Systematics, Ecology, and the Biodiversity Crisis

Contents: Introduction: systematics, ecology, and the biodiversity crisis/Niles Eldredge. 1. Where the Twain Meet: causal intersections between the genealogical and ecological realms/Niles Eldredge. 2. Patterns of biodiversity/Norman I. Platnick. 3. Systematic versus ecological diversity: the example of the Malagasy Primates/Ian Tattersall. 4. Spilling over the competitive limits to species coexistence/George Stevens. 5. Explaining patterns of biological diversity: integrating causation at different spatial and temporal scales/Joel Cracraft. 6. Phylogenetic and ecologic patterns in the phanerozoic history of Marine Biodiversity/J. John Sepkoski, Jr. 7. The meaning of systematics and the biodiversity crisis/Michael J. Novacek. 8. Phylogenetic analysis and the role of systematics in the biodiversity crisis/Melanie L.J. Stiassny. 9. Systematics, biodiversity and conservation biology/George F. Barrowclough. 10. Systematics and Marine Conservation/Judith E. Winston. 11. The Conservation of Animal Diversity in Cuba/Gilberto Silva Taboada. 12. Living collections and biodiversity/Nathan R. Flesness. 13. Third World Museums and biodiversity/P.E. Vanzolini. Contributors. Index.

"Which species can be saved, when all cannot? Systematics, Ecology and the Biodiversity Crisis provides critical tools for finding answers to the current of systematic biology. Systematists are in a unique position to identify critical areas of endemism and additional criteria for the identification of habitats and species most urgently in need of protection.

The result of a symposium held at the American Museum of Natural History, this book fills a void created by other volumes that have explored the biodiversity crisis exclusively from an ecological stance. "It may well be that the dynamics of extinction processes will prove to be exclusively in the domain of moment-by-moment interactive processes of matter-energy transfer: the realm of ecology. But the problems of extinction", Eldredge argues, "can be defined, recognized, measured, and assessed only through the tools of the systematist". Included are noted systematists, paleontologists and ecologists who explore the relationship between ecology and systematics as it pertains to understanding the origin, maintenance and loss of biological diversity. The role of museums, zoos and related institutions is also examined."