Leadbeater’s possum is an endangered species particular to mountain ash country in the Central Highlands of Victoria. The species is threatened by the outbreak of catastrophic wildfire and the loss of nesting sites resulting from logging trees younger than 150 years of age. A stochastic dynamic programming approach to determine how much logging should be foregone to enhance the probability of s...

Population models are needed to assess the threats to species at risk and to evaluate alternative management actions. Data to support modeling is limited for many species at risk, and commonly used approaches generally assume stationary vital rates, a questionable assumption given widespread ecosystem change. We describe a modeling approach that can be applied to time series of length compositi...

For maintaining social and financial support for eradication programs of invasive species, quantitative assessment of recovery of native species or ecosystems is important because it provides a measurable parameter of success. However, setting a concrete goal for recovery is often difficult owing to lack of information prior to the introduction of invaders. Here, we present a novel approach to ...

Today, our planet is in a state of crisis and many of its natural resources have been destroyed by human activities. One of the principle aims of conservation biology is to promote concrete management programs to limit any further increase in the number of extinct and threatened species and ecosystems. Different approaches may be followed to maintain the world’s biodiversity: the in situ approa...

Some of the most species-rich areas and highest concentrations of threatened and endangered species in the southeastern United States are found in wet savanna and flatwood longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) communities. Where intensive forestry practices have eliminated much of the natural understory of the longleaf ecosystem, the potential for reestablishment through a seed bank may present...

Human-induced global climate change presents a unique and difficult challenge to the conservation of biodiversity. Despite increasing attention on global climate change, few studies have assessed the projected impacts of sea-level rise to threatened and endangered species. Therefore, we estimated the impacts of rising sea levels on the endangered Lower Keys marsh rabbit (Sylvilagus palustris he...

In our recent article in TREE [1], we considered the evidence for the common assumption that invaders are a major cause of species extinction. Ricciardi [2] criticized the focus of our paper, and challenged our statement that the role of zebra musselsDreissena polymorpha in unionid mussel extinctions is unclear. Like Ricciardi [2], we recognize and appreciate the importance of local population ...

The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of 18S–26S nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA) was sequenced in 65 taxa representing most coneflowers (i.e., species in Dracopis, Echinacea, Ratibida, and Rudbeckia) and other taxa representing 21 outgroup genera of tribe Heliantheae. Results of parsimony analysis of the rDNA dataset by itself and in combination with the cpDNA dataset uphold the hypothesis ...

—Yaqui topminnow Poeciliopsis occidentalis sonoriensis and Yaqui chub Gila purpurea, two federally endangered fishes from the Rio Yaqui basin (Arizona, USA, and Sonora, Mexico), were propagated by various methods. Propagation of Yaqui topminnow was attempted in aquaria and wading pools; the greatest number of offspring was produced in 556-L, plastic wading pools. We added substrate, artificial ...

In the United States and several other countries, the development of population viability analyses (PVA) is a legal requirement of any species survival plan developed for threatened and endangered species. Despite the importance of pathogens in natural populations, little attention has been given to host–pathogen dynamics in PVA. To study the effect of infectious pathogens on extinction risk es...