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Creative Conservation pp 50–66Cite as

Meta-populations: is management as flexible as nature?

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Abstract

Conservation is a very recent science that has been built from a basis in ecology and evolutionary biology (Soulé, 1985; Simberloff, 1988). Early players in the formulation of the applied science of conservation were the geneticists who, seeing that they could assist conservation, offered the idea of the preservation of genetic diversity as a component of conservation. Unfortunately for conservation and genetics, these first ideas rapidly became enshrined as dogma by those unable to question the assumptions of the new application of genetics. Ecologists joined the geneticists, and offered viability analyses as a start to adding demographic information to that supplied by the geneticists. Both of these sources of information may help any particular conservation initiative but how they are applied and their relative importance can only be determined by how the assumptions of the different genetic, ecological and behavioural models match the organisms involved. It is important to ask whether we are trying to conserve real or theoretical populations.

Keywords

  • Effective Population Size
  • Conservation Biology
  • Captive Population
  • Open Public Access
  • Minimum Viable Population

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Auckland, New Zealand

    J. L. Craig

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  1. J. L. Craig
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zoological Gardens, Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland, London, UK

    P. J. S. Olney

  2. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK

    G. M. Mace

  3. Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, Les Augres Manor, Trinity, Jersey, JE3 5BF, Channel Islands, USA

    A. T. C. Feistner

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Craig, J.L. (1994). Meta-populations: is management as flexible as nature?. In: Olney, P.J.S., Mace, G.M., Feistner, A.T.C. (eds) Creative Conservation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0721-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0721-1_3

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