Ten-year assessment of the 100 priority questions for global biodiversity conservation

Conserv Biol. 2018 Dec;32(6):1457-1463. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13159. Epub 2018 Sep 10.

Abstract

In 2008, a group of conservation scientists compiled a list of 100 priority questions for the conservation of the world's biodiversity. However, now almost a decade later, no one has yet published a study gauging how much progress has been made in addressing these 100 high-priority questions in the peer-reviewed literature. We took a first step toward reexamining the 100 questions to identify key knowledge gaps that remain. Through a combination of a questionnaire and a literature review, we evaluated each question on the basis of 2 criteria: relevance and effort. We defined highly relevant questions as those that - if answered - would have the greatest impact on global biodiversity conservation and quantified effort based on the number of review publications addressing a particular question, which we used as a proxy for research effort. Using this approach, we identified a set of questions that, despite being perceived as highly relevant, have been the focus of relatively few review publications over the past 10 years. These questions covered a broad range of topics but predominantly tackled 3 major themes: conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems, role of societal structures in shaping interactions between people and the environment, and impacts of conservation interventions. We believe these questions represent important knowledge gaps that have received insufficient attention and may need to be prioritized in future research.

Keywords: agenda de investigación; análisis de redes; cuestionario; escaneo del horizonte; establecimiento de prioridades; horizon scanning; knowledge gaps; literature review; network analysis; priority setting; questionnaire; research agenda; revisión de la literatura; vacíos de conocimiento; 文献综述, 水平扫描,知识空缺, 网络分析, 确定保护优先性, 问卷, 研究议程.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biodiversity
  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Ecosystem*
  • Fresh Water