89
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Assessing the benefits and risks of translocations in changing environments: a genetic perspective

      research-article

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Translocations are being increasingly proposed as a way of conserving biodiversity, particularly in the management of threatened and keystone species, with the aims of maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function under the combined pressures of habitat fragmentation and climate change. Evolutionary genetic considerations should be an important part of translocation strategies, but there is often confusion about concepts and goals. Here, we provide a classification of translocations based on specific genetic goals for both threatened species and ecological restoration, separating targets based on ‘genetic rescue’ of current population fitness from those focused on maintaining adaptive potential. We then provide a framework for assessing the genetic benefits and risks associated with translocations and provide guidelines for managers focused on conserving biodiversity and evolutionary processes. Case studies are developed to illustrate the framework.

          Related collections

          Most cited references115

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: found

          Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change

          Ecological changes in the phenology and distribution of plants and animals are occurring in all well-studied marine, freshwater, and terrestrial groups. These observed changes are heavily biased in the directions predicted from global warming and have been linked to local or regional climate change through correlations between climate and biological variation, field and laboratory experiments, and physiological research. Range-restricted species, particularly polar and mountaintop species, show severe range contractions and have been the first groups in which entire species have gone extinct due to recent climate change. Tropical coral reefs and amphibians have been most negatively affected. Predator-prey and plant-insect interactions have been disrupted when interacting species have responded differently to warming. Evolutionary adaptations to warmer conditions have occurred in the interiors of species' ranges, and resource use and dispersal have evolved rapidly at expanding range margins. Observed genetic shifts modulate local effects of climate change, but there is little evidence that they will mitigate negative effects at the species level.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Translocation as a species conservation tool: status and strategy.

            Surveys of recent (1973 to 1986) intentional releases of native birds and mammals to the wild in Australia, Canada, Hawaii, New Zealand, and the United States were conducted to document current activities, identify factors associated with success, and suggest guidelines for enhancing future work. Nearly 700 translocations were conducted each year. Native game species constituted 90 percent of translocations and were more successful (86 percent) than were translocations of threatened, endangered, or sensitive species (46 percent). Knowledge of habitat quality, location of release area within the species range, number of animals released, program length, and reproductive traits allowed correct classification of 81 percent of observed translocations as successful or not.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              A quantitative survey of local adaptation and fitness trade-offs.

              The long history of reciprocal transplant studies testing the hypothesis of local adaptation has shown that populations are often adapted to their local environments. Yet many studies have not demonstrated local adaptation, suggesting that sometimes native populations are no better adapted than are genotypes from foreign environments. Local adaptation may also lead to trade-offs, in which adaptation to one environment comes at a cost of adaptation to another environment. I conducted a survey of published studies of local adaptation to quantify its frequency and magnitude and the costs associated with local adaptation. I also quantified the relationship between local adaptation and environmental differences and the relationship between local adaptation and phenotypic divergence. The overall frequency of local adaptation was 0.71, and the magnitude of the native population advantage in relative fitness was 45%. Divergence between home site environments was positively associated with the magnitude of local adaptation, but phenotypic divergence was not. I found a small negative correlation between a population's relative fitness in its native environment and its fitness in a foreign environment, indicating weak trade-offs associated with local adaptation. These results suggest that populations are often locally adapted but stochastic processes such as genetic drift may limit the efficacy of divergent selection.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Evol Appl
                Evol Appl
                eva
                Evolutionary Applications
                Blackwell Publishing Ltd (Oxford, UK )
                1752-4571
                1752-4571
                November 2011
                18 June 2011
                : 4
                : 6
                : 709-725
                Affiliations
                [1 ]simpleDepartment of Genetics, CESAR, The University of Melbourne Parkville, Vic, Australia
                [2 ]simpleSchool of Biological Sciences, Monash University Clayton Vic, Australia
                [3 ]simpleCSIRO Plant Industry Canberra, ACT, Australia
                [4 ]simpleDepartment of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University North Ryde, NSW, Australia
                [5 ]simpleCentre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia Crawley, WA, Australia
                [6 ]simpleScience Division, Department of Environment and Conservation Bentley, WA, Australia
                [7 ]simpleAustralian Museum Sydney, NSW, Australia
                [8 ]simpleAustralian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, and School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Adelaide North Terrace, SA, Australia
                [9 ]simpleRoyal Botanic Gardens South Yarra, Vic, Australia
                Author notes
                Andrew R. Weeks, CESAR, Department of Genetics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic 3010, Australia. Tel.: +61 3 83442522; fax: +61 3 83442279; e-mail: aweeks@ 123456unimelb.edu.au

                Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions set out at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/onlineopen#OnlineOpen_Terms

                Article
                10.1111/j.1752-4571.2011.00192.x
                3265713
                22287981
                55671159-4931-4443-a62f-c2257eb9ea01
                © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
                History
                : 05 January 2011
                : 11 May 2011
                Categories
                Perspective

                Evolutionary Biology
                conservation genetics,climate change,adaptation,ecological genetics
                Evolutionary Biology
                conservation genetics, climate change, adaptation, ecological genetics

                Comments

                Comment on this article