Factors associated with preemptive conservation under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In recent decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on proactive efforts to conserve species being considered for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) before they are listed (i.e., preemptive conservation). These efforts, which depend on voluntary actions by public and private land managers across the species' range, aim to conserve species while avoiding regulatory costs associated with ESA listing. We collected data for a set of social, economic, environmental, and institutional factors that we hypothesized would influence voluntary decisions to promote or inhibit preemptive conservation of species under consideration for ESA listing. We used logistic regression to estimate the association of these factors with preemptive conservation outcomes based on data for a set of species that entered the ESA listing process and were either officially listed (n = 314) or preemptively conserved (n = 73) from 1996 to 2018. Factors significantly associated with precluded listing due to preemptive conservation included high baseline conservation status, low proportion of private land across the species' range, small total range size, exposure to specific types of threats, and species' range extending over several states. These results highlight strategies that can help improve conservation outcomes, such as allocating resources for imperiled species earlier in the listing process, addressing specific threats, and expanding incentives and coordination mechanisms for conservation on private lands.

Factores asociados a la conservación preventiva bajo el Acta de Especies en Peligro de los EE. UU. Resumen Durante las últimas décadas ha existido un incremento en los esfuerzos proactivos para conservar a las especies consideradas para ser incluidas en el Acta de Especies en Peligro de los EE. UU. (AEP) antes de ser añadidas a la lista (es decir, conservación preventiva). Estos esfuerzos, que dependen de las acciones voluntarias realizadas por los administradores de las tierras públicas y privadas en la distribución de la especie, buscan conservar a la especie y evitar los costos reglamentarios asociados con su inclusión en el AEP. Recolectamos datos para un conjunto de factores sociales, económicos, ambientales e institucionales que planteamos influirían sobre las decisiones voluntarias para promover o inhibir la conservación preventiva de las especies consideradas para ser enlistadas en el AEP. Usamos la regresión logística para estimar la asociación de estos factores con los resultados de la conservación preventiva con base en los datos de un conjunto de especies que entraron al proceso de listado en el AEP y que terminaron en la lista oficial (n = 314) o con conservación preventiva (n = 73) entre 1996 y 2018. Los factores asociados significativamente con el listado excluyente debido a la conservación preventiva incluyeron: un estado de conservación con una línea base elevada, una baja proporción de suelo privado en la distribución de la especie, un tamaño pequeño de la distribución total, la exposición a tipos específicos de amenazas, y la distribución de la especie extendida por varios estados. Estos resultados resaltan las estrategias que pueden ayudar a mejorar los resultados de conservación, como la asignación anticipada de recursos para especies en peligro durante el proceso de listado, abordar las amenazas específicas y la expansión de incentivos y mecanismos de coordinación para la conservación en suelo privado.

Managing uncertainty in decision-making for conservation science.

Science-based decision-making is the ideal. However, scientific knowledge is incomplete, and sometimes wrong. Responsible science-based policy, planning, and action must exploit knowledge while managing uncertainty. I considered the info-gap method to manage deep uncertainty surrounding knowledge that is used for decision-making in conservation. A central concept is satisficing, which means satisfying a critical requirement. Alternative decisions are prioritized based on their robustness to uncertainty, and critical outcome requirements are satisficed. Robustness is optimized; outcome is satisficed. This is called robust satisficing. A decision with a suboptimal outcome may be preferred over a decision with a putatively optimal outcome if the former can more robustly achieve an acceptable outcome. Many biodiversity conservation applications employ info-gap theory, under which parameter uncertainty but not uncertainty in functional relations is considered. I considered info-gap models of functional uncertainty, widely used outside of conservation science, as applied to conservation of a generic endangered species by translocation to a new region. I focused on 2 uncertainties: the future temperature is uncertain due to climate change, and the shape of the reproductive output function is uncertain due to translocation to an unfamiliar region. The value of new information is demonstrated based on the robustness function, and the info-gap opportuneness function demonstrates the potential for better-than-anticipated outcomes.

Gestión de la incertidumbre en las decisiones para las ciencias de la conservación Resumen Lo ideal es tomar decisiones con base en la ciencia. Sin embargo, el conocimiento científico está incompleto y a veces es incorrecto. Las políticas, planeaciones y acciones responsables basadas en la ciencia deben explotar el conocimiento mientras que gestionan la incertidumbre. Consideré el método de vacío de información para gestionar la incertidumbre profunda en torno al conocimiento usado para las decisiones de conservación. Un concepto central es satisfacción que significa cumplir con un requerimiento crítico. Las decisiones alternativas se priorizan con base en su solidez respecto a la incertidumbre y se cumplen los requerimientos críticos de los resultados. La solidez mejora, el resultado se cumple. A esto se le llama satisfacción sólida. Puede que se prefiera una decisión con un resultado subóptimo por encima de una decisión con un resultado óptimo posible si la primera puede lograr con mayor solidez un resultado aceptable. Muchas aplicaciones de conservación de la biodiversidad usan la teoría del vacío de información, la cual considera la incertidumbre del parámetro, pero no la incertidumbre en las relaciones funcionales. Consideré los modelos de vacío de información en la incertidumbre funcional, usados de forma extensa fuera de las ciencias de la conservación, aplicados a la conservación de una especie genérica amenazada mediante la reubicación a una nueva región. Me enfoqué en dos incertidumbres: la temperatura en el futuro es incierta debido al cambio climático y la forma de la función del rendimiento reproductivo es incierta debido a la reubicación a una región desconocida. El valor de la nueva información queda demostrado con base en la función de la solidez y la función de la conveniencia demuestra el potencial para resultados mejores a lo esperado.

Effect of risk aversion on prioritizing conservation projects.

Conservation outcomes are uncertain. Agencies making decisions about what threat mitigation actions to take to save which species frequently face the dilemma of whether to invest in actions with high probability of success and guaranteed benefits or to choose projects with a greater risk of failure that might provide higher benefits if they succeed. The answer to this dilemma lies in the decision maker's aversion to risk--their unwillingness to accept uncertain outcomes. Little guidance exists on how risk preferences affect conservation investment priorities. Using a prioritization approach based on cost effectiveness, we compared 2 approaches: a conservative probability threshold approach that excludes investment in projects with a risk of management failure greater than a fixed level, and a variance-discounting heuristic used in economics that explicitly accounts for risk tolerance and the probabilities of management success and failure. We applied both approaches to prioritizing projects for 700 of New Zealand's threatened species across 8303 management actions. Both decision makers' risk tolerance and our choice of approach to dealing with risk preferences drove the prioritization solution (i.e., the species selected for management). Use of a probability threshold minimized uncertainty, but more expensive projects were selected than with variance discounting, which maximized expected benefits by selecting the management of species with higher extinction risk and higher conservation value. Explicitly incorporating risk preferences within the decision making process reduced the number of species expected to be safe from extinction because lower risk tolerance resulted in more species being excluded from management, but the approach allowed decision makers to choose a level of acceptable risk that fit with their ability to accommodate failure. We argue for transparency in risk tolerance and recommend that decision makers accept risk in an adaptive management framework to maximize benefits and avoid potential extinctions due to inefficient allocation of limited resources.

Determining when to change course in management actions.

Time is of the essence in conservation biology. To secure the persistence of a species, we need to understand how to balance time spent among different management actions. A new and simple method to test the efficacy of a range of conservation actions is required. Thus, we devised a general theoretical framework to help determine whether to test a new action and when to cease a trial and revert to an existing action if the new action did not perform well. The framework involves constructing a general population model under the different management actions and specifying a management objective. By maximizing the management objective, we could generate an analytical solution that identifies the optimal timing of when to change management action. We applied the analytical solution to the case of the Christmas Island pipistrelle bat (Pipistrelle murrayi), a species for which captive breeding might have prevented its extinction. For this case, we used our model to determine whether to start a captive breeding program and when to stop a captive breeding program and revert to managing the species in the wild, given that the management goal is to maximize the chance of reaching a target wild population size. For the pipistrelle bat, captive breeding was to start immediately and it was desirable to place the species in captivity for the entire management period. The optimal time to revert to managing the species in the wild was driven by several key parameters, including the management goal, management time frame, and the growth rates of the population under different management actions. Knowing when to change management actions can help conservation managers' act in a timely fashion to avoid species extinction.