billfish Specialist Group, chaired by Bruce Collette.
August 18, 2021
Program Lead for Coral Reef Conservation, Katie Cramer and Research Professor at the School of Sustainability, Jack Kittinger published an article exploring how market-based initiatives can increase the sustainability of fisheries entitled, 'Reef Conservation off the Hook: Can Market Interventions Make Coral Reef Fisheries More Sustainable?'
The health of coral reefs has taken a massive hit due to overfishing, pollution and climate change, which has had a grave impact on reef ecosystems and the people who depend on these reefs for food and job security.
According to their article, "Coral reef fisheries contribute up to one-quarter of the total fish catch in developing countries (Jameson et al., 1995) and account for more than one-quarter of all small-scale fishers (Teh et al., 2013). Reef fisheries are intensely exploited as a local source of protein and for export-oriented trades including the aquarium, live reef food fish, and dried sea cucumber (“beche-de-mer”) trades (Sadovy et al., 2003; Wabnitz et al., 2003; Purcell et al., 2013)."
Market-based solutions have been floated to decrease unsustainable production practices in wild-capture fisheries and seafood farming. The article discusses the benefits and potential pitfalls of these types of solutions.
August 6, 2021
A new paper on the transformation of Caribbean coral reefs throughout human existence was recently published by Katie Cramer, Program Lead for Coral Reef Conservation.
The authors integrated paleoecological, historical, and modern survey data to track the occurrence of major coral species and life-history groups throughout the Caribbean from the pre-human period to the present.
The findings revealed a long history of increasingly stressful environmental conditions on Caribbean reefs that began with widespread local human disturbances and have recently culminated in the combined effects of local and global change.
June 7, 2021
The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is currently seeking a student research assistant to work on an endangered species decision-making project.
Applicants must be currently enrolled. This project entails 100 hours of paid work during the month of June and potentially early July.
The student research assistant will be helping complete three tasks:
June 7, 2021
The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is currently hiring a new project manager. Applications close on Friday, June 19, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. AZ time (the deadline may be extended, based on when we secure a qualifying candidate).
The new project manager will help plan, direct, organize and execute the strategic goals of the center.
The person in this role will coordinate internal and external proposal development; act as the primary center liaison for partnerships and research collaborations; act as primary center contact for ASU and external engagement; and will identify and implement project management tools for program planning.
Click here to learn more and apply or apply via Careers at ASU.
June 7, 2021
An ASU-Conservation International study reveals that “the most important factor in protecting Liberia’s chimpanzees is simply to give them space – a radius of one to three kilometers of virgin forest,” as stated in an Afrik21 article titled “LIBERIA: giving chimpanzees space to thrive.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species recently listed chimpanzees as Critically Endangered. The IUCN Red List categories consist of: not evaluated, data deficient, least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, extinct.
June 1, 2021
Graduate students from the ASU School of Life Sciences’ Conservation Innovation Lab, which Professor Leah Gerber leads, published a paper today titled “Aligning actions with objectives in endangered species recovery plans” in Conservation Science and Practice.
To achieve conservation objectives for threatened and endangered species, managers must choose among potential recovery actions based on their efficacy. Yet, a lack of standardization in defining how conservation actions support recovery objectives can impede action efficacy and inhibit the efficient allocation of resources across species and projects. It is especially difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of actions in U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) recovery plans due to variation in how actions are described across different plans.
June 1, 2021
Science is not enough.
We need to translate knowledge into action to produce positive outcomes in biodiversity conservation.
That is why one of our main goals at the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is to develop evidence-based tools that inform action across all sectors: NGOs, governments and corporations.
A significant challenge to these organizations in measuring and valuing biodiversity is a lack of standardized assessment sets and indicators. We integrate disparate data and develop decision tools to account for the full suite of specific risks agencies in various sectors face.
May 26, 2021
The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is currently seeking an enthusiastic, sustainability-minded intern to support its daily administrative and communication projects.
Through this opportunity, interns will enhance transferable skills such as administrative organization, workflow, teamwork and strategic communication. They will also be exposed to a variety of fields such as copywriting and editing, social media, public relations and project management to advance biodiversity conservation efforts in the academic and environmental fields.
This is an unpaid position, but might be eligible for course credit.
This position can be performed remotely.
The search will remain open until we have secured an intern.
May 13, 2021
ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes facul affiliate Jorge Sefair, an assistant professor in the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program award of half a million dollars to research models and algorithms for strategic conservation planning.
Congratulations Jorge!
May 5, 2021
Yesterday, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber delivered a five-minute Congressional Testimony titled “Examining Biodiversity Loss: Drivers, Impacts, and Potential Solutions” to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
During her testimony, Gerber exposed the biodiversity and nature crisis we currently face.
“More species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction now than at any other time in human history. Twenty-five percent of all species – including 40% of amphibians and 30% of marine mammals – are threatened with extinction,” she explained. “And we’re not talking about just extinction; we’re also talking about the general decline of nature.”
April 14, 2021
Faculty and students from the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes and the Conservation Innovation Lab co-authorized a paper published yesterday in Frontiers in Marine Science, presenting their pilot study conducted last summer in Las Perlas Archipelago, Panama.
The publication, titled “Tourist Knowledge, Pro-Conservation Intentions, and Tourist Concern for the Impacts of Whale-Watching in Las Perlas Archipelago, Panama,” is a product of the ASU-Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute partnership and our collaboration with the University of San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador.
April 8, 2021
Newcastle University (UK) Research Associate Louise Mair, PhD, published a paper titled “A metric for spatially explicit contributions to science-based species targets” in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
According to the publication, sustainable crop and timber production could prevent 40% of the extinction of terrestrial wildlife – amphibians, birds and mammals. Scientists generated these results using a new metric by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) Metric.
April 1, 2021
Arizona State University partnered with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to co-host the virtual 2021 AAAS Annual Meeting titled “Understanding Dynamic Ecosystems.”
Different university units shared their expertise, including leadership and faculty affiliates from the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, such as School of Life Sciences Professor Leah Gerber and School of Public Affairs Associate Professor Derrick Anderson. They facilitated a session called “The Art of Bringing Evidence to Decision-Making in Conservation Science.”
