Overview
- Features essays that are explicitly critical of the species approach to biodiversity
- Presents bio-philosophical perspectives on the interaction between biodiversity’s units, levels, and scales
- Serves as an interdisciplinary contribution to the emergent field of biodiversity studies
Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences (HPTL, volume 24)
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About this book
The overexploitation of natural resources by our species is a frequently recognised factor, while the short-term economic interests of governments and stakeholders typically clash with the burdens that implementing conservation actions imply. But this is not the whole story. This book develops a different perspective on the problem by exploring the conceptual challenges and practical defiance posed by conserving biodiversity, namely: on the one hand, the difficulties in defining what biodiversity is and characterizing that “thing” to which the word ‘biodiversity’refers to; on the other hand, the reasons why assessing biodiversity and putting in place effective conservation actions is arduous.
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Keywords
- Biodiversity Conservation Policies
- Biodiversity Definition
- Biodiversity Levels
- Biodiversity Representations
- Biodiversity Units
- Biological Integrity
- Cryptic Species
- Descriptive vs. Normative
- Disparity and Biodiversity
- Ecological Functions
- Ecosystem Services
- Estimating Biodiversity
- Estimating Biodiversity
- Ipbes
- Natural History Museums and Biodiversity
- Natural vs. Artificial
- Open Access
- Philosophy of Biodiversity
- Process-Based Approach to Biodiversity
- Species-Based Approach to Biodiversity
Table of contents (21 chapters)
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Estimating Biodiversity: Data Collection and Monitoring Challenges
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Characterizing Biodiversity: Beyond the Species Approach
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Conserving Biodiversity: From Science to Policies
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Elena Casetta is assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and Educational Science at the University of Turin (Italy), where she teaches Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Biology. Trained in theoretical philosophy, she then specialized in philosophy of biology at the IHPST (Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques), CNRS/Paris 1/ENS Paris and at the Centre for Philosophy of Sciences of the University of Lisbon where she was the Principal Investigator of the Scientific Research and Technological Development Project “BIODECON – Which Biodiversity Definition for Biodiversity Conservation?” funded by the FCT, the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology. On the philosophy of biodiversity, she edited, with Julien Delord, La biodiversité en question. Enjeux philosophiques et scientifiques, Paris, Les Éditions Materiologiques, 2014 and she wrote, with Andrea Borghini, Filosofia da biodiversidade, Lisboa, Colibri, 2018.
Jorge Marques da Silva is assistant professor at the Faculty of Science and principal investigator at the Biosystems and Integrative Sciences Institute (University of Lisbon). As a plant physiologist, Jorge is interested on the mechanisms of response to stress, chiefly on the effects of drought stress on photosynthetic metabolism. His main scientific interest is on understanding how interactions of abiotic stresses with photosynthetic metabolism impairs primary productivity. Currently, Jorge is working in highthroughput plant phenotyping, aiming to unravel environment-genetic interactions in phenotype development, with the ultimate goal of improving crop responses to climate change. Jorge also developed a parallel interest in teaching and research in Global Bioethics, mainly Environmental Ethics.
Davide Vecchi is currently FCT Research Fellow at the Department of History and Philosophy of Sciences of the Faculty of Sciencesof the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Formed philosophically at Bologna University(Italy) and the LSE (UK) and biologically at the KLI (Austria) and the University of Santiago (Chile), Davide is broadly interested in theoretical issues in evolutionary biology, particularly concerning the nature of genomic change and the robustness of neutralist explanations of biological complexity. He is also interested in theoretical issues in developmental biology and, more generally, in the way contemporary biology informs philosophical debates concerning, for instance, causation, biological individuality and human nature. At the moment, his research focuses on making sense of the causal role of DNA, genes and genomes in development and evolution.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity
Book Subtitle: Conceptual and Practical Challenges
Editors: Elena Casetta, Jorge Marques da Silva, Davide Vecchi
Series Title: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10991-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-10990-5Published: 26 March 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-10991-2Published: 17 June 2019
Series ISSN: 2211-1948
Series E-ISSN: 2211-1956
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 452
Number of Illustrations: 36 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Biology, Biodiversity, Geoecology/Natural Processes, Ecosystems