- SLOSS Debate
The SLOSS Debate was a debate in
ecology andconservation biology during the 1970s and 1980s as to whether a Single Large or Several Small (SLOSS) reserves was a superior means of conservingbiodiversity in a fragmented habitat.In 1975
Jared Diamond suggested some "rules" for the design of protected areas, based onRobert MacArthur andE. O. Wilson 's "Theory of Island Biogeography". One of his suggestions was that a single large reserve was preferable to several smaller reserves whose total area was the same as that of the single large reserve. Sincespecies richness increases with habitat area, a larger block of habitat would support more species than any of the smaller blocks. This idea was popularised by many other ecologists, and has been incorporated into most standard textbooks in conservation biology, and was used in real-world conservation planning. This idea was challenged by Wilson's former studentDaniel Simberloff who pointed out that this idea relied on the assumption that smaller reserves had a "nested" species composition - it assumed that each larger reserve had all the species presented in any smaller reserve. If the smaller reserves had unshared species, then it was possible that two smaller reserves could have more species than a single large reserve. Debate ensued as to the extent to which smaller reserves shared species with one another, leading to the development of "nested subset theory" byBruce Patterson andWirt Atmar in the 1980s and to the establishment of theBiological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) nearManaus ,Brazil in 1980 byThomas Lovejoy .ee also
*
Island biogeography References
* Atmar, W. and B.D. Patterson. 1993. "The measure of order and disorder in the distribution of species in fragmented habitat." "
Oecologia " 96:373-382.
* Diamond, J.M. 1975. "The Island Dilemma: Lessons of Modern Biogeographic Studies for the Design of Natural Reserves". "Biological Conservation" Vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129-146
* MacArthur, R. H. and Wilson, E. O. 1967. "The Theory of Island Biogeography" Princeton University Press.
* Patterson, B.D. and W. Atmar. 1986. "Nested subsets and the structure of insular mammalian faunas and archipelagos." "In:" Heaney L.R. and Patterson B.D. (eds), "Island biogeography of mammals." Academic Press, London, pp 65-82.
* Simberloff, D. S. and L. G. Abele. 1976. Island biogeography theory and conservation practice. "Science" 191: 285-286
* Simberloff, D. S. and L. G. Abele. 1982. Refuge design and island biogeograpic theory - effects of fragmentation. "American Naturalist " 120:41-56
* Wilcox, B. A., and D. D. Murphy. 1985. Conservation strategy - effects of fragmentation on extinction. "American Naturalist" 125:879-887
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
