As a landscape ecologist, Valente studies how individual ecosystems fit together in a bigger whole, including why they form and the patterns they create together. Today he is the Assistant Unit Leader for the USGS Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and Assistant Professor at Auburn University, but his path to science mediator began when he was earning his doctorate from Oregon State University.

Like most graduate students, he attended lab meetings with his peers and advisor. One topic, in particular, kept coming up for discussion—the effect of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. There was a long-standing scientific debate about how an ecosystem that is broken up into pieces affects the number of species in the surrounding area. Adding interest to the debate, fragmentation tends to be caused by people.

Sources/Usage: Some content may have restrictions. View Media Details

It’s an undisputed fact that all lifeforms need space. Scientists recognize that a species’ biology and ecology dictate just how much: some species need large swaths of unbroken habitat and others don’t.

People can change habitat by breaking up once continuous tracts of habitat with developments like a road through a forest or can create larger patches of habitat from what was there previously—like combining many small, shallow ponds into a larger, deeper lake. Although people are the leading cause of habitat fragmentation today, it occurs naturally too, like when a tornado rips through a forest.

What interested Valente and his graduate school colleagues was that ecologists were split into two schools of thought, one that had a robust body of evidence which showed that habitat fragmentation was harmful to biodiversity and the other that had an equally robust body of evidence which showed the opposite, that habitat fragmentation increases biodiversity.

Biodiversity, which is vitally important to the health of ecosystems and our own communities, has been declining globally, so the stakes are high. Understanding whether habitat fragmentation helps or hurts it is critical to conservation planning.

As most enthusiastic, budding scientists are inclined to do, Valente voraciously read every paper that came out on the topic. But with each paper, he grew more and more confused. The science wasn’t moving toward consensus, each side only dug themselves further into their own part of the rut this debate had created.

Valente wondered, if he, someone who understood the science well, was confused, what did that mean for non-scientists? How would people who needed to make conservation-focused decisions based on this science be able to if the science was saying two completely opposite things?

After earning his doctorate, Valente’s confusion over the debate began turning into frustration. It seemed neither side of the habitat fragmentation debate was willing to come together to settle the dispute.

Valente wanted to help but as a newly minted landscape ecologist he wasn’t ready to challenge his forebears to think differently. So, he bided his time hoping someone else would start to fill in the rut that the habitat fragmentation debate had caused. No one did.

Then, a paper by Jon Norberg and others brought his attention to the concept of “locked-in” debates in environmental science—the debates where each side refuses to work toward consensus—which cautioned that the disputes can hinder conservation progress. That’s because people making decisions on environmental policy, like what and where to conserve, rely on science to inform their decisions.

The authors noted that faced with more than one “right answer”, decision makers would be able to choose the science that supports their own agenda, or they might dismiss the science altogether. They argued that these locked-in debates corrupt the role of science – which is policy neutral—to inform environmental policy.

The Norberg paper’s message struck a chord with Valente. It motivated him to finally try to settle, or at least call attention to, the debate about habitat fragmentation and biodiversity.

Sources/Usage: Some content may have restrictions. View Media Details

Valente set out to do something wild—bring both sides of a staunch debate together to draft a single manuscript outlining a path forward out of the rut, a blueprint on how to essentially “unlock” the seemingly irreconcilable science.

He reached out to the leading experts on both sides of the debate and asked them to join him in this task and, to his credit, they agreed.

Working on the manuscript wasn’t easy. Although the authors were able to agree on the final product, it took a lot of back and forth on Valente’s behalf to get there. Even the choice of words had to, at times, be mediated.

Looking back, Valente is proud of the work they accomplished, though it was tricky to navigate at times. The resulting scientific paper details the major differences of opinion to explain why the debate exists. It then offers ways to unlock the science.

One key the paper identifies is for scientists to conduct studies to figure out what is contributing to contradictory findings in the first place. Another way scientists can help the field move toward consensus is by going back to the basics of the scientific method. Specifically, ecologists should consider multiple hypotheses or hierarchies of hypotheses when designing studies instead of testing a single hypothesis.

To bring the scientific community together to work toward a solution, the paper suggests examples of collaborative efforts that would facilitate constructive discussion, including through structured processes as well as in scientific meetings.

These suggestions may seem obvious, but in completing this manuscript, Valente and his co-authors have provided a much-needed framework to advance the science in this field so crucial to conservation.

Only time will tell what’s next for the field of landscape ecology. For Valente’s part, he’s content that he has put a spotlight on the issue and that the authors were, at least, able to reach a consensus on how they might unlock the 50-year long debate of habitat fragmentation and biodiversity. He is optimistic about the future of his field of study and hopeful that future landscape ecologists will use this manuscript to guide their science.

Valente is one of many landscape ecologists at the USGS whose science ultimately targets improving conservation of wildlife and ecosystems across the nation and around the world. Much of this science is foundational and produced in close coordination or collaboration with the people who are managing or making conservation-related decisions for the landscapes being studied. Because of these reasons, USGS scientists and science contribute substantially to wildlife and ecosystem conservation. The manuscript Valente led to help unlock the debate about habitat fragmentation and biodiversity is just one example.