Forecasting extinction risk for future-proof conservation decisions

Area of Science:

• Conservation biology
• Ecology
• Risk assessment

Background:

• Current conservation prioritisation focuses on threatened species.
• Proactive approaches forecasting future extinction risk are needed.
• Existing forecasting methods vary in timescale and approach.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a framework integrating extinction risk assessment across multiple timescales.
• To outline tradeoffs between short- and long-term extinction prevention.
• To facilitate decision-theoretic conservation prioritisation considering various time horizons.

Main Methods:

• Development of an integrated extinction risk assessment framework.
• Analysis of Population Viability Analysis (PVA), Early Warning Systems, and Over-the-Horizon (OTH) methods.
• Integration of decision theory for conservation prioritisation.

Main Results:

• The framework integrates extinction risk across different timescales.
• Tradeoffs between short- and long-term conservation goals are identified.
• The framework supports decision-theoretic prioritisation for varied time horizons.

Conclusions:

• Forecasting extinction risk for unthreatened species is a valuable complementary conservation strategy.
• Considering extended timescales for extinction risk offers a future-proof conservation planning approach.
• This proactive strategy may prevent more extinctions than focusing solely on currently threatened species.