Proposed Duty Station: Shepherdstown, WV
Endangered species determinations require reliable scientific analyses to assess species risk of extinction (Carroll et al. 1996, Doremus and Tarlock 2005, Waples et al. 2015, Murphy and Weiland 2016). Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has adopted the species status assessment (SSA) process that results in a scientific analysis to be used in endangered species decisions (McGowan et al. 2017, Smith et al. 2018). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is collaborating with USFWS to improve scientific input to SSAs to work towards more accurate decisions about species status and more effective conservation efforts.
The SSA process includes three sequential tasks: description of species ecology, estimation of current condition, and forecast of future condition. The SSA incorporates predictive modeling, species distribution modeling, population genetics, scenario analysis, formal expert elicitation, and decision analysis. Often the bottleneck in an SSA is the science required for estimation and forecasting.
Improving efficiency of the SSA process, while maintaining accuracy, is needed given the high number of petitioned species and recovery plans to be updated. For example, the single-species approach is the traditional method, but efficiency might be improved by assessing multiple species at the same time (Franklin 1995, McClure et al. 2003, Joseph et al. 2009, USFWS 2014, Bouska et al. 2018). The potential trade-off between accuracy and efficiency is paramount because insufficient understanding of species-specific ecology resulting from a multiple species focus could undermine conservation effectiveness (Clark and Harvey 2002, Heinrichs et al. 2018). Currently, the USFWS lacks a consistent theoretically grounded multiple species assessment approach. Thus, guidance is needed for when and how a multiple species assessment is effective and efficient for endangered species determinations. The utility of multiple-species assessments might depend on a typology or road map defined by taxonomic guild, overlapping distribution, susceptibility to similar stressors, ecosystem dependence, and life histories.
Because decision making provides the context for the science, there may also be a decision analysis aspect for research under this Opportunity (Runge 2011, Gregory et al. 2013, Smith et al. 2016, Smith et al. 2018). An effective species assessment will be structured to have inputs and outputs that conform to the type of endangered species decision that it supports. A decision to list a species as endangered or threatened relies on an assessment of extinction risk under plausible threat scenarios. Development of a recovery plan relies on a maximization of species viability among alternative recovery actions and strategies. Mitigation of project-level impacts relies on a minimization of incidental take across alternative conservation measures. A value-of-information approach, common to decision analysis, might be useful in evaluating the value of multiple species assessment to the particular decision context (Bal et al. 2018).
This Mendenhall Research Fellowship will provide an excellent opportunity for an early career researcher to work collaboratively with USGS scientists and USFWS managers to provide scientific information through analyses and models that will support consequential decision making. In particular, the candidate will 1) develop models, future scenarios, and analyses to estimate current condition and forecast future condition for multiple species of freshwater mussels and cave/karst amphipods, and 2) develop principles, practices, methods, tools, and guidance for multiple-species assessments. While multiple-species assessment is a focal point in this Opportunity, there is room for creatively exploring other ways to gain efficiency and improve accuracy of species assessments. The research is expected to result in widely-distributed guidance and publications on achieving accurate and efficient species assessments. The candidate will work with a research team on assessments for priority species and will be expected to produce peer-reviewed publications. The candidate’s work on the case studies will provide the experience, along with literature reviews and previous experiences, to develop novel analyses, guidance, and protocols.
