Identifying Species Conservation Strategies to Reduce Disease‐Associated Declines
Gerber BD, Converse SJ, Muths E, Crockett HJ, Mosher BA, Bailey LL. 2018. Identifying Species Conservation Strategies to Reduce Disease‐Associated Declines. Conservation Letters A Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. 11(2)
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.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Gerber, Brian; Converse, Sarah; Muths, Erin; Crockett, Harry; Mosher, Brittany; Bailey, Larissa
- Units
- ROMO
- Keywords
- Expert elicitation, extinction risk, host‐pathogen dynamics, metapopulation viability, optimal strategy, spatially explicit, structured decision