Abstract
There is an imperative for conservation practitioners to help biodiversity adapt to accelerating environmental change. Evolutionary biologists are well-positioned to inform the development of evidence-based management strategies that support the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems. Conservation practitioners increasingly accept that management practices must accommodate rapid environmental change, but harbour concerns about how to apply recommended changes to their management contexts. Given the interest from both conservation practitioners and evolutionary biologists in adjusting management practices, we believe there is an opportunity to accelerate the required changes by promoting closer collaboration between these two groups. We highlight how evolutionary biologists can harness lessons from other disciplines about how to foster effective knowledge exchange to make a substantive contribution to the development of effective conservation practices. These lessons include the following: (1) recognizing why practitioners do and do not use scientific evidence; (2) building an evidence base that will influence management decisions; (3) translating theory into a format that conservation practitioners can use to inform management practices; and (4) developing strategies for effective knowledge exchange. Although efforts will be required on both sides, we believe there are rewards for both practitioners and evolutionary biologists, not least of which is fostering practices to help support the long-term persistence of species.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1969-1979 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Evolutionary Applications |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2021 |
Funding
Recent efforts to understand the uncertainties practitioners have about building adaptive capacity have revealed a range of questions for which the current evidence base cannot provide clear guidance (e.g. how transferable is knowledge about adaptive capacity across populations and related taxa?; Aitken & Whitlock, 2013 , or can the evolutionary history of a species be used to predict its adaptive capacity?; Hendry et al., 2011 ). Determining what the real versus perceived knowledge gaps are for best‐practice management of adaptive capacity is an important first step (Beier et al., 2017 ). This is one area where individuals working at the interface of science and practice (e.g. knowledge brokers; Figure 1 ) and groups whose roles are to span the research‐action boundary (e.g. boundary organizations; Figure 1 ) can be critical (Hallett et al., 2017 ; Safford et al., 2017 ). Organizations, like the US Geological Survey's National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers, can serve to identify knowledge gaps that require more research and fill perceived knowledge gaps by coordinating the co‐production of science and translating existing science into recommendations for practice. Similarly, initiatives like the EvolvES global research project (formerly bioGENESIS) within the Future Earth network ( www.futureearth.org ) promote applied evolutionary biology through research focused on questions relevant to biodiversity science and policy, and encouraging researchers to actively transmit their findings to policy‐makers (Hendry et al., 2010 ). Collaborative approaches can provide innovative funding sources, such as between the Wildlife Conservation Society Climate Adaptation Fund, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. This programme has funded over 100 projects to implement and evaluate climate adaption actions, with project teams that often involve collaborations between practitioners and academic researchers (Cross et al., 2018 ). We thank the participants of a co‐production workshop that informed the development of this manuscript. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Climate Adaptation Science Center provided logistical and financial support. C. N. Cook was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Fellowship (DE180100854). A. R. Whiteley was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant (DEB‐1652278) during the preparation of this manuscript. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. We thank the participants of a co-production workshop that informed the development of this manuscript. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Climate Adaptation Science Center provided logistical and financial support. C. N. Cook was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Fellowship (DE180100854). A. R. Whiteley was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant (DEB-1652278) during the preparation of this manuscript. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Any use of trade, firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DEB‐1652278 | |
| Hornocker Wildlife Institute/Wildlife Conservation Society | |
| Australian Research Council | DE180100854 |
Keywords
- adaptive capacity
- conservation management
- evidence-based conservation
- evolutionary adaptive capacity
- knowledge exchange
- natural resource management
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