Have you ever wondered what the most important scientific questions for biodiversity conversation are?

Well, wonder no longer. The journal, Conservation Biology, yesterday published online the top 100 questions, which were contributed by conservation experts from around the world.

The questions include: How does biodiversity shape social resilience to the effects of climate change, and how effective are different types of protected areas, such as natural parks, at conserving biodiversity?

William Sutherland, a conservation biologist at the University of Cambridge, who led the project to come up with the questions, says, “With the current crisis in the loss of habitats and species it is important that we ensure we are carrying out the most important research.”

The aim behind the project was to address a mismatch between the conservation topics that academics study and the information conservationists need to help them preserve biodiversity, says the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, which funded the project.

A group of 761 conservationists and 12 academics contributed a long list of 2291 questions, which were eventually whittled down to the top 100 questions by a group of 44 experts at a two day meeting at the University of Cambridge.

Image: the endangered Pine Barrens Tree Frog / USFWS