Conservation organisations are often faced with the problem of allocating limited funds to the conservation of many needy species. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the expected future biodiversity is as high as possible. Other factors that need to be considered are the costs of conserving different species and the expected increase in their survival probability that conservation would provide them. The Noah's Ark Problem (NAP) is a mathematical framework that formalises this problem and uses phylogenetic diversity as a measure of biodiversity.
Whilst much mathematical work has been done on the NAP actual applications of it to real problems has been limited. In this talk I consider some common criticisms of the NAP. I will also briefly introduce a new software package I have developed that bundles common algorithms for the NAP together with a graphical interface.
Related Links
* http://www.kavenga.com/klaas/papers/HartmannSteel2006_NAP.pdf - Algorithms for solving some instances of the Noah's Ark Problem
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