Testing appropriate habitat outside of historic range: The case of Amorpha herbacea var. crenulata (Fabaceae)

The Importance of Groundwater Quality and Other Habitat Parameters for Effective Active Protection of an Endangered Plant Species in Eastern Poland

Anthropogenic habitat transformations involving changes in hydrologic conditions in the peatlands of eastern Poland contribute to the disappearance of sites of numerous relict plant species. The study aimed to verify whether sites chosen for the reintroduction of the endangered species Salix lapponum had been well selected by analyzing selected habitat parameters and determining whether changes in their values may in the long term have a significant impact on the functioning of new populations of the species. The results obtained at sites where the S. lapponum population was replenished with new individuals were analyzed in relation to data from one of the natural sites of the species. Hydrochemical characterization of the groundwater at the study sites confirmed that there was no significant influx of nutrients into the habitat or other hydrological disturbances due to human activity. The values obtained for the factors tested were within the limits of the specific preferences of the species. Changes in the values of some physical-chemical parameters of the water were due to the ecosystem’s internal metabolism, and the site with the highest hydrochemical stability was the one where S. lapponum occurred naturally. The species composition and structure of the phytocoenoses at all study sites were characteristic of natural sites of the species and showed no disturbances caused by human impact. The microbiological analyses indicated normal soil processes. The hydrochemical and biocoenotic stability of the habitat, including the microbiological balance of the soil, which was free of pathogenic fungi, should have a positive effect on the condition of the reintroduced plants.

Conservation through the lens of (mal)adaptation: Concepts and meta-analysis

Evolutionary approaches are gaining popularity in conservation science, with diverse strategies applied in efforts to support adaptive population outcomes. Yet conservation strategies differ in the type of adaptive outcomes they promote as conservation goals. For instance, strategies based on genetic or demographic rescue implicitly target adaptive population states whereas strategies utilizing transgenerational plasticity or evolutionary rescue implicitly target adaptive processes. These two goals are somewhat polar: adaptive state strategies optimize current population fitness, which should reduce phenotypic and/or genetic variance, reducing adaptability in changing or uncertain environments; adaptive process strategies increase genetic variance, causing maladaptation in the short term, but increase adaptability over the long term. Maladaptation refers to suboptimal population fitness, adaptation refers to optimal population fitness, and (mal)adaptation refers to the continuum of fitness variation from maladaptation to adaptation. Here, we present a conceptual classification for conservation that implicitly considers (mal)adaptation in the short-term and long-term outcomes of conservation strategies. We describe cases of how (mal)adaptation is implicated in traditional conservation strategies, as well as strategies that have potential as a conservation tool but are relatively underutilized. We use a meta-analysis of a small number of available studies to evaluate whether the different conservation strategies employed are better suited toward increasing population fitness across multiple generations. We found weakly increasing adaptation over time for transgenerational plasticity, genetic rescue, and evolutionary rescue. Demographic rescue was generally maladaptive, both immediately after conservation intervention and after several generations. Interspecific hybridization was adaptive only in the F1 generation, but then rapidly leads to maladaptation. Management decisions that are made to support the process of adaptation must adequately account for (mal)adaptation as a potential outcome and even as a tool to bolster adaptive capacity to changing conditions.

Conservation-oriented restoration - a two for one method to restore both threatened species and their habitats

There is an urgent need for a new conservation approach as mere designation of protected areas, the primary approach to conserving biodiversity, revealed its low conservation efficiency and inability to cope with numerous challenges faced by nature in the Anthropocene. The paper discusses the new concept, which proposes that ecological restoration becomes an integral part of conservation planning and implementation, and is done using threatened plant species that are introduced not only into locations where they currently grow or grew in the recent past, but also into suitable locations within their potential distribution range. This new concept is called conservation-oriented restoration to distinguish it from the traditional restoration. Although the number of restoration projects focusing on recreation of once existing natural habitats is instantly growing, the majority of ecological restoration projects, in contrast to conservation-oriented restoration, have predominantly utilitarian goals, e.g. improvement or air quality, erosion control or soil replenishment. Conservation-oriented restoration should not be seen as an alternative either to the latter, or to the conservation dealing with particular threatened species (species-targeted conservation). These three conservation approaches, traditional ecological restoration, species-targeted conservation, and conservation-oriented restoration differ not only in broadly defined goals and attributes of their targets, but also in the types of ecosystems they are applicable to, and complement each other in combating global deterioration of the environment and biodiversity loss.

Translocation of imperiled species under changing climates

Conservation translocation of species varies from restoring historic populations to managing the relocation of imperiled species to new locations. We review the literature in three areas--translocation, managed relocation, and conservation decision making--to inform conservation translocation under changing climates. First, climate change increases the potential for conflict over both the efficacy and the acceptability of conservation translocation. The emerging literature on managed relocation highlights this discourse. Second, conservation translocation works in concert with other strategies. The emerging literature in structured decision making provides a framework for prioritizing conservation actions--considering many possible alternatives that are evaluated based on expected benefit, risk, and social-political feasibility. Finally, the translocation literature has historically been primarily concerned with risks associated with the target species. In contrast, the managed relocation literature raises concerns about the ecological risk to the recipient ecosystem. Engaging in a structured decision process that explicitly focuses on stakeholder engagement, problem definition and specification of goals from the outset will allow creative solutions to be developed and evaluated based on their expected effectiveness.