Our view of islands: Joining the values of science and society By Alexandra Sides, Lloyd Davis and Jenny Rock Alexandra Sides holds a Master’s in Science Communication from the Centre for Science Communication (University of Otago, Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand; Email: alexsides@ yahoo.com), where Lloyd Davis is director, and Jenny Rock, a lecturer (Emails: lloyd.davis@ otago.ac.nz; jenny.rock@otago.ac.nz). The project is part of Sides’ Master’s thesis, supervised by Rock and Davis who have longstanding research interests in polar and marine biology as well as science communication. Summary Both the public and the scientific perception of an island’s value are impor- tant in deciding its future, with regard to the levels of access, protection and funding for research. There is a popular belief that the preservation of islands equates to the slightly idiosyncratic conservation of unique remote habitats, where the value of any island is its iso- lation. However, by understanding how scientists use islands, a different picture emerges; islands may be seen also as integrated, or representative fragments of the world that con- tribute to biodiversity and scientific theory far beyond their narrow geographical boundaries. Here, we broadly review the full scope of values science places on islands. We resolve four central perspectives by which scientists view islands, based on how islands are incorpo- rated into their research: (i) species-level studies; (ii) island-level studies; (iii) islands as model systems; and (iv) islands as part of a global network. Recognising this diverse value system helps enlarge our understanding of islands and reforges their importance to the pub- lic and policy makers. Key words: islands, science and society, subantarctic, values. Introduction T here is no doubt that we find islands fas- cinating. Writers have recognised this for centuries, with Defoe (1719), Swift (1726), Golding (1954) and Huxley (1962) being just a few to have set famous plots on islands. Indeed, islands have fulfilled diverse literary roles: as places of extremes with an ability to transform char- acters, as prisons and sanctuaries and as vantage points to look back more clearly at ‘civilisation’. It seems that on an island, probabilities can be disregarded and disbe- lief more easily suspended. We are more willing to accept strangeness from an island. We expect it. The expectation of strangeness is not limited to literature; in scientific circles, there is also a certain level of uniqueness expected from islands. Naturalists of the last three centuries brought back to civili- sation accounts of strange and unimagined creatures found only on remote islands. According to more modern scientific descriptions of islands ‘many are down- right weird’ (Grant 1998); they are often characterised as ‘the crucibles of change’ (Berry 2007) or are considered ‘the work- shops of evolution’ where ‘the tools and blueprints of nature are visible’ (Larson 2001). The importance of islands to humanity is also clear, as ‘revictualling sta- tions for ideas on the condition of nature, humankind or simply of ideas for their own sake’ (Baldacchino 2007) and as ‘the frontline zones where many of the main problems of the environment and development are unfolding’ (Annan 1999). At first glance, it seems that both science and the humanities view islands in a similar way, as unique and isolated cases. We suggest it is not always an accu- rate or useful view. The diversity of scien- tific enquiry undertaken on islands does not seem widely known to the public or policy makers and much can be gained by reassessing how islands are studied. Here, we propose categories that distin- guish between different types of island research in a way that may be useful for communicating their wider relevance to the public and to policy makers. The Value of Islands to Science Taking up only 1.86% of the world’s sur- face area (Depraetere & Dahl 2007), islands seem to have had a disproportion- ate effect on scientific theory. They have long played a fundamental role in our understanding of ecology and evolution (Vitousek 1995). In the nineteenth century, prominent scientists such as Hoo- ker, Wallace and Darwin described pat- terns in the distributions of species, each drawing conclusions from observations on islands, but it was not until 1967 that MacArthur and Wilson’s (1967) Theory of Island Biogeography sought to create a predictive science from a descriptive one (Adsersen 1995). The role islands now play in research is diverse: they may be studied for their individual peculiarity, as contributing to processes common to islands or as ‘tractable micro-continents’ for investigating relationships that under- lie larger ecosystems (Adsersen 1995). The value of islands to experimental sci- ence has continued to grow, leading in the twenty-first century to the ‘living labo- ratory’ paradigm for understanding and valuing islands (Whittaker & Fernandez- Palacios 2007). The discrete borders of many islands generally facilitate experimental design. Islands offer the opportunity to monitor entire populations ‘to a degree unimag- ined in continental systems’ (Vitousek 1995). Indeed, the advantage of research on islands often comes down to the rela- tive simplicity of island ecosystems. There are lower numbers of species on islands, smaller populations and fewer ecological interactions involving immigration and ECOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT & RESTORATION VOL 15 NO 2 MAY 2014 1 ª 2014 Ecological Society of Australia doi: 10.1111/emr.12117 ESSAY