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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 can now be incorporated by federal agencies into modeling and decision making processes, 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 science has substantial capacity to analyze a range of risks to species. We identify an additional form of risk for biodiversity: The risk that legal protections may be scaled back or repealed as a result of political changes. We demonstrate the importance of “political extinction risk” through an analysis of the implications of a partial repeal of the federal Endangered Species Act, removing protections for species on private lands. Such a repeal reduces protections for all species from hunting by over one‐third, and from habitat modification by over 40%. Loss of protections vary significantly by species, across states, and by taxonomic group. In particular, more charismatic taxonomic groups generally have higher levels of protection relative to less charismatic groups. Our results highlight the importance of political risks for conservation.

Water users of the Platte River Basin have long struggled to share this scarce commodity in the arid high plains, ultimately organizing collectively owned and managed water systems, allocating water along extensive stream systems, and integrating newer groundwater with existing surface-water uses. In 1973, the Endangered Species Act brought a new challenge: incorporating the habitat needs of four species-the whooping crane, piping plover, least tern, and pallid sturgeon-into its water-management agenda. Implementing the Endangered Species Act on the Platte Basin Water Commons tells of the negotiations among the U.S. Department of the Interior, the environmental community, and the states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska that took place from the mid-1970s to 2006. Ambitious talks among rival water users, environmentalists, state authorities, and the Department of the Interior finally resulted in the Platte River Habitat Recovery Program. Documenting how organizational interests found remedies within the conditions set by the Endangered Species Act, describing how these interests addressed habitat restoration, and advancing sociological propositions under which water providers transcended self-interest and produced an agreement benefiting the environment, this book details the messy process that took place over more than thirty years. Presenting important implications for the future of water management in arid and semi-arid environments, this book will be of interest to anyone involved in water management, as well as academics interested in the social organization of common property.

Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA) and the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) have adopted different approaches to achieve overlapping goals. We compare the ESA and SARA, focusing on the roles of science and policy in determining which species warrant legal protection. Our analysis suggests that each act could benefit from mimicking the strengths of the other, and both could be strengthened by greater clarity and transparency of listing determinations. A particular strength of SARA is that all evaluations of species' status are conducted by a single national scientific body. The ESA does not involve a comparable national body but has more stringent legal deadlines for listing actions, and listing decisions cannot by law consider socioeconomic factors (as can occur under SARA). The conservation of biodiversity would be enhanced if both acts were complemented by additional programs focused on broader efforts that protect more species before individual intervention is needed.

In recent decades, many bumble bee species have declined due to changes in habitat, climate, and pressures from pathogens, pesticides, and introduced species. The western bumble bee (Bombus occidentalis), once common throughout western North America, is a species of concern and will be considered for listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We attempt to improve alignment of data collection and research with USFWS needs to consider redundancy, resiliency, and representation in the upcoming species status assessment. We reviewed existing data and literature on B. occidentalis, highlighting information gaps and priority topics for research. Priorities include increased knowledge of trends, basic information on several life‐history stages, and improved understanding of the relative and interacting effects of stressors on population trends, especially the effects of pathogens, pesticides, climate change, and habitat loss. An understanding of how and where geographic range extent has changed for the two subspecies of B. occidentalis is also needed. We outline data that could be easily collected in other research projects that would increase their utility for understanding range‐wide trends of bumble bees. We modeled the overall trend in occupancy from 1998 to 2018 of Bombus occidentalis within the continental United States using existing data. The probability of local occupancy declined by 93% over 21 yr from 0.81 (95% CRI = 0.43, 0.98) in 1998 to 0.06 (95% CRI = 0.02, 0.16) in 2018. The decline in occupancy varied spatially by landcover and other environmental factors. Detection rates vary in both space and time, but peak detection across the continental United States occurs in mid‐July. We found considerable spatial gaps in recent sampling, with limited sampling in many regions, including most of Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the southwestern United States. We therefore propose a sampling design to address these gaps to best inform the ESA species status assessment through improved assessment of how the spatial distribution of stressors influences occupancy changes. Finally, we request involvement via data sharing, participation in occupancy sampling with repeated visits to distributed survey sites, and complementary research to address priorities outlined in this paper.

Proactive Conservation is a paradigm of natural resource management in the United States that encourages voluntary, collaborative efforts to restore species before they need to be protected through government regulations. This paradigm is widely used to conserve at-risk species today, and when used in conjunction with the Policy for Evaluation of Conservation Efforts (PECE), it allows for successful conservation actions to preclude listing of species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Despite the popularity of this paradigm, and recent flagship examples of its use (e.g., greater sage grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus), critical assessments of the outcomes of Proactive Conservation are lacking from the standpoint of species status and recovery metrics. Here, we provide such an evaluation, using the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis), heralded as a success of Proactive Conservation efforts in the northeastern United States, as a case study. We review the history and current status of the species, based on the state of the science, in the context of the Conservation Initiative, and the 2015 PECE decision not to the list the species under the ESA. In addition to the impacts of the PECE decision on the New England cottontail conservation specifically, our review also evaluates the benefits and limits of the Proactive Conservation paradigm more broadly, and we make recommendations for its role in relation to ESA implementation for the future of at-risk species management. We find that the status and assurances for recovery under the PECE policy, presented at the time of the New England cottontail listing decision, were overly optimistic, and the status of the species has worsened in subsequent years. We suggest that use of PECE to avoid listing may occur because of the perception of the ESA as a punitive law and a misconception that it is a failure, although very few listed species have gone extinct. Redefining recovery to decouple it from delisting and instead link it to probability of persistence under recommended conservation measures would remove some of the stigma of listing, and it would strengthen the role of Species Status Assessments in endangered species conservation.

Nearly 40 years after passage of the US Endangered Species Act, the prospects for listed species remain dim because they are too severely imperiled by the time they receive the act's protection. Even if threats are abated, the low abundances required for recovery often preclude a high probability of persistence. The lack of sufficient data for setting recovery objectives also remains a barrier. Delisting is considered possible for only 74% of the 1173 species with recovery plans—92% of threatened and 69% of endangered species. The median number of populations required for delisting (8) was at or below the historical numbers for 64% and at or below the numbers at listing for 37% of the species. The median number of individuals required for recovery (2400) exceeded the abundances at listing for 93% of the species, but most were below the levels considered necessary for long-term persistence, especially in changing environments.

Now forty years old, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) remains a landmark act in conservation and one of the world's most comprehensive laws designed to prevent species extinctions and support recovery efforts for imperiled species. A controversial law and often subject to political attack, the ESA is successful overall but not without difficulties. Those who enforce the ESA, for example, struggle to achieve viable recovery goals for many species.At the forefront of challenges is a reactive framework that sometimes leads to perverse incentives and legal battles that strain support and resources. Further, few species have been delisted.Proactive Strategies for Protecting Speciesexplores the perspectives, opportunities, and challenges around designing and implementing pre-listing programs and approaches to species conservation.This volume brings together conservation biologists, economists, private and government stakeholders, and others to create a legal, scientific, sociological, financial, and technological foundation for designing solutions that incentivize conservation action for hundreds of at-risk species-prior to their potential listing under the ESA.This forward-thinking, innovative volume provides a roadmap for designing species conservation programs on the ground so they are effective and take place upstream of regulation, which will contribute to a reduction in lawsuits and other expenses that arise after a species is listed.Proactive Strategies for Species Protectionis a guidebook for anyone anywhere interested in designing programs that incentivize environmental stewardship and species conservation.

Invasive plants formed via hybridization, especially those that modify the structure and function of their ecosystems, are of particular concern given the potential for hybrid vigor. In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, two invasive, dune‐building beachgrasses, Ammophila arenaria (European beachgrass) and A. breviligulata (American beachgrass), have hybridized and formed a new beachgrass taxa (Ammophila arenaria × A. breviligulata), but little is known about its distribution, spread, and ecological consequences. Here, we report on surveys of the hybrid beachgrass conducted across a 250‐km range from Moclips, Washington to Pacific City, Oregon, in 2021 and 2022. We detected nearly 300 hybrid individuals, or an average of 8–14 hybrid individuals per km of surveyed foredune. The hybrid was more common at sites within southern Washington and northern Oregon where A. breviligulata is abundant (75%–90% cover) and A. arenaria is sparse and patchy. The hybrid displayed morphological traits such as shoot density and height that typically exceeded its parent species suggesting hybrid vigor. We measured an average growth rate of 30% over one year, with individuals growing faster at the leading edge of the foredune, nearest to the beach. We also found a positive relationship between hybrid abundance and A. arenaria abundance, suggesting that A. arenaria density may be a controlling factor for hybridization rate. The hybrid showed similar sand deposition and associated plant species richness patterns compared with its parent species, although longer term studies are needed. Finally, we found hybrid individuals within and near conservation habitat of two Endangered Species Act‐listed, threatened bird species, the western snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) and the streaked horned lark (Eremophila alpestris strigata), a concern for conservation management. Documenting this emerging hybrid beachgrass provides insights into how hybridization affects the spread of novel species and the consequences for communities in which they invade.

Legal classification of species requires scientific and values-based components, and how those components interact depends on how people frame the decision. Is classification a negotiation of trade-off s, a decision on how to allocate conservation efforts, or simply a comparison of the biological status of a species to a legal standard? The answers to problem-framing questions such as these influence decision making in species classifications. In our experience, however, decision makers, staff biologists, and stakeholders often have differing perspectives of the decision problem and assume different framings. In addition to differences between individuals, in some cases it appears individuals themselves are unclear about the decision process, which contributes to regulatory paralysis, litigation, and a loss of trust by agency staff and the public. We present 5 framings:putting species in the right bin, doing right by the species over time, saving the most species on a limited budget, weighing extinction risk against other objectives, and strategic classification to advance conservation. These framings are inspired by elements observed in current classification practices. Putting species in the right bin entails comparing a scientific status assessment with policy thresholds and accounting for potential misclassification costs. Doing right by the species adds a time dimension to the classification decision, and saving the most species on a limited budget classifies a suite of species simultaneously. Weighing extinction risk against other objectives would weigh ecological or socioeconomic concerns in classification decisions, and strategic classification to advance conservation would make negotiation a component of classification. We view these framings as a means to generate thought, discussion, and movement toward selection and application of explicit classification framings. Being explicit about the decision framing could lead decision makers toward more efficient and defensible decisions, reduce internal confusion and external conflict, and support better collaboration between scientists and policy makers. La clasificación legal de las especies requiere componentes científicos y basados en valores, y cómo interactúan esos componentes depende de cómo las personas enmarcan esa decisión. ¿Una clasificación es una negociación de compensaciones, una decisión sobre cómo asignar los esfuerzos de conservación, o simplemente una comparación del estado biológico de las especies de acuerdo a un estándar legal? Las respuestas para preguntas de enmarcación de problemas como las anteriores influyen sobre la toma de decisiones dentro de la clasificación de especies. Sin embargo, en nuestra experiencia, los responsables de las decisiones, los biólogos del equipo, y los accionistas tienen frecuentemente perspectivas discrepantes sobre el problema de decisión y suponen diferentes marcos. Además de las diferencias entre los individuos, en algunos casos parece que los mismos individuos no tienen claro el proceso de decisión, lo que contribuye a una parálisis regulatoria, litigación, y la pérdida de la confianza por parte de la agencia y elpúblico. Presentamos cinco marcos: colocar a las especies dentro del compartimento correcto, hacerle bien a la especie con el tiempo salvar a la mayor cantidad de especies con un presupuesto limitado, sopesar el riesgo de extinción frenóte a otros objetivos, y la clasificación estratégica para avanzar la conservación. Estos marcos están inspirados por elementos observados en las prácticas actuales de conservación. La colocación de las especies dentro del compartimento correcto implica comparar una evaluación del estado científico con los límites de la política y considerar los costos de una posible clasificación errónea. Hacerle bien a la especie añade una dimensión de tiempo a la decisión de clasificación, y salvar a la mayor cantidad de especies con un presupuesto limitado clasifica a un conjunto de especies de manera simultánea. Sopesar el riesgo de extinción frente a otros objetivos consideraría a los asuntos ecológicos o socioeconómicos dentro de las decisiones de clasificación, y la clasificación estratégica para avanzar la conservación haría que la negociación fuera un componente de la clasificación. Vemos estos marcos como medios para generar pensamiento, discusión, y movimiento hacia la selección y aplicación de marcos explícitos de clasificación. Si se es explícito sobre el marco de decisión, se puede llevar a los responsables de las decisiones hacia decisiones más eficientes y defendibles, a reducir la confusión internar y a externar el conflicto, y a respaldar una mejor colaboración entre los científicos y los creadores de políticas. 物种法定的濒危等级划分需要考虑科学和价值成分，而它们的互作取决于决策框架的制定。等级划分是 利益权衡的协商, 是对保护工作如何分配的决策, 还是物种的生物学状况与法定标准的简单对照？对这些问题的 回答会影响物种等级划分的决策。然而，根据我们的经验, 策者、生物学学者以及利益相关者往往对决策问题 有不同观点, 并倾向于来取不同的框架。除了不同个体之间差异外，一些情况下似乎个体自身对于决策过程也不 甚清楚, 这往往导致监管无力、诉讼发生, 以及评估机构人员和公众信任的丧失。这里,我们提出了五种决策框 架: 将物种归入合适的类別、随时间推移让物种正确分类、用有限的预算拯救最多的物种、权衡灭绝风险与其 它百标, 还有推进保护的战略分类。这些框架的提出受到了当前等级划分实践中的一些因素的启发。“将物种归 入合适的类別” 需要比较科学的等级评估和政策的临界值, 并考虑潜在分类错误的成本; “让物种正确分类”在等 级划分的决策中増加了时间维度; “用有限的预算拯救最多的物种” 同时给一系列的物种划分等级；“权衡灭绝风 险与其它目标” 会在决策时权衡生态学、社会经济学问题; 而“推进保护的战略分类”会将协商纳入到等级划分 中。我们认为这些框架是引起思考、讨论，并促进明确的等级划分権架的选择及应用的 段。而确定明确的决 策框架可以引导决策者做出更合理有效的决策, 減少内部混乱和外部冲突, 支持科学家和决策者之间更好的合 作。