The theory of evolution by natural selection can help explain why people care about other species. People can increase their inclusive fitness by selectively conserving species even when it is costly to do so.

Conservation ethics (moral beliefs, attitudes, intuitions, and norms regarding other species) evolve to promote adaptive conservation behaviours, and will take on different contours in different places.

Integrating ecology and evolution into our understanding of conservation ethics can help explain why people value other species at all, why we value some species more strongly than others, and why this varies from place to place.

Join Darragh Hare of Cornell University for this interesting seminar and drinks afterwards, hosted by The Biodiversity Network.