Published In

Journal of Mammalogy

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-21-2025

Subjects

Action, conservation, inventory, mammals, nature, natural areas

Abstract

Despite mammals constituting fewer than 0.3% of all described species, their conservation is compelling for a number of reasons. They contribute to biodiversity and are important in maintaining and regulating ecological communities. Many mammals have significant cultural and economic value, serving as sources of food, medicine, and tourism revenue. Furthermore, the conservation of mammals often leads to the protection of entire habitats, benefiting numerous other species and preserving ecosystem services that are critical for human well- being. Humans share a unique evolutionary history with other mammal species, making their preservation important for scientific research, education, and understanding of our own biology and evolution. In spite of this, mammalian biodiversity is at severe risk, with 26% of all mammal species threatened with extinction. Here, we propose to use a 4-step framework with which to approach conservation strategy for mammalian biodiversity. The framework is structured and based on a protocol initially established from the standpoint of parasites by Daniel R. Brooks and collaborators in 2014. The 4 key phases are documentation (species discovery and specimen collection); assessment (species relationships, genetic diversity, and climate change vulnerability); monitoring (tracking populations and habitats over time); and action (addressing the taxonomic impediment—the lack of human and financial resources to undertake taxonomy, as well as the discrepancy between real number of existing species and human knowledge of biodiversity—and expanding protected areas). The successful integration of politics, politicians, and stakeholders into the process of conservation is critical to the success of the protocol because of the requirement to enact policy. And the urgency is now, because nothing is more vital to the human condition than preservation of biodiversity.

Rights

The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society of Mammalogists. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyaf067

DOI

10.1093/jmammal/gyaf067

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44208

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