This is a great question. There's one synthesis/overview paper that I think is useful on the conservation biology front. It was put together by a group of graduate students at Berkeley.

Here's the citation:

Eitzel, Diver, Sardinas, Hallett, Olson, Romero, Oliveira, Schuknecht, Tidmore, Suding. 2012. Insights from a cross-disciplinary seminar: 10 pivotal papers for ecological restoration. Restoration Ecology 20(2): 147-152.

Cheers!

You raise an interesting question, Alain! And I agree with Joseph when he suggests that different perspectives will end in the selection of different papers/books...

I will take the risk of suggesting 3 papers (each one followed by a cascade of others...)

1. in 1985, Michael Soulé (Soulé M 1985. What is conservation biology? Bioscience, 35: 727-734) states that ‘biotic diversity has intrinsic value irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value’. The majority of current conservation biologists agree with this and accept the idea that intrinsic value of biological diversity is a driver for conservation actions. Yet, its instrumental value is important for society and also for decision making. And this leads us to...

2. Costanza R et al. 1997. The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature, 387: 253-260. This paper is one of the most cited articles (> 10k according to Google) and its value was well amplified at a global scale with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystem services have been easily recognized by society and have been used as a pathway to bring biodiversity (and its current loss) to several agendas.

3. Finally, I would suggest Sutherland et al. 2009. One hundred questions of importance to the conservation of global biological diversity. Conserv Biolology, 23:557-67. On my classes I discuss this article with undergraduate students coursing conservation biology at my University. It gives an interesting approach to several important issues on conservation biology.

I' ll be pleased to follow this question...

Merry Christmas to all!

Cheers,

JE

I know it is an old classic...but I find it very inspiring and a milestone in ecology: Odum, E. P., & Barrett, G. W. (1971). Fundamentals of ecology.

Great question. I agree, Odum. Also Wilson, The Diversity of Life.

I think that an old classic by Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson 1967 The Theory of Island Biogeography may also be instrumental

Caughley' Directions in Conservation Biology (1994 J. Anim. Ecol.) cannot be forgotten

For me two fundamental publications are Hutchinson's concluding remarks on the ecological niche (1957) and Southwood's (1977) about the habitat templet. Of course MacArthur and Wilson Biogeography of islands as other coleagues have mentioned, is a very important paper in ecology along with Simberloff and Dayan (1991) about hte guild concept.

Meffe G. & C.R. Carroll, 1994.- Principles of Conservation Biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 600 p.

I think this work is essential for this discipline.

Even the next works are important for a discipline related called Conservation Biogeography:

- Grehan J.R., 1993.- Conservation Biogeography and the biodiversity crisis: a global problem in space/time. Biodiversity Letters, 1, 134-140.

- Richardson D.M., 2005.- Diversity, distributions and conservation biogeography. Diversity and Distributions, 11, 1-2.

- Humphries C.J., P.H. Williams & R.I. Vane-Wright, 1995.- Measuring biodiversity value for conservation. Annual Review Ecology Systematic, 26, 93-111.

What papers have been essential? To answer this question I would suggest to start from a recent publication and look backwards by checking out what actually survived of all that has been written and what is still considered useful. I suggest "Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2" edited by MacDonald DW and Willis KJ (2013), Wiley-Blackwell.

Check: Odum, E. P. & Sarmiento (1998) Ecologia: El puente entre ciencia y sociedad (A Bridge between Sciense and Society). McGraw-Hill Interamericana

Pulliam's source sink paper in American Naturalist (1988, Am Nat 132:652-661) has been critical in moving conservation biology from an observational science to a more quantitative field. There is a recent symposium volume (Liu, Hull, Morzillo & Wiens, 2011, Sources, sinks and sustainability, Cambridge) on the impact of this paper on a variety of fields. The volume includes a very nice summary paper by Vanessa Hull on the paper's impace

I am surprised to see that no one has mentioned "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Hardin (1968). Ecology and conservation biology must include social systems and human behavior. Hardin offered a powerful argument with grand consequences in the policy making in conservation, despite all its errors regarding human nature and the capacity of groups to solve the collective action problem.

A must read for diversity assessment.......................................................................................

Measuring Biological Diversity: Anne E. Magurran

Juan Cardenas made an important point suggesting Hardin's work because biodiversity like several ecosystem services are most often perceived by human societies as "common goods" without an owner. And this makes all the difference when the time comes to evaluate and pay the costs for preserving biodiversity. Overcoming this obstacle is one of the main challenges to conservation biologists.

This list is missing the succession Henrys: Henry Cowles and Henry Gleason are fundamental to Ecology.

Actually, Bradshaw, Sodhi, Laurance, and Brooks have a similar summary titled Twenty Landmark Papers in Conservation Biology that I found useful when putting together my 4th year conservation biology class. You can find it here: http://www.intechopen.com/download/get/type/pdfs/id/21531

Thanks Rebecca, very interesting compilation.

I would like to add the concept of "Planetary boundaries" that started in 2008 and was coined with the publication of the scientific paper in 2009: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

More info about this term: http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-programmes/planetary-boundaries.html

In my view, this concept is in line with that of "Ecological footprint" (Rees, 1992) : http://eau.sagepub.com/content/4/2/121

I found this book as an excellent review of the 40 most influential publications in the history of the Science of Ecology:

Real, L.A. & Brown, J.H. (Eds) 1991. Foundations of Ecology: Classic Papers with Commentaries. University Of Chicago Press

You can find more information here: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3613618.html)

Dear Alain,

Please read the following paper:

1. Fundamentals of Ecology by EP Odum is considered as bible for ecology students.

A conceptual papaer such as thefollowig will you an insight into the conservation/restoration.

Truman P. Young, (2000). Restoration ecology and conservation biology. Biological Conservation 92 (2000) 73-83.

A recent publication by Ollerton: How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18644.x/abstract