USGS Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/USGS

USGS · 70192073

Identifying species conservation strategies to reduce disease-associated declines

Brian D. Gerber·Sarah J. Converse·Erin L. Muths·Harry J. Crockett·Brittany A. Mosher·Larissa L. Bailey
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a salient threat to many animal taxa, causing local and global extinctions, altering communities and ecosystem function. The EID chytridiomycosis is a prominent driver of amphibian declines, which is caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). To guide conservation policy, we developed a predictive decision-analytic model that combines empirical knowledge of host-pathogen metapopulation dynamics with expert judgment regarding effects of management actions, to select from potential conservation strategies. We apply our approach to a boreal toad ( Anaxyrus boreas boreas ) and Bd system, identifying optimal strategies that balance tradeoffs in maximizing toad population persistence and landscape-level distribution, while considering costs. The most robust strategy is expected to reduce the decline of toad breeding sites from 53% to 21% over 50 years. Our findings are incorporated into management policy to guide conservation planning. Our online modeling application provides a template for managers of other systems challenged by EIDs.

Explore related subjects

Conservation LettersArticle

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Brian D. Gerber, Sarah J. Converse, Erin L. Muths, Harry J. Crockett, Brittany A. Mosher, Larissa L. Bailey. 2017-07-31. Identifying species conservation strategies to reduce disease-associated declines. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12393

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

USGS2026

Highly mobile seabirds reveal areas of conservation importance across the Atlantic Ocean

Countries have committed to expanding the marine protected area (MPA) network to 30% of the world's ocean by 2030, more than tripling current coverage, and focusing on areas important for biodiversity. For such expansion to translate into effective conservation of marine biodiversity, it must rely on the best available knowledge. Here, we analyze tracking data on > 13,000 individuals (44 species, eight families) to map the distribution of highly mobile seabirds in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas throughout the year. We identify regions important year-round or seasonally. The High Seas are as important as national waters for highly mobile seabirds but are even less protected. Current Atlantic MPAs hold < 14% of tracked species density, but their expansion to 30% of the ocean could protect up to two thirds. We share this new knowledge layer to support national and international efforts and policies to strategically expand the Atlantic MPA network.

Conservation Letters↗
USGS2026

Ecological costs of waiting to restore ecosystem engineers: The case of giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands

In the Galápagos Islands, giant tortoises ( Chelonoidis spp.) engineer terrestrial ecosystems. Endemic tortoise lineages have been lost from Floreana and Pinta Islands, resulting in ecosystem shifts, with tortoise population restoration currently being considered using hybrids that include ancestry from the now extinct C. niger of Floreana Island. We combined long-term vegetation monitoring with simulation of vegetation responses to tortoises, and tortoise translocation scenarios to assess whether using C. niger hybrids as ecological replacements on Pinta Island could restore ecosystem function without compromising restoration on Floreana Island. Woody plants have increased by >100% on Pinta Island between 2011 and 2022 in the absence of ecologically effective numbers of tortoises, but re-establishment of tortoises at a moderate density (0.7 tortoises/ha) could reverse those trends and delay restoration on Floreana Island by ca. one decade while preventing continued ecosystem degradation on Pinta Island. We demonstrate the feasibility of restoring ecological replacements and the importance of rewilding ecosystem engineers before ecosystem shifts become irreversible.

Galapagos Islands, Pinta Island↗
USGS2025

Simulating demography, monitoring, and management decisions to evaluate adaptive management strategies for endangered species

Adaptive management (AM) remains underused in conservation, partly because optimization-based approaches require real-world problems to be substantially simplified. We present an approach to AM based in management strategy evaluation, a method used largely in fisheries. Managers define objectives and nominate alternative adaptive strategies, whose future performance is simulated by integrating ecological, learning and decision processes. We applied this approach to conservation of hihi (Notiomystis cincta) across Aotearoa-New Zealand. For multiple extant and prospective hihi populations, we jointly simulated demographic trends, monitoring, estimation, and decisions including translocations and supplementary feeding. Results confirmed that food supplementation assisted recovery, but was more intensive and expensive. Over 20 years, actively pursuing learning, e.g., by removing food from populations, provided little benefit. Recovery group members supported continuing current management or increasing priority on existing populations before reintroducing new populations. Our method can complement formal optimization-based approaches and improve AM uptake, particularly for programs involving many complex and coordinated decisions.

Conservation Letters↗