In one of the earliest books on modern conservation biology, Soulé & Wilcox describe the science of conservation biology as being ‘as broad as biology itself. It focuses the knowledge and tools of all biological disciplines, from molecular biology to population biology, on one issue – nature conservation’ (Soulé & Wilcox, 1980a). Subsequently, in his seminal paper on the nature of conservation biology, Soulé extended this concept to include non-biological sciences such as hazard evaluation and the social sciences (Soulé, 1985). He went on to describe conservation biology as being holistic in nature, in the sense that multidisciplinary approaches will ultimately be the most fruitful. He also stressed that the borders between traditional scientific pursuits and between the ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ sciences were artificial in the conservation context.

The truth in these statements with regard the multidisciplinary nature of conservation biology can be revealed by an examination of any issue of the frontline journal Conservation Biology. Here you will find papers written by ecologists, resource managers, geneticists, sociologists, political scientists, mathematicians and even politicians. However, for a multidisciplinary approach to be effective, particularly in a crisis discipline such as conservation biology (Soulé, 1985), there must be a high level of integration among the separate fields. It is this integration which we feel has generally been lacking in much of modern conservation research.