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USGS2016

An integrated moral obligation model for landowner conservation norms

This study applies an integrated moral obligation model to examine the role of environmental and cultural values, and beliefs in the activation of landowner conservation norms. Data for this study were collected through a self-administered survey of riparian landowners in two Minnesota watersheds: Sand Creek and Vermillion River watersheds. Study findings suggest that collectivistic and biospheric–altruistic values form the bases for the activation of personal norms. Further, beliefs about local responsibility and ability to act influence personal norms to protect water resources. Findings suggest that landowners’ personal norms of water conservation are more likely to be activated by conservation strategies that appeal to biospheric–altruistic and collectivistic values, emphasize adverse consequences of water pollution, highlight water resource protection as a local responsibility, and provide the resources needed to protect water resources.

Society & Natural Resources: An International Jour↗

USGS2024

Integrative phylogenetic, phylogeographic and morphological characterisation of the Unio crassus species complex reveals cryptic diversity with important conservation implications

The global decline of freshwater mussels and their crucial ecological services highlight the need to understand their phylogeny, phylogeography and patterns of genetic diversity to guide conservation efforts. Such knowledge is urgently needed for Unio crassus , a highly imperilled species originally widespread throughout Europe and southwest Asia. Recent studies have resurrected several species from synonymy based on mitochondrial data, revealing U. crassus to be a complex of cryptic species. To address long-standing taxonomic uncertainties hindering effective conservation, we integrate morphometric, phylogenetic, and phylogeographic analyses to examine species diversity within the U. crassus complex across its entire range. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (815 specimens from 182 populations) and, for selected specimens, whole mitogenome sequences and Anchored Hybrid Enrichment (AHE) data on ∼600 nuclear loci. Mito-nuclear discordance was detected, consistent with mitochondrial DNA gene flow between some species during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Fossil-calibrated phylogenies based on AHE data support a Mediterranean origin for the U. crassus complex in the Early Miocene. The results of our integrative approach support 12 species in the group: the previously recognised Unio bruguierianus , Unio carneus, Unio crassus , Unio damascensis , Unio ionicus , Unio sesirmensis , and Unio tumidiformis , and the reinstatement of five nominal taxa: Unio desectus stat. rev. , Unio gontierii stat. rev. , Unio mardinensis stat. rev. , Unio nanus stat. rev. , and Unio vicarius stat. rev. Morphometric analyses of shell contours reveal important morphospace overlaps among these species, highlighting cryptic, but geographically structured, diversity. The distribution, taxonomy, phylogeography, and conservation of each species are succinctly described.

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution↗

USGS2018

Improving conservation policy with genomics: A guide to integrating adaptive potential into U.S. Endangered Species Act decisions for conservation practitioners and geneticists

Rapid environmental change makes adaptive potential—the capacity of populations to evolve genetically based changes in response to selection—more important than ever for long-term persistence of at-risk species. At the same time, advances in genomics provide unprecedented power to test for and quantify adaptive potential, enabling consideration of adaptive potential in estimates of extinction risk and laws protecting endangered species. The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of the most powerful environmental laws in the world, but so far, the full potential of genomics in ESA listing and recovery decisions has not been realized by the federal agencies responsible for implementing the ESA or by conservation geneticists. The goal of our paper is to chart a path forward for integrating genomics into ESA decision making to facilitate full consideration of adaptive potential in evaluating long-term risk of extinction. For policy makers, managers, and other conservation practitioners, we outline why adaptive potential is important for population persistence and what genomic tools are available for quantifying it. For conservation geneticists, we discuss how federal agencies can integrate information on the effect of adaptive potential on extinction risk—and the related uncertainty—into decisions, and suggest next steps for advancing understanding of the effect of adaptive potential on extinction risk. The mechanisms and consequences of adaptation are incredibly complex, and we may never have a complete understanding of adaptive potential for any organism. Nevertheless, we argue that the best available evidence regarding adaptive potential should be incorporated by federal agencies into modeling and decision making processes now, while at the same time conserving genome-wide variation and striving for a deeper understanding of adaptive potential and its effects on population persistence to improve decision-making into the future.

Conservation Genetics↗

USGS2025

Different data for different goals: Exploring trade-offs and synergies in the use of spatial data inputs to optimize conservation action in sagebrush ecosystems

Ecosystems worldwide continue to experience rapid rates of habitat and species loss. Management actions to conserve and restore functional habitats are needed to reduce these declines, but funding and resources for such actions are limited. Spatial conservation prioritization (SCP) can facilitate strategic decision-making for targeted conservation planning and delivery, but complexities arise when management objectives include multiple wildlife species and ecological or management constraints, all of which can be further complicated by data uncertainty and existing conservation plans. The Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET), an R package-based decision-support tool, supports strategic ecosystem management planning across the sagebrush biome by using SCP. We adapted PReSET to better address the needs of multiple wildlife species, evaluate the effects of different ecological or management constraints on conservation outcomes, assess the influence of data uncertainty, and integrate existing conservation plans. Specifically, we developed optimization problems to identify priority sagebrush protection and restoration across the state of Wyoming, USA, and evaluated the efficacy and trade-offs of various approaches to problem design. We evaluated trade-offs in targeting multiple species compared to a single species, including using greater sage-grouse as a potential umbrella species to benefit other sagebrush-dependent wildlife. We then evaluated multi-species protection and restoration problems aimed at minimizing the risks of inadequate connectivity, climate change, and restoration failure, and accounted for data uncertainty to assess relationships between risk aversion of managers and conservation outcomes. We also developed optimization problems within conservation areas identified by an existing sagebrush conservation plan to evaluate the efficacy of guiding local-scale conservation delivery within more broadly defined conservation areas. Our results demonstrate how SCP methods can leverage novel spatial data to develop targeted decision-support resources that can facilitate landscape conservation planning and improve management outcomes across a wide array of systems and species.

Wyoming↗

USGS2015

Entrainment of bed material by Earth-surface mass flows: review and reformulation of depth-integrated theory

Earth-surface mass flows such as debris flows, rock avalanches, and dam-break floods can grow greatly in size and destructive potential by entraining bed material they encounter. Increasing use of depth-integrated mass- and momentum-conservation equations to model these erosive flows motivates a review of the underlying theory. Our review indicates that many existing models apply depth-integrated conservation principles incorrectly, leading to spurious inferences about the role of mass and momentum exchanges at flow-bed boundaries. Model discrepancies can be rectified by analyzing conservation of mass and momentum in a two-layer system consisting of a moving upper layer and static lower layer. Our analysis shows that erosion or deposition rates at the interface between layers must in general satisfy three jump conditions. These conditions impose constraints on valid erosion formulas, and they help determine the correct forms of depth-integrated conservation equations. Two of the three jump conditions are closely analogous to Rankine-Hugoniot conditions that describe the behavior of shocks in compressible gasses, and the third jump condition describes shear traction discontinuities that necessarily exist across eroding boundaries. Grain-fluid mixtures commonly behave as compressible materials as they undergo entrainment, because changes in bulk density occur as the mixtures mobilize and merge with an overriding flow. If no bulk density change occurs, then only the shear-traction jump condition applies. Even for this special case, however, accurate formulation of depth-integrated momentum equations requires a clear distinction between boundary shear tractions that exist in the presence or absence of bed erosion.

Reviews of Geophysics↗

USGS2023

A pragmatic approach for integrating molecular tools into biodiversity conservation

Molecular tools are increasingly applied for assessing and monitoring biodiversity and informing conservation action. While recent developments in genetic and genomic methods provide greater sensitivity in analysis and the capacity to address new questions, they are not equally available to all practitioners: There is considerable bias across institutions and countries in access to technologies, funding, and training. Consequently, in many cases, more accessible traditional genetic data (e.g., microsatellites) are still utilized for making conservation decisions. Conservation approaches need to be pragmatic by tackling clearly defined management questions and using the most appropriate methods available, while maximizing the use of limited resources. Here we present some key questions to consider when applying the molecular toolbox for accessible and actionable conservation management. Finally, we highlight a number of important steps to be addressed in a collaborative way, which can facilitate the broad integration of molecular data into conservation.

Conservation Science and Practice↗

USGS2011

Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative data management and integration

Six Federal agencies, two State agencies, and two local entities formally support the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) and work together on a landscape scale to manage fragile habitats and wildlife resources amidst growing energy development in southwest Wyoming. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was tasked with implementing targeted research and providing scientific information about southwest Wyoming to inform the development of WLCI habitat enhancement and restoration projects conducted by land management agencies. Many WLCI researchers and decisionmakers representing the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State of Wyoming, and others have overwhelmingly expressed the need for a stable, robust infrastructure to promote sharing of data resources produced by multiple entities, including metadata adequately describing the datasets. Descriptive metadata facilitates use of the datasets by users unfamiliar with the data. Agency representatives advocate development of common data handling and distribution practices among WLCI partners to enhance availability of comprehensive and diverse data resources for use in scientific analyses and resource management. The USGS Core Science Informatics (CSI) team is developing and promoting data integration tools and techniques across USGS and partner entity endeavors, including a data management infrastructure to aid WLCI researchers and decisionmakers.

Wyoming↗

USGS2025

Species nativeness as a cultural paradigm in conservation

Conservation entails cultural practices shaped by our worldviews, values, beliefs, and priorities for our interactions with nature. These inform how we categorize which species we want to occur in which landscapes. In Western conservation organizations, conceptualizations of species ‘belonging’ typically align with a dichotomy of native versus introduced species. This is a cultural paradigm, informed by biological considerations, and it is not uniformly shared across different cultures, resulting in varied conceptualizations of species belonging. These conceptualizations may continue to evolve as socio-ecological systems change over time. Thus, misalignment in perceptions of species belonging can manifest in seemingly intractable conflicts. We apply a cultural evolutionary lens to: (1) consider the social history of the native-introduced dichotomy; (2) describe social and ecological factors causing friction around the dichotomy; (3) explore how conservation can integrate diverse and changing values about species belonging, and (4) make predictions about future socio-ecological change that may shape conservation governance and our categorization of species. In doing so, we encourage conservation scientists and practitioners to practice reflexivity about the cultural nature of conservation and management of introduced species. This application of cultural evolution presents a unique lens for recognizing the inevitability of both social and ecological change and inspires critical consideration of how diverse and changing values might be integrated into, and shape, the future of conservation.

Biological Conservation↗

USGS2016

A generalizable energetics-based model of avian migration to facilitate continental-scale waterbird conservation

Conserving migratory birds is made especially difficult because of movement among spatially disparate locations across the annual cycle. In light of challenges presented by the scale and ecology of migratory birds, successful conservation requires integrating objectives, management, and monitoring across scales, from local management units to ecoregional and flyway administrative boundaries. We present an integrated approach using a spatially explicit energetic-based mechanistic bird migration model useful to conservation decision-making across disparate scales and locations. This model moves a mallard-like bird (Anas platyrhynchos), through spring and fall migration as a function of caloric gains and losses across a continental scale energy landscape. We predicted with this model that fall migration, where birds moved from breeding to wintering habitat, took a mean of 27.5 days of flight with a mean seasonal survivorship of 90.5% (95% CI = 89.2%, 91.9%) whereas spring migration took a mean of 23.5 days of flight with mean seasonal survivorship of 93.6% (95% CI = 92.5%, 94.7%). Sensitivity analyses suggested that survival during migration was sensitive to flight speed, flight cost, the amount of energy the animal could carry and the spatial pattern of energy availability, but generally insensitive to total energy availability per se. Nevertheless, continental patterns in the bird-use days occurred principally in relation to wetland cover and agricultural habitat in the fall. Bird-use days were highest in both spring and fall in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and along the coast and near-shore environments of South Carolina. Spatial sensitivity analyses suggested that locations nearer to migratory endpoints were less important to survivorship; for instance, removing energy from a 1,036 km2 stopover site at a time from the Atlantic Flyway suggested coastal areas between New Jersey and North Carolina, including Chesapeake Bay and the North Carolina piedmont, are essential locations for efficient migration and increasing survivorship during spring migration but not locations in Ontario and Massachusetts. This sort of spatially explicit information may allow decision-makers to prioritize their conservation actions toward locations most influential to migratory success. Thus, this mechanistic model of avian migration provides a decision-analytic medium integrating the potential consequences of local actions to flyway-scale phenomena.

Ecological Applications↗

USGS2019

Integrating amphibian movement studies across scales better informs conservation decisions

Numerous papers have highlighted the need to integrate amphibian research and conservation across multiple scales. Despite this, most amphibian movement studies focus on a single level of organization (e.g., local population) and a single life stage (e.g., adults) and many suggest potential conservation actions or imply that the information is useful to conservation, yet these presumptions are rarely clarified or tested. Movement studies to date provide little information to guide conservation decisions directly because they fail to integrate movement across scales with individual or population parameters (i.e., fitness metrics); this is exacerbated by a general failure to set movement studies in a probabilistic context. An integrative approach allows prediction of population or metapopulation responses to environmental changes and different management actions, thus directly informing conservation decisions and ‘moving the needle’ towards an informed application of conservation actions. To support this perspective we: 1) revisit reviews of amphibian movement to illustrate the focus on single scales and to underscore the importance of movement – at all scales – to conservation; 2) make the case that movement, breeding, and other demographic probabilities are intertwined and studies executed at different temporal and spatial scales can aid in understanding species' responses to varying environmental and/or management conditions; 3) identify limitations of existing movement-related research to predict conservation action outcomes and inform decision-making; and 4) highlight under-utilized quantitative approaches that facilitate research that either connects movement to fitness metrics (individual-level studies) or estimates population and metapopulation vital rates in addition to, or associated with, movement probabilities.

Biological Conservation↗

USGS2017

Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional assessment—Volume I. Ecological communities

The Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional Assessment was conducted in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative . The overall goal of the Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs) is to compile and synthesize regional datasets to facilitate evaluation of the cumulative effects of change agents on priority ecological communities and species. In particular, the REAs identify and map the distribution of communities and wildlife habitats at broad spatial extents and provide assessments of ecological conditions. The REAs also identify where and to what degree ecological resources are currently at risk from change agents, such as development, fire, invasive species, and climate change. The REAs can help managers identify and prioritize potential areas for conservation or restoration, assess cumulative effects as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, and inform landscape-level planning and management decisions for multiple uses of public lands. Management questions form the basis for the REA framework and were developed in conjunction with the BLM and other stakeholders. Conservation elements are communities and species that are of regional management concern. Core management questions relate to the key ecological attributes and change agents associated with each conservation element. Integrated management questions synthesize the results of the primary core management questions into overall landscape-level ranks for each conservation element. The ecological communities evaluated as conservation elements are shortgrass, mixed-grass, and sand prairies; all grasslands; riparian and nonplaya wetlands; playa wetlands and saline lakes; and prairie streams and rivers. Species and species assemblages evaluated are the freshwater mussel assemblage, Arkansas River shiner ( Notropis girardi ), ferruginous hawk ( Buteo regalis ), lesser prairie chicken ( Tympanuchus pallidicinctus ), snowy plover ( Charadrius nivosus ), mountain plover ( Charadrius montanus ), long-billed curlew ( Numenius americanus ), interior least tern ( Sternula antillarum athalassos ), burrowing owl ( Athene cunicularia hypugaea ), black-tailed prairie dog ( Cynomys ludovicianus ), bat assemblage, swift fox ( Vulpes velox ), and mule deer ( Odocoileus hemionus ). The Southern Great Plains REA is summarized in a series of three reports and associated datasets. The pre-assessment report (available online at https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2015/1003/ ) summarizes the process used by the REA stakeholders to select management questions, conservation elements, and change agents. It also provides background information for each conservation element. Volume I of the Southern Great Plains REA report (this volume) addresses the ecological communities. Volume II will address the species and species assemblages. All source and derived datasets used to produce the maps and graphs for REAs are available online at the BLM Landscape Approach Data Portal ( https://landscape.blm.gov/geoportal/catalog/REAs/REAs.page ).

Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, ↗

USGS2018

Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional Assessment—Volume II. Species and assemblages

The Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional Assessment was conducted in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative. The overall goal of the Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs) is to compile and synthesize regional datasets to facilitate evaluation of the cumulative effects of change agents on priority ecological communities and species. In particular, the REAs identify and map the distribution of communities and wildlife habitats at broad spatial extents and provide assessments of ecological conditions. The REAs also identify where and to what degree ecological resources are currently at risk from change agents, such as development, fire, invasive species, and climate change. The REAs can help managers identify and prioritize potential areas for conservation or restoration, assess cumulative effects as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, and inform landscape-level planning and management decisions for multiple uses of public lands. Management questions form the basis for the REA framework and were developed in conjunction with the BLM and other stakeholders. Conservation elements are communities and species that are of regional management concern. Core management questions relate to the key ecological attributes and change agents associated with each conservation element. Integrated management questions synthesize the results of the primary core management questions into overall landscape-level ranks for each conservation element. The ecological communities evaluated as conservation elements are shortgrass, mixed-grass, and sand prairies; all grasslands; riparian and nonplaya wetlands; playa wetlands and saline lakes; and prairie streams and rivers. Species and species assemblages evaluated are the freshwater mussel assemblage, Arkansas River shiner ( Notropis girardi ), ferruginous hawk ( Buteo regalis ), lesser prairie chicken ( Tympanuchus pallidicinctus ), snowy plover ( Charadrius nivosus ), mountain plover ( Charadrius montanus ), long-billed curlew ( Numenius americanus ), interior least tern ( Sternula antillarum athalassos ), burrowing owl ( Athene cunicularia ), black-tailed prairie dog ( Cynomys ludovicianus ), bat assemblage, swift fox ( Vulpes velox ), and mule deer ( Odocoileus hemionus ). The Southern Great Plains REA is summarized in a series of three reports and associated datasets. The pre-assessment report (available online at https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20151003 ) summarizes the process used by the REA stakeholders to select management questions, conservation elements, and change agents. It also provides background information for each conservation element. Volume I of the Southern Great Plains REA report addresses the ecological communities (available online at https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20171100 ). Volume II (this volume) addresses the species and species assemblages. All source and derived datasets used to produce the maps and graphs for REAs are available online at the BLM Landscape Approach Data Portal ( https://landscape.blm.gov/geoportal/catalog/REAs/REAs.page ).

Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, ↗

USGS2018

The relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic drivers to population growth vary among local populations of Greater Sage-Grouse: An integrated population modeling approach

Consideration of ecological scale is fundamental to understanding and managing avian population growth and decline. Empirically driven models for population dynamics and demographic processes across multiple spatial scales can be powerful tools to help guide conservation actions. Integrated population models (IPMs) provide a framework for better parameter estimation by unifying multiple sources of data (e.g., count and demographic data). Hierarchical structure within such models that include random effects allow for varying degrees of data sharing across different spatiotemporal scales. We developed an IPM to investigate Greater Sage-Grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) on the border of California and Nevada, known as the Bi-State Distinct Population Segment. Our analysis integrated 13 years of lek count data ( n > 2,000) and intensive telemetry (VHF and GPS; n > 350 individuals) data across 6 subpopulations. Specifically, we identified the most parsimonious models among varying random effects and density-dependent terms for each population vital rate (e.g., nest survival). Using a joint likelihood process, we integrated the lek count data with the demographic models to estimate apparent abundance and refine vital rate parameter estimates. To investigate effects of climatic conditions, we extended the model to fit a precipitation covariate for instantaneous rate of change ( r ). At a metapopulation extent (i.e. Bi-State), annual population rate of change λ ( e r ) did not favor an overall increasing or decreasing trend through the time series. However, annual changes in λ were driven by changes in precipitation (one-year lag effect). At subpopulation extents, we identified substantial variation in λ and demographic rates. One subpopulation clearly decoupled from the trend at the metapopulation extent and exhibited relatively high risk of extinction as a result of low egg fertility. These findings can inform localized, targeted management actions for specific areas, and status of the species for the larger Bi-State.

The Auk↗

USGS2020

Organic matter integration, overprinting, and the relative fraction of optically active organic carbon in a human-impacted watershed

Rivers continually integrate terrestrial organic matter (OM) into their waters, in a process that transfers 1.9 Pg C yr –1 as the primary linkage between oceanic and terrestrial carbon cycles. Yet rivers are not simple, conservative OM integrators. Patchy local land uses (wetlands, bogs, agriculture) release OM that can disproportionately alter river biogeochemistry and overprint upstream carbon. These releases are quantifiable at the plot scale but remain unpredictable across river reaches and watersheds, critically inhibiting our ability to scale up terrestrial-aquatic linkages to regional/global carbon cycling models. We evaluated OM overprinting distance along a human-influenced watershed to quantify river integration of terrestrial OM and to bridge the quantification gap between habitats and waterway biogeochemistry. We investigated changes in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition (lignin phenols, fluorescence excitation-emission spectra using parallel factor analysis [PARAFAC], and the relative fraction of optically active DOM [EEM DOC ]). DOC concentrations increased continually ( p < 0.001) downstream, from median 1.0 mg L –1 at 30 km (headwaters) to 3.3 mg L –1 at the river mouth. This rate of increase corresponded to a DOC overprinting distance—the longitudinal distance over which DOC concentrations double—of 13 km. Mainstem DOC overprinting distance ranged from 8 km (winter, rainy season) to 21 km (summer, dry season with irrigation), highlighting stronger overprinting during increased hydraulic connectivity. Stronger overprinting also correlated to higher EEM DOC ( p < 0.001). Overprinting distance effectively quantifies river integration of DOM along the terrestrial-aquatic interface, helping to refine bottom-up carbon cycle estimates, inform upscaling of site-specific fluxes, and to track land use and climate influence on river biogeochemistry.

California↗

USGS2015

Management of conservation reserve program grasslands to meet wildlife habitat objectives

Numerous studies document environmental and social benefits of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This report offers a synopsis of findings regarding effects of establishing CRP conservation practices on the quality and distribution of wildlife habitat in agricultural landscapes. On individual farms, year-round provision of wildlife habitat by the CRP may appear relatively insignificant. However, considered from multi-farm to National scales, such improvements in habitat and wildlife response have proven to be extensive and profound. Because CRP acres historically have been dominated by plantings of introduced and native grasses, this report focuses on issues pertaining to wildlife response to grass-dominated conservation practices. While the majority of CRP acres have been concentrated largely in the Great Plains and Corn Belt regions, 47 states (and Puerto Rico) have participated, resulting in measurable environmental benefits throughout the United States. Numerous investigations of habitat use by a wide range of wildlife species reveal that periodic management of CRP lands can enhance benefits through and beyond a typical 10 year general CRP contract. Over its 28-year existence, the CRP has evolved into an effective integration of conservation and agricultural policies targeting fragile and environmentally-valuable lands. Landowners with fields enrolled in the CRP often are the first to observe improvement in the landscape, greater numbers and kinds of wildlife, cleaner water and air, less erosion, and they have the satisfaction of seeing fragile lands serve better purposes. There is persistent concern that improvement seen in wildlife habitat and other environmental profits delivered by the CRP are ephemeral and last only as long as funding supports the existence of the program and its vegetative cover is properly managed. An involved American population will continue to expect governmental policies to enhance long-term protection of natural resources and public health. Recent investigations furnish evidence that the collective economic value of environmental benefits delivered by the CRP likely exceed program costs. The mounting significance placed on environmentally-responsible land management is based in part on public recognition that social, aesthetic, and recreational values enhance the traditional uses of agricultural land.

Scientific Investigations Report↗

USGS2015

Integrating multiple distribution models to guide conservation efforts of an endangered toad

Species distribution models are used for numerous purposes such as predicting changes in species’ ranges and identifying biodiversity hotspots. Although implications of distribution models for conservation are often implicit, few studies use these tools explicitly to inform conservation efforts. Herein, we illustrate how multiple distribution models developed using distinct sets of environmental variables can be integrated to aid in identification sites for use in conservation. We focus on the endangered arroyo toad ( Anaxyrus californicus ), which relies on open, sandy streams and surrounding floodplains in southern California, USA, and northern Baja California, Mexico. Declines of the species are largely attributed to habitat degradation associated with vegetation encroachment, invasive predators, and altered hydrologic regimes. We had three main goals: 1) develop a model of potential habitat for arroyo toads, based on long-term environmental variables and all available locality data; 2) develop a model of the species’ current habitat by incorporating recent remotely-sensed variables and only using recent locality data; and 3) integrate results of both models to identify sites that may be employed in conservation efforts. We used a machine learning technique, Random Forests, to develop the models, focused on riparian zones in southern California. We identified 14.37% and 10.50% of our study area as potential and current habitat for the arroyo toad, respectively. Generally, inclusion of remotely-sensed variables reduced modeled suitability of sites, thus many areas modeled as potential habitat were not modeled as current habitat. We propose such sites could be made suitable for arroyo toads through active management, increasing current habitat by up to 67.02%. Our general approach can be employed to guide conservation efforts of virtually any species with sufficient data necessary to develop appropriate distribution models.

California↗

USGS2024

Using life history traits to assess climate change vulnerability in understudied species

Climate change is a primary threat to biodiversity, but for many species, we still lack information required to assess their relative vulnerability to changes. Climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) is a widely used technique to rank relative vulnerability to climate change based on species characteristics, such as their distributions, habitat associations, environmental tolerances, and life-history traits. However, for species that we expect are vulnerable to climate change yet are understudied, like many amphibians, we often lack information required to construct CCVAs using existing methods. We used the CCVA framework to construct trait-based models based on life history theory, using empirical evidence of traits and distributions that reflected sensitivity of amphibians to environmental perturbation. We performed CCVAs for amphibians in 7 states in the north-central USA, focusing on 31 aquatic-breeding species listed as species of greatest conservation need by at least 1 state. Because detailed information on habitat requirements is unavailable for most amphibian species, we used species distributions and information on traits expected to influence vulnerability to a drying climate (e.g., clutch size and habitat breadth). We scored species vulnerability based on changes projected for mid-century (2040−2069) from 2 climate models representing “least-dry” and “most-dry” scenarios for the region. Species characteristics useful for discriminating vulnerability in our models included small range size, small clutch size, inflexible diel activity patterns, and smaller habitat breadth. When projected climate scenarios included a mix of drier and wetter conditions in the future, the exposure of a species to drying conditions was most important to relative rankings. When the scenario was universally drier, species characteristics were more important to relative rankings. Using information typically available even for understudied species and a range of climate projections, our results highlight the potential of using life history traits as indicators of relative climate vulnerability. The commonalities we identified provide a framework that can be used to assess other understudied species threatened by climate change.

Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota,↗

USGS2016

A systematic survey of the integration of animal behavior into conservation

The role of behavioral ecology in improving wildlife conservation and management has been the subject of much recent debate. We aim to answer two foundational questions about the current use of behavioral knowledge in conservation: 1. To what extent is behavioral knowledge used in wildlife conservation and management? 2. How does the use of behavior differ among conservation fields in both frequency and types of use? To answer these questions, we searched the literature for intersections between key fields of animal behavior and conservation biology and created a systematic ‘heat’ map to visualize relative efforts. Our analysis challenges previous suggestions that there is little association between the fields of behavioral ecology and conservation and reveals tremendous variation in the use of different behaviors in conservation. For instance, some behaviors, such as foraging and dispersal, are commonly considered, but other behaviors such as learning, social or anti-predatory behaviors are hardly considered. Our analysis suggests that in many cases awareness of the importance of behavior does not translate into applicable management tools. We recommend that researchers should focus on developing research in underutilized intersections of behavior and conservation themes for which preliminary work show a potential for improving conservation and management, on translating behavioral theory into applicable and testable predictions, and on creating systematic reviews to summarize the behavioral evidence within the behavior-conservation intersections for which many studies exist.

Conservation Biology↗