this morning) although I have also added some older papers from the “classical period” of conservation biology (the 1980s). A new glossary and many new illustrations are also prominent features of this edition.
Third edition: 15 May 2006 I am returning home from a 4‐month sabbatical in Australia, where weekends were spiced with pursuing wombats, whale sharks, and lyre birds, just in time to work on the production phase of this book. Two years ago when I decided to invite a coauthor to join me it took about 10 seconds to identify James Gibbs and, the next day, it took even less time for him to accept. I have worked with James for 25 years, since he was a new student at the University of Maine and I was a new professor, and it has always been a pleasure. James’ expertise with genetics and population biology, complementary experiences with field conservation projects around the world, and his willingness to dive into the social sciences was just what was needed to strengthen this edition.
Another salient feature of this edition is a strong shift to color images. Finding illustrations for this edition has been an enjoyable challenge and we are grateful to the many people whose works appear here.
Of course the substance of revising any textbook lies in new literature, and the field of conservation biology remains vigorous in this regard. The 762 new references added here are just a small sample of the high‐quality research that characterizes the discipline. We have also added three new case studies, holding back somewhat because we think case studies should largely be generated and presented by faculty and students based on their own experiences and interests. Overall the book is 6% longer than the last edition as measured by the number of words, but 50 pages shorter because of more compact formatting.
As with earlier editions, the royalties are going into a fund to support conservation students from developing countries, most recently the fieldwork of a student from Argentina studying cavity‐nesting birds in the Andes for her dissertation. In time the royalties will be sufficient for an endowed, perennial source of support for similar aspiring conservationists.
Fourth edition: 31 December 2019 New Year’s Eve and a steady snow is luring me outdoors to celebrate a thirtieth wedding anniversary, but first I need to draft the last few new words for our fourth edition. The most conspicuous new feature is the addition of Viorel Popescu as an author, continuing a tradition of extending academic lineages, given that Viorel earned graduate degrees with both James and me. Undertaking a collaboration like this requires considerable trust and James and I knew that Viorel had the talent and commitment to make a huge contribution to the book, leading the revision of four key chapters and carefully reviewing all of the chapters. Furthermore, he brought to the table many new perspectives as a native of another part of the world – Romania – where he remains active in conservation at many levels.
With a long interval since the third edition there has been a vast new literature to comb through, and it was challenging to limit the new additions to “only” 950 new references. The conservation literature has expanded dramatically, by embracing new theory and methods, and documenting many examples of both conservation successes, and the hard lessons of real‐world “wicked” environmental problems. For example, climate change was a mere hypothesis when this book began; now it is a defining reality, the focus of one chapter, and an underlying thread in many others. Many other chapters have been reformulated to reflect the ever‐changing landscape of conservation biology, among them “Conservation near People” that represents a new shift in attention to the privately owned lands where much of the future of biodiversity conservation will play out. Similarly, we have been more inclined to add new case studies than to remove old ones, but in the interest of keeping the length reasonable we have often opted for new images with long legends that constitute mini case studies. In short, this edition represents a substantial “overhaul” from the last edition.
Royalties from this book continue to support conservation students from developing countries and have finally reached a level sufficient to fund an endowed scholarship. Indeed, the first recipient, a student from Brazil, begins her PhD work 2 weeks from today.
A quarter of a century has passed since I finished the preface to the first edition of this book, and in many respects the world and this book are profoundly different. However, much remains the same: life on Earth is awesome, in the original, fundamental sense of that word, and now, more than ever, it needs the attention of dedicated stewards like you.
M. L. Hunter, Jr.
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to the many people who have critiqued the manuscript in its various drafts, especially in its first edition: Susan Bratton, Sheila Conant, Alan Cooperrider, Phillip deMaynadier, Ann Dieffenbacher‐Krall, Alison Dibble, Matthew Evans, Carol Foss, Ed Grumbine, Vicki Ludden, Gerry Niemi, Chris Norment, Kimberly Peterson, Margaret Ronsheim, Tom Sherry, Marcia Shofner, Larry Alice, Drew Allen, Fred Allendorf, Mark Anderson, Doug Armstrong, Mike Baer, Steve Beissinger, Judy Blake, Kevin Boyle, Baird Callicott, Christopher Campbell, Jim Carlton, MaryEllen Chilelli, Susan Clark, Richard Cowling, John Craig, Eric Dinerstein, Dave Field, Jim Fraser, Tom Gavin, Larry Harris, Leslie Hudson, David Jablonski, George Jacobson, Susan Jacobson, Steve Kellert, Roger King, Sharon Kinsman, Rick Knight, lrv Kornfield, Bill Krohn, Rich Langton, David Lindenmayer, John Litvaitis, Annarie Lyle, Georgina Mace, Mary Ann McGarry, Janet McMahon, Curt Meine, Laura Merrick, Ed Minot, Peter Moyle, Trinto Mugangu, Dara Newman, David Norton, Reed Noss, Judith Rhymer, Miles Roberts, Joshua Royte, Kathy Saterson, Mark Shaffer, Michael Soulé, Bob Steneck, Eleanor Sterling, Kat Stewart, Stan Temple, Shelly Thomas, Nat Wheelwright, Bob Wiese, David Wilcove, E. O. Wilson, and Joe Zydlewski. The first 16 merit special mention for reading all or most of the book.
On the production side many folks have worked hard to create this book. These include, in roughly chronological order: Jane Humphreys, Simon Rallison, Bob Calhoun, Julie Dodge, Chris Halsted, Shirley Moulton, Lincoln Hunt, Shawn Girsberger, Elizabeth Frank, Nancy Whilton, Sarah Graves, Janey Fisher, Andrew Connolly, Antony Sami, Mandy Collison and Ruth Swan.
Last but not certainly not least, are our partners in life and conservation, Aram Calhoun, Thane Joyal, and Bekka Brodie, who have helped with this book in many direct and indirect ways.
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a companion website:
www.wiley.com/Conservation‐Biology4e
The website includes:
Figures from the book for downloading
PART I
Biodiversity and Its Importance
Think about our world and its wild things: a marsh splashed and flecked with the colors of flowers and dragonflies, the rhythmic roar and swoosh of waves punctuated by the strident calls of gulls, a dark forest pungent with the odors of unseen life teeming below a carpet of leaves and mosses. Now imagine a future world utterly dominated by concrete and regimented rows of crops – a hot, dry, monotonous, and unhealthy home for us and the species we have chosen for domestication. This book is about hope in the face
