A landmark environmental law looks ahead.

In late December 1973, the United States enacted what some would come to call "the pitbull of environmental laws." In the 50 years since, the formidable regulatory teeth of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been credited with considerable successes, obliging agencies to draw upon the best available science to protect species and habitats. Yet human pressures continue to push the planet toward extinctions on a massive scale. With that prospect looming, and with scientific understanding ever changing, Science invited experts to discuss how the ESA has evolved and what its future might hold. -Brad Wible.

Species conservation in the era of genomic science.

The exponential increase in the availability of genomic data, derived from sequencing thousands of loci or whole genomes, provides exciting new insights into the diversity of life. However, it can also challenge established species concepts and existing management regimes derived from these concepts. Genomic data can help inform decisions about how to manage genetic diversity, but policies that protect identified taxonomic entities can generate conflicting recommendations that create challenges for practitioners. We outline three dimensions of management concern that arise when facing new and potentially conflicting interpretations of genomic data: defining conservation entities, deciding how to manage diversity, and evaluating the risks and benefits of management actions. We highlight the often-underappreciated role of values in influencing management choices made by individuals, scientists, practitioners, the public, and other stakeholders. Such values influence choices through mechanisms such as the Rashomon effect, whereby management decisions are complicated by conflicting perceptions of the causes and consequences of the conservation problem. To illustrate how this might operate, we offer a hypothetical example of this effect for the interpretation of genomic data and its implications for conservation management. Such value-based decisions can be challenged by the rigidity of existing management regimes, making it difficult to achieve the necessary flexibility to match the changing biological understanding. We finish by recommending that both conservation geneticists and practitioners reflect on their respective values, responsibilities, and roles in building a more robust system of species management. This includes embracing the inclusion of stakeholders in decision-making because, as in many cases, there are not objectively defensible right or wrong decisions.

Conservation lessons from taboos and trolley problems.

Governments pass conservation laws, adopt policies, and make plans yet frequently fail to implement them. Implementation of conservation, however, often requires costly sacrifice: people foregoing benefit for the benefit of biodiversity. Decisions involve trade-offs with outcomes that depend on the values at stake and people's perceptions of those values. Psychology, ethics, and behavioral science have each addressed the challenge of making difficult, often tragic, trade-off decisions. Based on these literatures, values can be classified as secular or sacred, where sacred values are those for which compensation may be unthinkable (e.g., freedom). Taboo trade-offs emerge when secular values are pitted against sacred ones. These are difficult to discuss, much less negotiate. Confronting taboo trade-offs in conservation may require discursive approaches to better understand particular attributes of decisions that place sacred human values at risk. Tragic trade-offs emerge when sacred values are pitted against one another. The trolley problem-a forced choice between 2 unthinkable outcomes-is a simple heuristic illustrating ethical challenges of tragic trade-offs. Behavior studies illustrate that people have a strong aversion to losses where an active choice was made, resulting in a bias toward status quo decisions. Faced with tragic, trolley-problem-like choices, people tend to avoid taking responsibility for action, defer decisions, evade opinions on painful choices, and regret unfortunate outcomes of actions. To help close the implementation gap, conservation actors may need to directly address the psychological, ethical, and behavioral barriers created by the remorse, regret, and moral residue of implementing conservation choices that have tragic outcomes. Recognition of these predictable features of the human psyche may foster better administrative structures to support action with durable outcomes as well as new research directions.

Lecciones sobre Conservación a Partir de los Tabúes y el Dilema del Tranvía Resumen Los gobiernos aprueban leyes, adoptan políticas y elaboran planes para la conservación, pero con frecuencia fallan en implementar todo lo anterior. La implementación de la conservación, sin embargo, requiere con frecuencia un sacrificio muy costoso: que la gente renuncie a un beneficio para beneficiar a la biodiversidad. Las decisiones involucran compensaciones con resultados que dependen de los valores que están en juego y la percepción que tiene la gente de esos valores. La Psicología, la Ética y las Ciencias del Comportamiento han abordado el reto de la toma de decisiones difíciles, con frecuencia trágicas, relacionadas con las compensaciones. Con base en la literatura de estas disciplinas, podemos clasificar los valores como seculares o sagrados, donde los últimos son aquellos para los cuales una compensación puede ser inimaginable (p. ej.: la libertad). Las compensaciones tabúes emergen cuando se confrontan los valores seculares contra los sagrados y es difícil discutirlas y mucho menos negociarlas. La confrontación de las compensaciones tabú dentro del esquema de la conservación puede requerir de estrategias discursivas para entender de mejor manera los atributos particulares de las decisiones que colocan los valores humanos sagrados que están en riesgo. Las compensaciones trágicas surgen cuando se confrontan entre sí los valores sagrados. El dilema del tranvía - una elección forzada entre dos resultados impensables - es un heurístico simple que ilustra los retos éticos que representan las compensaciones trágicas. Los estudios sobre el comportamiento demuestran que las personas tienen una fuerte aversión hacia las pérdidas en las que se realizó una elección activa, lo que resultó en un sesgo hacia las decisiones del orden establecido. Cuando las personas se enfrentan a elecciones trágicas del estilo del dilema del tranvía tienden a evitar responsabilizarse por la acción, aplazar las decisiones, evadir opiniones sobre elecciones dolorosas y arrepentirse por los resultados desafortunados de las acciones. Para ayudar a reducir la brecha de la implementación, los actores de la conservación podrían necesitar abordar directamente las barreras psicológicas, éticas y de comportamiento creadas por el remordimiento, el arrepentimiento y el residuo moral de la implementación de las elecciones de conservación que tienen resultados trágicos. El reconocimiento de estos rasgos predecibles de la psique humana puede promover de mejor manera las estructuras administrativas para respaldar las acciones con resultados duraderos, así como nuevas directrices para la investigación.

Improving inferences about private land conservation by accounting for incomplete reporting.

Private lands provide key habitat for imperiled species and are core components of function protectected area networks; yet, their incorporation into national and regional conservation planning has been challenging. Identifying locations where private landowners are likely to participate in conservation initiatives can help avoid conflict and clarify trade-offs between ecological benefits and sociopolitical costs. Empirical, spatially explicit assessment of the factors associated with conservation on private land is an emerging tool for identifying future conservation opportunities. However, most data on private land conservation are voluntarily reported and incomplete, which complicates these assessments. We used a novel application of occupancy models to analyze the occurrence of conservation easements on private land. We compared multiple formulations of occupancy models with a logistic regression model to predict the locations of conservation easements based on a spatially explicit social-ecological systems framework. We combined a simulation experiment with a case study of easement data in Idaho and Montana (United States) to illustrate the utility of the occupancy framework for modeling conservation on private land. Occupancy models that explicitly accounted for variation in reporting produced estimates of predictors that were substantially less biased than estimates produced by logistic regression under all simulated conditions. Occupancy models produced estimates for the 6 predictors we evaluated in our case study that were larger in magnitude, but less certain than those produced by logistic regression. These results suggest that occupancy models result in qualitatively different inferences regarding the effects of predictors on conservation easement occurrence than logistic regression and highlight the importance of integrating variable and incomplete reporting of participation in empirical analysis of conservation initiatives. Failure to do so can lead to emphasizing the wrong social, institutional, and environmental factors that enable conservation and underestimating conservation opportunities in landscapes where social norms or institutional constraints inhibit reporting.

La incorporación de las tierras privadas a la planeación de la conservación regional y nacional ha sido un reto a pesar de su importancia como hábitat para especies en peligro y como componentes nucleares de las redes funcionales de áreas protegidas. La identificación de las localidades en donde sea probable que los propietarios privados participen en las iniciativas de conservación puede ayudar a evitar conflictos costosos y a aclarar las compensaciones entre los beneficios ecológicos y los costos sociopolíticos. La evaluación empírica y espacialmente explícita de los factores asociados con la conservación en tierras privadas es una herramienta emergente usada para la identificación de oportunidades de conservación en el futuro. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los datos sobre la conservación en tierras privadas es reportada voluntariamente y está incompleta, lo cual complica realizar estas evaluaciones. Usamos una aplicación novedosa de los modelos de ocupación para analizar la presencia de la mitigación por conservación en tierras privadas. Comparamos diferentes formulaciones de los modelos de ocupación con un modelo de regresión logística para predecir las localidades de la mitigación por conservación con base en un marco de trabajo de un sistema socioecológico espacialmente explícito. Combinamos un experimento de simulación con un estudio de caso sobre datos de mitigación en Idaho y Montana (Estados Unidos) para ilustrar la utilidad del marco de trabajo de ocupación para el modelado de la conservación en tierras privadas. Los modelos de ocupación que consideraron explícitamente la variación en los reportes produjeron estimados de los predictores que estuvieron sustancialmente menos sesgados que los estimados producidos por la regresión logística bajo todas las condiciones simuladas. Los modelos de ocupación produjeron estimaciones para seis predictores que evaluamos en nuestro estudio de caso, los cuales fueron mayores en magnitud pero menos certeros que aquellos producidos por la regresión logística. Estos resultados sugieren que los modelos de ocupación tienen como resultado inferencias cualitativamente diferentes a la regresión logística con respecto a los efectos de los predictores sobre la presencia de mitigación por conservación y resaltan la importancia de la integración de los reportes variables e incompletos sobre la participación dentro del análisis empírico de las iniciativas de conservación. Si se falla en lo anterior se puede terminar enfatizando el factor social, institucional y ambiental equivocado que permite la conservación, además de subestimar las oportunidades de conservación en paisajes en donde las normas sociales o las restricciones institucionales inhiben el reporte de datos.

Trait-based climate vulnerability of native rodents in southwestern Mexico.

AIM: Incorporate species' trait information together with climate projections for associated habitat to assess the potential vulnerability of rodent taxa to climate change. LOCATION: Oaxaca State, Mexico. METHODS: We used a trait-based approach together with climate exposure models to evaluate the vulnerability of rodent species to projected climate conditions in the study region. Vulnerability was estimated based on three factors: (a) Level of climatic exposure that species are projected to experience across their current statewide range; (b) inherent species-specific sensitivity to stochastic events; and (c) species' capacity to cope with climate change effects. We defined species as inherently sensitive if they had any of the following: restricted geographic distribution in Mexico; narrow altitudinal range; low dispersal ability; or long generation length. RESULTS: Vulnerability varied depending on the climate change scenario applied. Under the MPI general circulation model and current emissions trends, by 2099, all species evaluated were projected to have some level of threat (vulnerable for at least one factor), with 4 out of 55 species vulnerable for all three factors, 29 for two factors, and 22 for one factor. Six out of ten rodent species endemic to Oaxaca were vulnerable for two or more factors. We found that species with narrow and restricted-range distributions combined with low adaptive capacity were projected to be particularly vulnerable. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: By including species-specific trait information in climate exposure assessments, researchers can contextualize and enhance their understanding about how climate change is likely to affect individual taxa in an area of interest. As such, studies like this one provide more relevant threat assessment information than exposure analyses alone and serve as a starting point for considering how climatic changes interact with an array of other variables to affect native species across their range.

Assessment of the Conservation Measures Partnership's effort to improve conservation outcomes through adaptive management.

Conservation practice has demonstrated an increasing desire for accountability of actions, particularly with respect to effectiveness, efficiency, and impact to clearly identified objectives. This has been accompanied by increased attention to achieving adaptive management. In 2002, practitioners representing several prominent conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) launched a community of practice called the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP). The partnership CMP has worked to establish standards of conservation practice to improve accountability of conservation actions through adaptive management. The focal organizing framework for CMP has been the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (OS). We evaluated, through an online survey and personal interviews, the first decade of CMP and the OS. The CMP has garnered a positive reputation among agencies, NGOs, and funders and has succeeded in developing a large user base of the OS. However, CMP has not fully achieved its goal of making the OS standard operating procedure for the largest NGOs (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund), despite it being widely used within these organizations. This lack of institutionalization is attributable to multiple causes, including an increase in the number of partially overlapping decision-support frameworks and challenges achieving full-cycle adaptive management. Users strongly believed the OS fosters better conservation practice and highly valued the OS for improving their practice. A primary objective of the OS is to assist practitioners to achieve full-cycle adaptive management to better integrate learning into improving the effectiveness and efficiency of actions. However, most practitioners had not yet achieved cycle completion for their projects. To improve the effectiveness of CMP, OS, and conservation practice in general, we recommend collaborative efforts among the proponents of multiple decision-support frameworks to foster strong institutional adoption of a common set of adaptive-management standards for conservation accountability.

Identifying climate risk perceptions, information needs, and barriers to information exchange among public land managers.

Meeting ecosystem management challenges posed by climate change requires building effective communication channels among researchers, planners and practitioners to focus research on management issues requiring new knowledge. We surveyed resource managers within two regions of the western United States regions to better understand perceived risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change and barriers to obtaining and using relevant climate science information in making ecosystem management decisions. We sought to understand what types of climate science information resource managers find most valuable, and the formats in which they prefer to receive climate science information. We found broad concern among natural resource managers in federal agencies that climate change will make it more difficult for them to achieve their management goals. Primary barriers to incorporating climate science into planning are distributed among challenges identifying, receiving, and interpreting appropriate science and a lack of direction provided by agency leadership needed to meaningfully use this emerging science in resource planning.

Climatic change controls productivity variation in global grasslands.

Detection and identification of the impacts of climate change on ecosystems have been core issues in climate change research in recent years. In this study, we compared average annual values of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with theoretical net primary productivity (NPP) values based on temperature and precipitation to determine the effect of historic climate change on global grassland productivity from 1982 to 2011. Comparison of trends in actual productivity (NDVI) with climate-induced potential productivity showed that the trends in average productivity in nearly 40% of global grassland areas have been significantly affected by climate change. The contribution of climate change to variability in grassland productivity was 15.2-71.2% during 1982-2011. Climate change contributed significantly to long-term trends in grassland productivity mainly in North America, central Eurasia, central Africa, and Oceania; these regions will be more sensitive to future climate change impacts. The impacts of climate change on variability in grassland productivity were greater in the Western Hemisphere than the Eastern Hemisphere. Confirmation of the observed trends requires long-term controlled experiments and multi-model ensembles to reduce uncertainties and explain mechanisms.

Complex responses of spring vegetation growth to climate in a moisture-limited alpine meadow.

Since 2000, the phenology has advanced in some years and at some locations on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, whereas it has been delayed in others. To understand the variations in spring vegetation growth in response to climate, we conducted both regional and experimental studies on the central Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We used the normalized difference vegetation index to identify correlations between climate and phenological greening, and found that greening correlated negatively with winter-spring time precipitation, but not with temperature. We used open top chambers to induce warming in an alpine meadow ecosystem from 2012 to 2014. Our results showed that in the early growing season, plant growth (represented by the net ecosystem CO2 exchange, NEE) was lower in the warmed plots than in the control plots. Late-season plant growth increased with warming relative to that under control conditions. These data suggest that the response of plant growth to warming is complex and non-intuitive in this system. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that moisture limitation increases in early spring as temperature increases. The effects of moisture limitation on plant growth with increasing temperatures will have important ramifications for grazers in this system.

The impacts of increasing drought on forest dynamics, structure, and biodiversity in the United States.

We synthesize insights from current understanding of drought impacts at stand-to-biogeographic scales, including management options, and we identify challenges to be addressed with new research. Large stand-level shifts underway in western forests already are showing the importance of interactions involving drought, insects, and fire. Diebacks, changes in composition and structure, and shifting range limits are widely observed. In the eastern US, the effects of increasing drought are becoming better understood at the level of individual trees, but this knowledge cannot yet be confidently translated to predictions of changing structure and diversity of forest stands. While eastern forests have not experienced the types of changes seen in western forests in recent decades, they too are vulnerable to drought and could experience significant changes with increased severity, frequency, or duration in drought. Throughout the continental United States, the combination of projected large climate-induced shifts in suitable habitat from modeling studies and limited potential for the rapid migration of tree populations suggests that changing tree and forest biogeography could substantially lag habitat shifts already underway. Forest management practices can partially ameliorate drought impacts through reductions in stand density, selection of drought-tolerant species and genotypes, artificial regeneration, and the development of multistructured stands. However, silvicultural treatments also could exacerbate drought impacts unless implemented with careful attention to site and stand characteristics. Gaps in our understanding should motivate new research on the effects of interactions involving climate and other species at the stand scale and how interactions and multiple responses are represented in models. This assessment indicates that, without a stronger empirical basis for drought impacts at the stand scale, more complex models may provide limited guidance.

Estimating the spatial and temporal distribution of species richness within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

Evidence for significant losses of species richness or biodiversity, even within protected natural areas, is mounting. Managers are increasingly being asked to monitor biodiversity, yet estimating biodiversity is often prohibitively expensive. As a cost-effective option, we estimated the spatial and temporal distribution of species richness for four taxonomic groups (birds, mammals, herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians), and plants) within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks using only existing biological studies undertaken within the Parks and the Parks' long-term wildlife observation database. We used a rarefaction approach to model species richness for the four taxonomic groups and analyzed those groups by habitat type, elevation zone, and time period. We then mapped the spatial distributions of species richness values for the four taxonomic groups, as well as total species richness, for the Parks. We also estimated changes in species richness for birds, mammals, and herpetofauna since 1980. The modeled patterns of species richness either peaked at mid elevations (mammals, plants, and total species richness) or declined consistently with increasing elevation (herpetofauna and birds). Plants reached maximum species richness values at much higher elevations than did vertebrate taxa, and non-flying mammals reached maximum species richness values at higher elevations than did birds. Alpine plant communities, including sagebrush, had higher species richness values than did subalpine plant communities located below them in elevation. These results are supported by other papers published in the scientific literature. Perhaps reflecting climate change: birds and herpetofauna displayed declines in species richness since 1980 at low and middle elevations and mammals displayed declines in species richness since 1980 at all elevations.

Predicting species distributions for conservation decisions.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly proposed to support conservation decision making. However, evidence of SDMs supporting solutions for on-ground conservation problems is still scarce in the scientific literature. Here, we show that successful examples exist but are still largely hidden in the grey literature, and thus less accessible for analysis and learning. Furthermore, the decision framework within which SDMs are used is rarely made explicit. Using case studies from biological invasions, identification of critical habitats, reserve selection and translocation of endangered species, we propose that SDMs may be tailored to suit a range of decision-making contexts when used within a structured and transparent decision-making process. To construct appropriate SDMs to more effectively guide conservation actions, modellers need to better understand the decision process, and decision makers need to provide feedback to modellers regarding the actual use of SDMs to support conservation decisions. This could be facilitated by individuals or institutions playing the role of 'translators' between modellers and decision makers. We encourage species distribution modellers to get involved in real decision-making processes that will benefit from their technical input; this strategy has the potential to better bridge theory and practice, and contribute to improve both scientific knowledge and conservation outcomes.

Forest structure, stand composition, and climate-growth response in montane forests of Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, China.

Montane forests of western China provide an opportunity to establish baseline studies for climate change. The region is being impacted by climate change, air pollution, and significant human impacts from tourism. We analyzed forest stand structure and climate-growth relationships from Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve in northwestern Sichuan province, along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. We conducted a survey to characterize forest stand diversity and structure in plots occurring between 2050 and 3350 m in elevation. We also evaluated seedling and sapling recruitment and tree-ring data from four conifer species to assess: 1) whether the forest appears in transition toward increased hardwood composition; 2) if conifers appear stressed by recent climate change relative to hardwoods; and 3) how growth of four dominant species responds to recent climate. Our study is complicated by clear evidence of 20(th) century timber extraction. Focusing on regions lacking evidence of logging, we found a diverse suite of conifers (Pinus, Abies, Juniperus, Picea, and Larix) strongly dominate the forest overstory. We found population size structures for most conifer tree species to be consistent with self-replacement and not providing evidence of shifting composition toward hardwoods. Climate-growth analyses indicate increased growth with cool temperatures in summer and fall. Warmer temperatures during the growing season could negatively impact conifer growth, indicating possible seasonal climate water deficit as a constraint on growth. In contrast, however, we found little relationship to seasonal precipitation. Projected warming does not yet have a discernible signal on trends in tree growth rates, but slower growth with warmer growing season climates suggests reduced potential future forest growth.

Translocation of imperiled species under changing climates.

Conservation translocation of species varies from restoring historic populations to managing the relocation of imperiled species to new locations. We review the literature in three areas--translocation, managed relocation, and conservation decision making--to inform conservation translocation under changing climates. First, climate change increases the potential for conflict over both the efficacy and the acceptability of conservation translocation. The emerging literature on managed relocation highlights this discourse. Second, conservation translocation works in concert with other strategies. The emerging literature in structured decision making provides a framework for prioritizing conservation actions--considering many possible alternatives that are evaluated based on expected benefit, risk, and social-political feasibility. Finally, the translocation literature has historically been primarily concerned with risks associated with the target species. In contrast, the managed relocation literature raises concerns about the ecological risk to the recipient ecosystem. Engaging in a structured decision process that explicitly focuses on stakeholder engagement, problem definition and specification of goals from the outset will allow creative solutions to be developed and evaluated based on their expected effectiveness.

Achieving conservation science that bridges the knowledge-action boundary.

There are many barriers to using science to inform conservation policy and practice. Conservation scientists wishing to produce management-relevant science must balance this goal with the imperative of demonstrating novelty and rigor in their science. Decision makers seeking to make evidence-based decisions must balance a desire for knowledge with the need to act despite uncertainty. Generating science that will effectively inform management decisions requires that the production of information (the components of knowledge) be salient (relevant and timely), credible (authoritative, believable, and trusted), and legitimate (developed via a process that considers the values and perspectives of all relevant actors) in the eyes of both researchers and decision makers. We perceive 3 key challenges for those hoping to generate conservation science that achieves all 3 of these information characteristics. First, scientific and management audiences can have contrasting perceptions about the salience of research. Second, the pursuit of scientific credibility can come at the cost of salience and legitimacy in the eyes of decision makers, and, third, different actors can have conflicting views about what constitutes legitimate information. We highlight 4 institutional frameworks that can facilitate science that will inform management: boundary organizations (environmental organizations that span the boundary between science and management), research scientists embedded in resource management agencies, formal links between decision makers and scientists at research-focused institutions, and training programs for conservation professionals. Although these are not the only approaches to generating boundary-spanning science, nor are they mutually exclusive, they provide mechanisms for promoting communication, translation, and mediation across the knowledge-action boundary. We believe that despite the challenges, conservation science should strive to be a boundary science, which both advances scientific understanding and contributes to decision making.