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As a landscape ecologist, Valente studies how individual ecosystems fit into larger wholes, including why they form and the patterns they create together. U.S. Geological Survey Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit He is an assistant professor at Auburn University, but his path to becoming a scientific mediator began while he was a doctoral student at Oregon State University.
Like most graduate students, he attends lab meetings with his classmates and advisor. One topic that has been discussed for a long time is the impact of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. The scientific community has long debated how an ecosystem that is broken into pieces affects the number of species in the surrounding areas. What makes the debate even more interesting is that habitat fragmentation is often caused by humans.
It is an indisputable fact that all life forms need space. Scientists recognize that a species’ biology and ecology determine how much space it needs: some species require large tracts of unspoiled habitat, while others do not.
Humans can break up once-continuous habitats through development projects such as building roads through forests, or they can create larger habitats out of former habitats, such as by merging many small, shallow ponds into a larger, deeper lake. While humans are the main cause of habitat fragmentation today, it can also occur naturally, such as When a tornado sweeps through the forest.
What interested Valente and his graduate school colleagues was that ecologists were divided into two camps, one with strong evidence that habitat fragmentation harms biodiversity and the other with equally strong evidence that the opposite was true, that habitat fragmentation increases biodiversity.
Biodiversity is essential to the health of ecosystems and our own communities, but it has been declining globally, so the risk is high. Understanding whether habitat fragmentation is beneficial or harmful is essential for conservation planning.
Like most enthusiastic, budding scientists, Valente devoured every paper on the topic. But with each paper he finished, he became more and more confused. Science was not moving toward a consensus, and each side was only sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire created by this debate.
Valente wondered if he, a person who knew a lot about the science, was confused, what did that mean to non-scientists? And if the science said something completely different, how should people who needed to make decisions about conservation priorities based on the science do so?
After earning his PhD, Valente’s confusion about the debate began to turn to frustration. Neither side of the habitat fragmentation debate seemed willing to come together to resolve the dispute.
Valente wanted to help, but as a budding landscape ecologist, he wasn’t ready to challenge his predecessors to think differently. So he bided his time, hoping that others would begin to fill the void created by the habitat fragmentation debate. But no one did.
Then, Paper by Jon Norberg et al. He drew attention to the concept of “stalemate” debates in environmental science — debates in which both sides refuse to agree — and warned that they could hinder conservation progress. That’s because people rely on science to guide their decisions when making environmental policies, such as what to protect and where.
Faced with more than one “right answer,” the authors note, policymakers can choose science that supports their own agenda or ignore it altogether. They argue that these stalemated debates undermine the role of science—which is policy-neutral—to inform environmental policy.
The message in the Norberg newspaper resonated with Valente, prompting him to finally try to resolve, or at least draw attention to, the debate over habitat fragmentation and biodiversity.
Valente set out to do something crazy—bring together both sides of the heated debate and draft a manuscript outlining a path out of the dilemma, a blueprint for how to essentially “unravel” seemingly irreconcilable scientific conundrums.
He contacted leading experts on both sides of the debate and invited them to join him in this mission, and thankfully, they agreed.
Writing the manuscript was not easy. Although the authors were able to agree on the final product, it took Valente a lot of back-and-forth to reach agreement. Sometimes, even wording choices required mediation.
Looking back, Valente is proud of the work they accomplished, even though it was tricky to navigate at times. The resulting scientific paper Detail the major differences of opinion, explain why the debate exists, and then offer a scientific approach to unraveling them.
One key is for scientists to conduct research to identify the underlying causes of conflicting findings, the paper says. Another way scientists can help the field reach consensus is by returning to the basics of the scientific method. Specifically, ecologists should consider multiple hypotheses or hierarchies of hypotheses when designing studies, rather than testing a single hypothesis.
To bring the scientific community together to seek solutions together, the paper presents some examples of collaborative efforts that can help foster constructive discussions, including through structured processes and scientific conferences.
These suggestions may seem obvious, but in completing this manuscript, Valente and his co-authors have provided a much-needed framework to advance science in this area that is critical to conservation.
Only time will tell where the field of landscape ecology goes next. For his part, Valente is satisfied that he has focused on this issue and that the authors were able to at least reach a consensus on how to resolve the 50-year-long debate over habitat fragmentation and biodiversity. He is optimistic about the future of his field and hopes that future landscape ecologists will use this manuscript to guide their scientific research.
Valente is Many landscape ecologists The ultimate goal of USGS science is to improve the conservation of wildlife and ecosystems across the nation and around the world. science “The research is foundational and is done in close coordination or collaboration with those who manage or make conservation-related decisions for the landscapes studied. For these reasons, USGS scientists and science contribute greatly to wildlife and ecosystem conservation. The manuscript Valente led to help resolve the habitat fragmentation and biodiversity debate is just one example.”
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