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Owls and hawks can help conservationists

14 July 2005

Conservationists wanting to choose a good area for preserving biodiversity should look for places where birds of prey live and breed. Research published today in the journal Nature shows that sites occupied by predators such as hawks and owls are consistently associated with high biodiversity.

A multi-national team of scientists, from the UK, Spain and Italy, found that the often criticised policy of using charismatic predators to attract support for new conservation areas seems to have a sound scientific basis.

Professor Ian Newton from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) said: "Often, decisions on locating new Nature reserves have to be taken in a hurry, especially in little known regions - for example, when large scale logging takes place. We show that the most effective way to choose new conservation areas, rich in biodiversity, is to look for sites where birds of prey are present."

The scientists found that sites in the Italian Alps where five top predators, four types of owl and the goshawk, were present had more varied species of birds, trees and butterflies than sites where the predators were not present.

Professor Newton added, "Conservationists normally don't know if they've preserved the best bits of the landscape, especially in little-known tropical regions. Creating new National Parks or Nature Reserves in areas where top predators are present seems to offer an effective way of delivering higher biodiversity."

The scientists say more research is required but that their work shows that there is tight link between top predators and high biodiversity.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Barnaby Smith
CEH Press Office
Tel: 07832 160960

Notes

1. The brief communications paper, 'Top predators deliver biodiversity' is published in Nature today, 14 July 2005.
The work was carried out as a collaborative project between Professor Ian Newton, a research fellow based at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology at Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire; Dr Fabrizio Sergio from the Department of Conservation Biology, Estación Biológica de Doñana in Spain ; and Dr Luigi Marchesi from the Trento Museum of Natural Sciences in Italy.

2. The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's leading research organisation for land and freshwater science. Its 500 scientists carry out research to improve our understanding of both the environment and the processes that underlie the Earth's support systems. It is one of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) research centres.

3. NERC is one of the UK's research councils. It uses a budget of about £350m a year to fund and carry out impartial scientific research in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains the next generation of independent environmental scientists. It is addressing some of the key questions facing mankind such as global warming, renewable energy and sustainable economic development.

Press release: 34/05