Acta Herpetologica 11(2): 233-234, 2016 ISSN 1827-9635 (print) © Firenze University Press ISSN 1827-9643 (online) www.fupress.com/ah DOI: 10.13128/Acta_Herpetol-18614 Book Review: Sutherland, W.J., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Smith, R.K. (Eds). What works in conservation. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0060 Sebastiano Salvidio Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e della Vita (DISTAV), Università di Genova, I 16132 Genova Italy. E-mail: salvidio@dipteris.unige.it The book “What works in conservation” is the prod- uct of the “Conservation Evidence” project (www.con- servationevidence.com) which consists of four parts: i) a searchable database, ii) synopses of the evidence reported in the database for different species, habitats and conser- vation interventions, iii) the book itself and iv) the jour- nal “Conservation Evidence”. In this open access jour- nal, evidences of management actions and their post hoc monitoring are always reported on, usually by the com- parison with a control or a previous situation. By the way, it is worth noticing that a recent special issue of the jour- nal dedicated to amphibians has been recently published (Meredith et al., 2016). The volume “What works in conservation” consists of an short “Introduction” (pages 1-7) and seven chapters dedicated to different animal taxa, habitats or conserva- tion interventions: 1) Amphibian conservation (pages 9-65); 2) Bat conservation (pages 67-93); 3) Bird conser- vation (pages 95-244); 4) Farmland conservation (pages 245-284); 5) Some aspects of control of freshwater inva- sive species (pages 285-292); 6) Some aspects of enhanc- ing natural pest control (pages293-315) and finally 7) Enhancing soil fertility (pages 317-338). The interventions are listed according to IUCN cat- egories, while worldwide conservation evidences were obtained by reviewing the available scientific literature in English and, when needed, also in other languages. Two criteria are requested to be included in the assessment: first the intervention was fully implemented in the field and second the effects of intervention were monitored sci- entifically, to allow some kind of statistical inference about the results. Therefore, this approach excludes predictive species modelling and also correlative studies that are sometimes used to plan or realize conservation projects. The book is not descriptive or based on illustrated case studies, as is the case of conventional books on con- servation (e.g., Sutherland, 2000), but is a synthetic guide intended to provide a rapid overview of the scientific evi- dence as obtained from specialized literature. Effectiveness and harmful effects of conservation actions or manage- ment interventions are assessed by a panel of experts cited in the first page of each chapter. Experts were asked to classify interventions in six categories from “Beneficial” to “Likely to be ineffective or harmful” (Table 1). The experts were asked to judge anonymously the evidence and the certainty for each intervention and to review their own judgment after seeing the overall scores and comments from the entire panel. Revision rounds were stopped after a large consensus among experts was achieved. This method, based on published data judged by experts, is a modified Delphi technique, which is now becoming a rel- evant decision tool in ecology and biodiversity conserva- tion (Mukherjee et al., 2015). References to the reviewed literature are not reported within the book, but the link to the online literature database is always given and, there- fore, the reader is bound to a web connection to retrieve citations and deepen each conservation outcome. In this review I will comment only on the first chap- ter regarding “Amphibian conservation”. The expert panel for amphibians was composed by 28 scientists and man- 234 Sebastiano Salvidio agers and at a first glance it is clearly European Union biased (14/28 = 50% of experts) with a large prevalence of UK experts (10 out of 14). Experts from USA consti- tuted the 19% (5/28), Africans the 15% (4/28) and Asians only the 7% (2/28). In this panel, the scarcity of South American amphibian conservationists, represented by only one member, is also noticeable. Many different threats were assessed in the chapter “Amphibian conservation”: agriculture, urban develop- ment, transportation, collecting, logging and habitat modification. For each threat, a table with the final judg- ment of the experts on the conservation action is given, following the classification given in the “Introduction” (see also Table 1). Then, a short text explaining the sci- entific bases on how the consensus was reached and in particular the number of studies, countries in which the actions were implemented and their main results is shortly given. In addition, the experts scored “effec- tiveness”, “certainty” and “harms” related to the inter- vention, expressed as percentages. Going through the many different conservations actions assessed to reduce amphibian threats, some well-known interventions are confirmed to have large beneficial effects, with little or no harm at all, such as “Remove or control fish by dry- ing out ponds”, “Deepen ponds to prevent desiccation” or “Create ponds”. On the other hand, there are some interesting responses to some long-debated conserva- tion actions, such as “Commercially breed amphibians for the pet trade” or “Use amphibians sustainably”, for which no scientific evidence was found. Another exam- ple is the response about interventions to reduce popula- tion declines of amphibians crossing paved roads. Thus, the common practice to “Use humans to assist migrat- ing amphibians across roads” (i.e., the use of volunteers to rescue toads on roads), was evaluated by the panel of experts as “Unlikely to be beneficial”. In this specific case, the best alternative conservation action should be “Close roads during seasonal amphibian migration” or “Modify gully pots or kerns”. In short, the volume “What works in conservation” is an original, useful and practical tool for conservation- ists, managers, activists of non-governmental organiza- tions and also for amphibian ecologists, All of them will obtain relevant information about conservation actions to be realized or eventually to be avoided, this latter infor- mation almost never discussed in classic conservation textbooks. The book should always be consulted before (and I stress the word “before”) planning any kind of conservation intervention to correctly evaluate, not only possible positive outcomes but, also non-desired and col- lateral harmful effects. It should also be used by local and national authorities that are charged to judge and fund biodiversity conservation actions. These actions are sometimes based not on scientific evidence but only on some self-assessed evaluation. The fact that “What works in conservation” is online and downloadable free of charges should facilitate its wide consultation by private and public entities working on the long-term conserva- tion of amphibian populations. REFERENCES Meredith, H.M.H., Van Buren, C., Antwis, R.E. (2016): Making amphibian conservation more effective. Con- servation Evidence 13: 1-6. Mukherjee, N., Hugé, J., Sutherland, W.J., McNeill, J., Van Opstal, M., Dahdouh-Guebas, F., Koedam, N. (2015). The Delphi technique in ecology and biological con- servation: applications and guidelines. Methods Ecol. Evol. 6: 1097-1109 Sutherland, W.J. (2000):The conservation handbook. Research, management and policy. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK. Table 1. Synthesis of the categories for judging conservation interventions used in “What works in conservation”. Intervention result Short definition Beneficial Evidence for high effectiveness and no harm Likely to be beneficial Evidence for medium effectiveness and low harm Trade-off between benefit and harms Both effectiveness and harm present; to be evaluated according to local circumstances Unknown effectiveness Insufficient or inadequate quality of data Unlikely to be beneficial Lack of effectiveness not clearly demonstrated by data; no agreement among experts Likely to be ineffective or harmful Ineffectiveness or harm clearly demonstrated by data Acta Herpetologica Vol. 11, n. 2 - December 2016 Firenze University Press Predator-prey interactions between a recent invader, the Chinese sleeper (Perccottus glenii) and the European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis): a case study from Lithuania Vytautas Rakauskas1,*, Rūta Masiulytė1, Alma Pikūnienė2 Effective thermoregulation in a newly established population of Podarcis siculus in Greece: a possible advantage for a successful invader Grigoris Kapsalas1, Ioanna Gavriilidi1, Chloe Adamopoulou2, Johannes Foufopoulos3, Panayiotis Pafilis1,* The unexpectedly dull tadpole of Madagascar’s largest frog, Mantidactylus guttulatus Arne Schulze1,*, Roger-Daniel Randrianiaina2,3, Bina Perl3, Frank Glaw4, Miguel Vences3 Thermal ecology of Podarcis siculus (Rafinesque-Schmalz, 1810) in Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) Zaida Ortega*, Abraham Mencía, Valentín Pérez-Mellado Growth, longevity and age at maturity in the European whip snakes, Hierophis viridiflavus and H. carbonarius Sara Fornasiero1, Xavier Bonnet2, Federica Dendi1, Marco A.L. Zuffi1,* Redescription of Cyrtodactylus fumosus (Müller, 1895) (Reptilia: Squamata: Gekkonidae), with a revised identification key to the bent-toed geckos of Sulawesi Sven Mecke1,*,§, Lukas Hartmann1,2,§, Felix Mader3, Max Kieckbusch1, Hinrich Kaiser4 The castaway: characteristic islet features affect the ecology of the most isolated European lizard Petros Lymberakis1, Efstratios D. Valakos2, Kostas Sagonas2, Panayiotis Pafilis3,* Sources of calcium for the agamid lizard Psammophilus blanfordanus during embryonic development Jyoti Jee1, Birendra Kumar Mohapatra2, Sushil Kumar Dutta1, Gunanidhi Sahoo1,3,* Mediodactylus kotschyi in the Peloponnese peninsula, Greece: distribution and habitat Rachel Schwarz1,*, Ioanna-Aikaterini Gavriilidi2, Yuval Itescu1, Simon Jamison1, Kostas Sagonas3, Shai Meiri1, Panayiotis Pafilis2 Swimming performance and thermal resistance of juvenile and adult newts acclimated to different temperatures Hong-Liang Lu, Qiong Wu, Jun Geng, Wei Dang* Olim palus, where once upon a time the marsh: distribution, demography, ecology and threats of amphibians in the Circeo National Park (Central Italy) Antonio Romano1,*, Riccardo Novaga2, Andrea Costa1 On the feeding ecology of Pelophylax saharicus (Boulenger 1913) from Morocco Zaida Ortega1,*, Valentín Pérez-Mellado1, Pilar Navarro2, Javier Lluch2 Notes on the reproductive ecology of the rough-footed mud turtle (Kinosternon hirtipes) in Texas, USA Steven G. Platt1, Dennis J. Miller2, Thomas R. Rainwater3,*, Jennifer L. Smith4 Heavy traffic, low mortality - tram tracks as terrestrial habitat of newts Mikołaj Kaczmarski*, Jan M. Kaczmarek Book Review: Sutherland, W.J., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Smith, R.K. (Eds). What works in conservation. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0060 Sebastiano Salvidio