A comparison of pedigree, genetic and genomic estimates of relatedness for informing pairing decisions in two critically endangered birds: Implications for conservation breeding programmes worldwide.

Conservation management strategies for many highly threatened species include conservation breeding to prevent extinction and enhance recovery. Pairing decisions for these conservation breeding programmes can be informed by pedigree data to minimize relatedness between individuals in an effort to avoid inbreeding, maximize diversity and maintain evolutionary potential. However, conservation breeding programmes struggle to use this approach when pedigrees are shallow or incomplete.

Reference Genomes from Distantly Related Species Can Be Used for Discovery of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms to Inform Conservation Management.

Threatened species recovery programmes benefit from incorporating genomic data into conservation management strategies to enhance species recovery. However, a lack of readily available genomic resources, including conspecific reference genomes, often limits the inclusion of genomic data. Here, we investigate the utility of closely related high-quality reference genomes for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery using the critically endangered kakī/black stilt ( ) and four Charadriiform reference genomes as proof of concept.

A large-scale application of project prioritization to threatened species investment by a government agency.

In a global environment of increasing species extinctions and decreasing availability of funds with which to combat the causes of biodiversity loss, maximising the efficiency of conservation efforts is crucial. The only way to ensure maximum return on conservation investment is to incorporate the cost, benefit and likelihood of success of conservation actions into decision-making in a systematic and objective way. Here we report on the application of a Project Prioritization Protocol (PPP), first implemented by the New Zealand Government, to target and prioritize investment in threatened species in New South Wales, Australia, under the state's new Saving our Species program.

Spending limited resources on de-extinction could lead to net biodiversity loss.

There is contentious debate surrounding the merits of de-extinction as a biodiversity conservation tool. Here, we use extant analogues to predict conservation actions for potential de-extinction candidate species from New Zealand and the Australian state of New South Wales, and use a prioritization protocol to predict the impacts of reintroducing and maintaining populations of these species on conservation of extant threatened species. Even using the optimistic assumptions that resurrection of species is externally sponsored, and that actions for resurrected species can share costs with extant analogue species, public funding for conservation of resurrected species would lead to fewer extant species that could be conserved, suggesting net biodiversity loss.

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.

Financial costs of meeting global biodiversity conservation targets: current spending and unmet needs.

World governments have committed to halting human-induced extinctions and safeguarding important sites for biodiversity by 2020, but the financial costs of meeting these targets are largely unknown. We estimate the cost of reducing the extinction risk of all globally threatened bird species (by ≥1 International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List category) to be U.S.

Pododermatitis in captive-reared black stilts (Himantopus novaezelandiae).

A potential cause of pododermatitis ("bumblefoot") was investigated in captive-reared juvenile black stilts at the Department of Conservation "Kaki Recovery Program" at Twizel, New Zealand. To address the importance of substrate, the development of clinical signs in individuals was compared among aviaries that contained rubber matting and/or salt footbaths, and controls. No effect of either experimental manipulation of the environment was apparent on pododermatitis development.

Optimal allocation of resources among threatened species: a project prioritization protocol.

Conservation funds are grossly inadequate to address the plight of threatened species. Government and conservation organizations faced with the task of conserving threatened species desperately need simple strategies for allocating limited resources. The academic literature dedicated to systematic priority setting usually recommends ranking species on several criteria, including level of endangerment and metrics of species value such as evolutionary distinctiveness, ecological importance, and social significance.

Developing the science of reintroduction biology.

With recent increases in the numbers of species reintroduction projects and reintroduction-related publications, there is now a recognizable field of reintroduction biology. Nevertheless, research thus far has been fragmented and ad hoc, rather than an organized attempt to gain reliable knowledge to improve reintroduction success. We reviewed 454 recent (1990-2005) peer-reviewed papers dealing with wildlife reintroductions from 101 journals.