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The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that the "best available scientific and commercial data" be used to protect imperiled species from extinction and preserve biodiversity. However, it does not provide specific guidance on how to apply this mandate. Scientific data can be uncertain and controversial, particularly regarding species delineation and hybridization issues. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had an evolving hybrid policy to guide protection decisions for individuals of hybrid origin. Currently, this policy is in limbo because it resulted in several controversial conservation decisions in the past. Biologists from FWS must interpret and apply the best available science to their recommendations and likely use considerable discretion in making recommendations for what species to list, how to define those species, and how to recover them. We used semistructured interviews to collect data on FWS biologists' use of discretion to make recommendations for listed species with hybridization issues. These biologists had a large amount of discretion to determine the best available science and how to interpret it but generally deferred to the scientific consensus on the taxonomic status of an organism. Respondents viewed hybridization primarily as a problem in the context of the ESA, although biologists who had experience with hybridization issues were more likely to describe it in more nuanced terms. Many interviewees expressed a desire to continue the current case-by-case approach for handling hybridization issues, but some wanted more guidance on procedures (i.e., a "flexible" hybrid policy). Field-level information can provide critical insight into which policies are working (or not working) and why. The FWS biologists' we interviewed had a high level of discretion, which greatly influenced ESA implementation, particularly in the context of hybridization., (© 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.)

United States legislation requires the US Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that pesticide use does not cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA; hereafter referred to as listed species). Despite a long history of population models used in conservation biology and resource management and a 2013 report from the US National Research Council recommending their use, application of population models for pesticide risk assessments under the ESA has been minimal. The pertinent literature published from 2004 to 2014 was reviewed to explore the availability of population models and their frequency of use in listed species risk assessments. The models were categorized in terms of structure, taxonomic coverage, purpose, inputs and outputs, and whether the models included density dependence, stochasticity, or risk estimates, or were spatially explicit. Despite the widespread availability of models and an extensive literature documenting their use in other management contexts, only 2 of the approximately 400 studies reviewed used population models to assess the risks of pesticides to listed species. This result suggests that there is an untapped potential to adapt existing models for pesticide risk assessments under the ESA, but also that there are some challenges to do so for listed species. Key conclusions from the analysis are summarized, and priorities are recommended for future work to increase the usefulness of population models as tools for pesticide risk assessments. Environ Toxicol Chem 2016;35:1904-1913. © 2016 SETAC., (© 2016 SETAC.)

The Endangered Species Act's best available science mandate has been widely emulated and reflects a Congressional directive to ensure that decisions made under the Act are informed by reliable knowledge applied using a structured approach. We build on a standing literature by describing the role of the best science directive in the Act's implementation and best practices that can be employed to realize the directive. Next we describe recurring impediments to realizing determinations by the federal wildlife agencies that are based on the best available science. We then identify the types of data, analyses, and modeling efforts that can serve as best science. Finally, we consider the role and application of best available science in effects analysis and adaptive management. We contend that more rigorous adherence by the wildlife agencies to the best available science directive and more assiduous judicial oversight of agency determinations and actions is essential for effective implementation of the Act, particularly where it has substantial ramifications for listed species, stakeholder segments of society, or both.

After decades of discussion, there is little consensus on the extent to which hybrids between endangered and nonendangered species should be protected by US law. As increasingly larger, genome-scale data sets are developed, we can identify individuals and populations with even trace levels of genetic admixture, making the 'hybrid problem' all the more difficult. We developed a decision-tree framework for evaluating hybrid protection, including both the processes that produced hybrids (human-mediated or natural) and the ecological impact of hybrids on natural ecosystems. We then evaluated our decision tree for four case studies drawn from our own work and briefly discuss several other cases from the literature. Throughout, we highlight the management outcomes that our approach provides and the nuances of hybridization as a conservation problem., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Listing endangered and threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act is presumed to offer a defense against extinction and a solution to achieve recovery of imperiled populations, but only if effective conservation action ensues after listing occurs. The amount of government funding available for species protection and recovery is one of the best predictors of successful recovery; however, government spending is both insufficient and highly disproportionate among groups of species, and there is significant discrepancy between proposed and actualized budgets across species. In light of an increasing list of imperiled species requiring evaluation and protection, an explicit approach to allocating recovery funds is urgently needed. Here I provide a formal decision-theoretic approach focusing on return on investment as an objective and a transparent mechanism to achieve the desired recovery goals. I found that less than 25% of the $1.21 billion/year needed for implementing recovery plans for 1,125 species is actually allocated to recovery. Spending in excess of the recommended recovery budget does not necessarily translate into better conservation outcomes. Rather, elimination of only the budget surplus for "costly yet futile" recovery plans can provide sufficient funding to erase funding deficits for more than 180 species. Triage by budget compression provides better funding for a larger sample of species, and a larger sample of adequately funded recovery plans should produce better outcomes even if by chance. Sharpening our focus on deliberate decision making offers the potential to achieve desired outcomes in avoiding extinction for Endangered Species Act-listed species.

This study tested the efficacy of environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling to delineate the distribution of bull trout Salvelinus confluentus in headwater streams in western Montana, U.S.A. Surveys proved fast, reliable and sensitive: 124 samples were collected across five basins by a single crew in c. 8 days. Results were largely consistent with past electrofishing, but, in a basin where S. confluentus were known to be scarce, eDNA samples indicated that S. confluentus were more broadly distributed than previously thought., (© 2016 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.)

The international trade in night monkeys (Aotus spp.), found throughout Central and South America, has been regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 1975. We present a quantitative analysis of this trade from all 9 range countries, over 4 decades, and compare domestic legislation to CITES regulations. Night monkeys were exported from 8 of the 9 habitat countries, totalling 5,968 live individuals and 7,098 specimens, with trade of live individuals declining over time. In terms of species, the most commonly traded was Aotus nancymaae (present in Brazil, Colombia, Peru) followed by A. vociferans (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) and A. zonalis (Colombia, Panama). There was no significant correlation between levels of trade and species' geographic range size or the number of countries in which a species occurs. Five countries have legislation that meets CITES requirements for implementation, whereas the other 4 countries' legislation showed deficiencies. Research conducted in Colombia, Peru, and Brazil suggests significant cross-border trade not captured in official international trade registers. Although international trade has diminished, current trends suggest that populations of rarer species may be under unsustainable pressure. Further research is needed to quantify real trade numbers occurring between habitat countries., (© 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Separating myth and reality is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of laws. Section 7 of the US Endangered Species Act (Act) directs federal agencies to help conserve threatened and endangered species, including by consulting with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service on actions the agencies authorize, fund, or carry out. Consultations ensure that actions do not violate the Act's prohibitions on "jeopardizing" listed species or "destroying or adversely modifying" these species' critical habitat. Because these prohibitions are broad, many people consider section 7 the primary tool for protecting species under the Act, whereas others believe section 7 severely impedes economic development. This decades-old controversy is driven primarily by the lack of data on implementation: past analyses are either over 25 y old or taxonomically restricted. We analyze data on all 88,290 consultations recorded by FWS from January 2008 through April 2015. In contrast to conventional wisdom about section 7 implementation, no project was stopped or extensively altered as a result of FWS finding jeopardy or adverse modification during this period. We also show that median consultation duration is far lower than the maximum allowed by the Act, and several factors drive variation in consultation duration. The results discredit many of the claims about the onerous nature of section 7 but also raise questions as to how federal agencies could apply this tool more effectively to conserve species. We build on the results to identify ways to improve the effectiveness of consultations for imperiled species conservation and increase the efficiency of consultations.

The Antillean manatee inhabits coastal regions of North and Northeastern Brazil and currently is considered an endangered species in the country. Aiming to gather information for the development of public policies focusing on the conservation of manatees, the National Center for Research and Conservation of Aquatic Mammals of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity has been rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing these mammals since the 1980s. Over the last 36 years, 40 manatees were released by the CMA/ICMBio and four of them were rescued again due to debris ingestion. Two of these manatees died and the other two were taken back into captivity for a new rehabilitation process. The four mammals had confirmed diagnosis of plastic debris ingestion. These findings demonstrate that the environment where the manatees live after being released had a significant amount of garbage which may hinder the success of the species conservation in Brazil., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) of the United States was enacted in 1973 to prevent the extinction of species. Recovery plans, required by 1988 amendments to the ESA, play an important role in organizing these efforts to protect and recover species. To improve the use of science in the recovery planning process, the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) commissioned an independent review of endangered species recovery planning in 1999. From these findings, the SCB made key recommendations for how management agencies could improve the recovery planning process, after which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service redrafted their recovery planning guidelines. One important recommendation called for recovery plans to make threats a primary focus, including organizing and prioritizing recovery tasks for threat abatement. We sought to determine the extent to which results from the SCB study were incorporated into these new guidelines and whether the SCB recommendations regarding threats manifested in recovery plans written under the new guidelines. Recovery planning guidelines generally incorporated the SCB recommendations, including those for managing threats. However, although recent recovery plans have improved in their treatment of threats, many fail to adequately incorporate threat monitoring. This failure suggests that developing clear guidelines for monitoring should be an important priority in improving ESA recovery planning., (© 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.)

The United States Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted to protect and restore declining fish, wildlife, and plant populations. The ESA mandates endangered species protection irrespective of costs. This translates to the restriction of activities that harm endangered populations. We discuss criticisms of the ESA in the context of public land management and examine under what circumstance banning non-conservation activity on multiple use federal lands can be socially optimal. We develop a bioeconomic model to frame the species management problem under the ESA and identify scenarios where ESA-imposed regulations emerge as optimal strategies. Results suggest that banning harmful activities is a preferred strategy when valued endangered species are in decline or exposed to poor habitat quality. However, it is not optimal to sustain such a strategy in perpetuity. An optimal plan involves a switch to land-use practices characteristic of habitat conservation plans.

Poaching of elephants is now occurring at rates that threaten African populations with extinction. Identifying the number and location of Africa's major poaching hotspots may assist efforts to end poaching and facilitate recovery of elephant populations. We genetically assign origin to 28 large ivory seizures (≥0.5 metric tons) made between 1996 and 2014, also testing assignment accuracy. Results suggest that the major poaching hotspots in Africa may be currently concentrated in as few as two areas. Increasing law enforcement in these two hotspots could help curtail future elephant losses across Africa and disrupt this organized transnational crime., (Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.)

Costa Rica has one of the greatest percentages (26%) of protected land in the world. The National Protected Areas System (NPAS) of Costa Rica was established in 1976 and currently includes >190 protected areas within seven different protection categories. The effectiveness of the NPAS to represent species, populations, and areas with high species richness has not been properly evaluated. Such evaluations are fundamental to understand what is necessary to strengthen the NPAS and better protect biodiversity. We present a novel assessment of NPAS effectiveness in protecting mammal species. We compiled the geographical ranges of all terrestrial Costa Rican mammals then determined species lists for all protected areas and the estimated proportion of each species' geographic range protected. We also classified mammal species according to their conservation status using the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. We found almost complete representation of mammal species (98.5%) in protected areas, but low relative coverage (28.3% on average) of their geographic ranges in Costa Rica and 25% of the species were classified as underprotected according to a priori representation targets. Interestingly, many species-rich areas are not protected, and at least 43% of cells covering the entire country are not included in protected areas. Though protected areas in Costa Rica represent species richness well, strategic planning for future protected areas to improve species complementarity and range protection is necessary. Our results can help to define sites where new protected areas can have a greater impact on mammal conservation, both in terms of species richness and range protection.

The term critical habitat is used to describe the subset of habitat that is essential to the survival and recovery of species. Some countries legally require that critical habitat of listed threatened and endangered species be identified and protected. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the identification of critical habitat has had much impact on species recovery. We hypothesized that this may be due at least partly to a mismatch between the intent of critical habitat identification, which is to protect sufficient habitat for species persistence and recovery, and its practice. We used content analysis to systematically review critical habitat documents from the United States, Canada, and Australia. In particular, we identified the major trends in type of information used to identify critical habitat and in occupancy of habitat identified as critical. Information about population viability was used to identify critical habitat for only 1% of the species reviewed, and for most species, designated critical habitat did not include unoccupied habitat. Without reference to population viability, it is difficult to determine how much of a species' occupied and unoccupied habitat will be required for persistence. We therefore conclude that the identification of critical habitat remains inconsistent with the goal of protecting sufficient habitat to support persistence and recovery of the species. Ensuring that critical habitat identification aligns more closely with its intent will improve the accuracy of the designations and may therefore help improve the benefits to species recovery when combined with adequate implementation and enforcement of legal protections., (© 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.)

This essay focuses on possible nonhuman applications of CRISPR/Cas9 that are likely to be widely overlooked because they are unexpected and, in some cases, perhaps even "frivolous." We look at five uses for "CRISPR Critters": wild de-extinction, domestic de-extinction, personal whim, art, and novel forms of disease prevention. We then discuss the current regulatory framework and its possible limitations in those contexts. We end with questions about some deeper issues raised by the increased human control over life on earth offered by genome editing.

Protecting and promoting recovery of species at risk of extinction is a critical component of biodiversity conservation. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) determines whether species are at risk of extinction or extirpation, and has conducted these assessments since 1977. We examined trends in COSEWIC assessments to identify whether at-risk species that have been assessed more than once tended to improve, remain constant, or deteriorate in status, as a way of assessing the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation in Canada. Of 369 species that met our criteria for examination, 115 deteriorated, 202 remained unchanged, and 52 improved in status. Only 20 species (5.4%) improved to the point where they were 'not at risk', and five of those were due to increased sampling efforts rather than an increase in population size. Species outcomes were also dependent on the severity of their initial assessment; for example, 47% of species that were initially listed as special concern deteriorated between assessments. After receiving an at-risk assessment by COSEWIC, a species is considered for listing under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA), which is the primary national tool that mandates protection for at-risk species. We examined whether SARA-listing was associated with improved COSEWIC assessment outcomes relative to unlisted species. Of 305 species that had multiple assessments and were SARA-listed, 221 were listed at a level that required identification and protection of critical habitat; however, critical habitat was fully identified for only 56 of these species. We suggest that the Canadian government should formally identify and protect critical habitat, as is required by existing legislation. In addition, our finding that at-risk species in Canada rarely recover leads us to recommend that every effort be made to actively prevent species from becoming at-risk in the first place.

In this paper we report on the identification of a section of mitochondrial DNA that can be used to identify the species of protected and illegally traded pythons of the genus Morelia. Successful enforcement of wildlife laws requires forensic tests that can identify the species nominated in the relevant legislation. The potentially degraded state of evidentiary samples requires that forensic investigation using molecular genetic species identification is optimized to interrogate small fragments of DNA. DNA was isolated from 35 samples of Morelia spilota from which the complete cytochrome b was sequenced. The ND6 gene was also sequenced in 32 of these samples. Additional DNA sequences were generated from 9 additional species of Morelia. The sequences were aligned by Geneious and imported into MEGA to create phylogenetic trees based on the entire complex of approximately 1,706 base pairs (bp). To mimic degraded DNA, which is usually found in forensic cases, short sub-sections of the full alignment were used to generate phylogenetic trees. The sub-sections that had the greatest DNA sequence information were in parts of the cytochrome b gene. Our results highlight that legislation is presently informed by inadequate taxonomy. We demonstrated that a 278 bp region of the cytochrome b gene recovered the topology of the phylogenetic tree found with the entire gene sequence and correctly identified species of Morelia with a high degree of confidence. The locus described in this report will assist in the successful prosecution of alleged illegal trade in python species.

This study reports on impacts of illegal trade in owl monkeys (Aotus nancymaae, A. vociferans) for the biomedical research market in the Colombian-Peruvian Amazonian border. Through freedom of information requests and interviews with hunters we found that 912 owl monkeys, including A. nancymaae captured in Peru, were trapped over a 3-month period in 2012 to supply a malaria research facility based in Leticia, Colombia, which had trapping permits for the use of only 800 A. vociferans annually yet experimentation took place using A. nancymaae. High levels of extraction in Peru have had population-level impacts with significantly lower densities of Aotus spp. (3-24 individuals/km(2)) compared to Colombian sites with low hunting pressure (26-44 individuals/km(2)). Post-experimental release of this species in Colombian territory has created a new distribution whose status and impacts on resident populations of A. vociferans remain unknown. The trapping method has also had environmental impact, with loss of over 65,000 trees (including sleeping sites), annually. As Aotus species are registered under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix II, international trade requires official permission and evidence that extraction does not impact wild populations. However, no official records exist and CITES legislation has failed, due principally to a lack of appropriate monitoring by national authorities responsible for compliance. Of further concern is that we had previously documented and reported the illegal trade to the appropriate governmental authorities yet still no action was taken-as demonstrated by the continuing trade in 2013. Enforcement eventually occurred when a non-governmental organization initiated legal action against organizations responsible. A successful second instance ruling by the Colombian State's Council in 2013 revoked trapping permits. Using the trade in owl monkeys as a case study we consider implementation, compliance, and enforcement of CITES in the border area to identify mechanisms to improve enforcement of environmental legislation., (© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Land abandonment is common in the Mediterranean Basin, a global biodiversity hotspot, but little is known about its impacts on biodiversity. To upscale existing case-study insights to the Pan-Mediterranean level, we conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of land abandonment on plant and animal species richness and abundance in agroforestry, arable land, pastures, and permanent crops of the Mediterranean Basin. In particular, we investigated (1) which taxonomic groups (arthropods, birds, lichen, vascular plants) are more affected by land abandonment; (2) at which spatial and temporal scales the effect of land abandonment on species richness and abundance is pronounced; (3) whether previous land use and current protected area status affect the magnitude of changes in the number and abundance of species; and (4) how prevailing landforms and climate modify the impacts of land abandonment. After identifying 1240 potential studies, 154 cases from 51 studies that offered comparisons of species richness and abundance and had results relevant to our four areas of investigation were selected for meta-analysis. Results are that land abandonment showed slightly increased (effect size  = 0.2109, P<0.0001) plant and animal species richness and abundance overall, though results were heterogeneous, with differences in effect size between taxa, spatial-temporal scales, land uses, landforms, and climate. In conclusion, there is no "one-size-fits-all" conservation approach that applies to the diverse contexts of land abandonment in the Mediterranean Basin. Instead, conservation policies should strive to increase awareness of this heterogeneity and the potential trade-offs after abandonment. The strong role of factors at the farm and landscape scales that was revealed by the analysis indicates that purposeful management at these scales can have a powerful impact on biodiversity.

Overexploitation of wild populations due to the high economic value of caviar has driven sturgeons to near extinction. The high prices commanded by caviar on world markets have made it a magnet for illegal and fraudulent caviar trade, often involving low-value farmed caviar being sold as top-quality caviar. We present a new molecular approach for the identification of pure sturgeon species and hybrids that are among the most commercialized species in Europe and North America. Our test is based on the discovery of species-specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the ribosomal protein S7, supplemented with the Vimentin gene and the mitochondrial D-loop. Test validations performed in 702 specimens of target and nontarget sturgeon species demonstrated a 100% identification success for Acipenser naccarii, A. fulvescens, A. stellatus, A. sinensis and A. transmontanus. In addition to species identification, our approach allows the identification of Bester and AL hybrids, two of the most economically important hybrids in the world, with 80% and 100% success, respectively. Moreover, the approach has the potential to identify many other existing sturgeon hybrids. The development of a standardized sturgeon identification tool will directly benefit trade law enforcement, providing the tools to monitor and regulate the legal trade of caviar and protect sturgeon stocks from illicit producers and traders, hence contributing to safeguarding this group of heavily threatened species., (© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Mixtures of internationally traded organic substances can contain parts of species protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). These mixtures often raise the suspicion of border control and customs offices, which can lead to confiscation, for example in the case of Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). High-throughput sequencing of DNA barcoding markers obtained from such samples provides insight into species constituents of mixtures, but manual cross-referencing of results against the CITES appendices is labor intensive. Matching DNA barcodes against NCBI GenBank using BLAST may yield misleading results both as false positives, due to incorrectly annotated sequences, and false negatives, due to spurious taxonomic re-assignment. Incongruence between the taxonomies of CITES and NCBI GenBank can result in erroneous estimates of illegal trade., Results: The HTS barcode checker pipeline is an application for automated processing of sets of 'next generation' barcode sequences to determine whether these contain DNA barcodes obtained from species listed on the CITES appendices. This analytical pipeline builds upon and extends existing open-source applications for BLAST matching against the NCBI GenBank reference database and for taxonomic name reconciliation. In a single operation, reads are converted into taxonomic identifications matched with names on the CITES appendices. By inclusion of a blacklist and additional names databases, the HTS barcode checker pipeline prevents false positives and resolves taxonomic heterogeneity., Conclusions: The HTS barcode checker pipeline can detect and correctly identify DNA barcodes of CITES-protected species from reads obtained from TCM samples in just a few minutes. The pipeline facilitates and improves molecular monitoring of trade in endangered species, and can aid in safeguarding these species from extinction in the wild. The HTS barcode checker pipeline is available at https://github.com/naturalis/HTS-barcode-checker.

Significant challenges remain in the ability to estimate habitat change under the combined effects of natural variability, climate change, and human activity. We examined anticipated effects on shallow water over low-sloped beaches to these combined effects in the lower Willamette River, Oregon, an area highly altered by development. A proposal to stabilize some shoreline with large rocks (riprap) would alter shallow water areas, an important habitat for threatened Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and would be subject to U.S. Endangered Species Act-mandated oversight. In the mainstem, subyearling Chinook salmon appear to preferentially occupy these areas, which fluctuate with river stages. We estimated effects with a geospatial model and projections of future river flows. Recent (1999-2009) median river stages during peak subyearling occupancy (April-June) maximized beach shallow water area in the lower mainstem. Upstream shallow water area was maximized at lower river stages than have occurred recently. Higher river stages in April-June, resulting from increased flows predicted for the 2080s, decreased beach shallow water area 17-32%. On the basis of projected 2080s flows, more than 15% of beach shallow water area was displaced by the riprap. Beach shallow water area lost to riprap represented up to 1.6% of the total from the mouth to 12.9 km upstream. Reductions in shallow water area could restrict salmon feeding, resting, and refuge from predators and potentially reduce opportunities for the expression of the full range of life-history strategies. Although climate change analyses provided useful information, detailed analyses are prohibitive at the project scale for the multitude of small projects reviewed annually. The benefits of our approach to resource managers include a wider geographic context for reviewing similar small projects in concert with climate change, an approach to analyze cumulative effects of similar actions, and estimation of the actions' long-term effects. Efectos Combinados del Cambio Climático y la Estabilización de Bordes de Ríos Hábitats de Aguas Poco Profundas del Salmón Chinook., (Conservation Biology © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology No claim to original US government works.)

Many marine invertebrate species facing potential extinction have uncertain taxonomies and poorly known demographic and ecological traits. Uncertainties are compounded when potential extinction drivers are climate and ocean changes whose effects on even widespread and abundant species are only partially understood. The U.S. Endangered Species Act mandates conservation management decisions founded on the extinction risk to species based on the best available science at the time of consideration-requiring prompt action rather than awaiting better information. We developed an expert-opinion threat-based approach that entails a structured voting system to assess extinction risk from climate and ocean changes and other threats to 82 coral species for which population status and threat response information was limited. Such methods are urgently needed because constrained budgets and manpower will continue to hinder the availability of desired data for many potentially vulnerable marine species. Significant species-specific information gaps and uncertainties precluded quantitative assessments of habitat loss or population declines and necessitated increased reliance on demographic characteristics and threat vulnerabilities at genus or family levels. Adapting some methods (e.g., a structured voting system) used during other assessments and developing some new approaches (e.g., integrated assessment of threats and demographic characteristics), we rated the importance of threats contributing to coral extinction risk and assessed those threats against population status and trend information to evaluate each species' extinction risk over the 21st century. This qualitative assessment resulted in a ranking with an uncertainty range for each species according to their estimated likelihood of extinction. We offer guidance on approaches for future biological extinction risk assessments, especially in cases of data-limited species likely to be affected by global-scale threats. Incorporación del Cambio Climático y Oceánico en Estudios de Riesgo de Extinción para 82 Especies de Coral., (© 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Use of population viability analyses (PVAs) in endangered species recovery planning has been met with both support and criticism. Previous reviews promote use of PVA for setting scientifically based, measurable, and objective recovery criteria and recommend improvements to increase the framework's utility. However, others have questioned the value of PVA models for setting recovery criteria and assert that PVAs are more appropriate for understanding relative trade-offs between alternative management actions. We reviewed 258 final recovery plans for 642 plants listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act to determine the number of plans that used or recommended PVA in recovery planning. We also reviewed 223 publications that describe plant PVAs to assess how these models were designed and whether those designs reflected previous recommendations for improvement of PVAs. Twenty-four percent of listed species had recovery plans that used or recommended PVA. In publications, the typical model was a matrix population model parameterized with ≤5 years of demographic data that did not consider stochasticity, genetics, density dependence, seed banks, vegetative reproduction, dormancy, threats, or management strategies. Population growth rates for different populations of the same species or for the same population at different points in time were often statistically different or varied by >10%. Therefore, PVAs parameterized with underlying vital rates that vary to this degree may not accurately predict recovery objectives across a species' entire distribution or over longer time scales. We assert that PVA, although an important tool as part of an adaptive-management program, can help to determine quantitative recovery criteria only if more long-term data sets that capture spatiotemporal variability in vital rates become available. Lacking this, there is a strong need for viable and comprehensive methods for determining quantitative, science-based recovery criteria for endangered species with minimal data availability. Uso Actual y Potencial del Análisis de Viabilidad Poblacional para la Recuperación de Especies de Plantas Enlistadas en el Acta de Especies En Peligro de E.U.A., (© 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.)

The management of endangered species under climate change is a challenging and often controversial task that incorporates input from a variety of different environmental, economic, social, and political interests. Yet many listing and recovery decisions for endangered species unfold on an ad hoc basis without reference to decision-aiding approaches that can improve the quality of management choices. Unlike many treatments of this issue, which consider endangered species management a science-based problem, we suggest that a clear decision-making process is equally necessary. In the face of new threats due to climate change, managers' choices about endangered species require closely linked analyses and deliberations that identify key objectives and develop measurable attributes, generate and compare management alternatives, estimate expected consequences and key sources of uncertainty, and clarify trade-offs across different dimensions of value. Several recent cases of endangered species conservation decisions illustrate our proposed decision-focused approach, including Gulf of Maine Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) recovery framework development, Cultus Lake sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) management, and Upper Columbia River white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) recovery planning. Estructuración de Decisiones para Manejar Especies Amenazadas y en Peligro en un Clima Cambiante., (© 2013 Society for Conservation Biology No claim to original US government works.)