Incorporating evolutionary principles into environmental management and policy

Abstract

As policymakers and managers work to mitigate the effects of rapid anthropogenic environmental changes, they need to consider organisms' responses. In light of recent evidence that evolution can be quite rapid, this now includes evolutionary responses. Evolutionary principles have a long history in conservation biology, and the necessary next step for the field is to consider ways in which conservation policy makers and managers can proactively manipulate evolutionary processes to achieve their goals. In this review, we aim to illustrate the potential conservation benefits of an increased understanding of evolutionary history and prescriptive manipulation of three basic evolutionary factors: selection, variation, and gene flow. For each, we review and propose ways that policy makers and managers can use evolutionary thinking to preserve threatened species, combat pest species, or reduce undesirable evolutionary changes. Such evolution-based management has potential to be a highly efficient and consistent way to create greater ecological resilience to widespread, rapid, and multifaceted environmental change.

Keywords: conservation biology; environmental management; evolution; gene flow; selection; variation.

Figure 1

Past environments provide the evolutionary history that shapes traits, plasticity, and genetic variation. Traits and plasticity along with novel environments (that might match or mismatch past environments) influence individual fitness that governs population performance. Fitness and genetic variation along with population size and connectivity drive evolution that feeds back to determine future traits, plasticity, and genetic variation. These, in turn, loop back to influence future fitness and population performance.

Figure 2

The link between the spatial scale of evolutionary environmental management actions and the level of decision making at which they initially should be considered is illustrated with examples from Table 1. An imagined species range is shown, consisting of three distinct regional populations and within these a set of local populations. The species range spans regional or national administrative boundaries (stippled lines), highlighting the need for international or interstate consideration of evolutionary management actions. The change in underlying color illustrates an environmental selection gradient, e.g. temperature.