Until the next big asteroid hits us, the future of known life will depend much more on humanity than on any other force. Which elements of biodiversity will survive human impacts? Which most merit protection? What strategies offer the best prospects for achieving conservation goals?

To address the first question, CESP senior fellow Gretchen Daily is developing "countryside biogeography", a new conceptual framework for characterizing the biotas likely to survive human impacts. Her work is based primarily in the tropics where, with a team of collaborators, she has launched investigations of the countryside biogeography of a wide variety of animals and plants, using empirical and theoretical approaches and tools such as remote sensing and radio telemetry. Her findings illuminate new strategies for protecting biodiversity that aim to capture the conservation value of countryside, which increasingly dominates the planet.

Daily is addressing the second question by synthesizing the scientific understanding of the wide array of benefits that ecosystems and their biodiversity deliver to society. In the process, and with a wide array of collaborators, she is developing the "ecosystem services framework" as a scientific basis underpinning environmental conservation. Her group is investigating various services to agriculture supported by native tropical forest such as pollination.

Regarding the third question, she is systematically exploring "conservation finance": the scope and relative effectiveness of diverse mechanisms for achieving conservation. In all of her work, Daily is forging new collaborations that integrate ecology with other key disciplines, such as economics and law.