The growing awareness of evolutionary responses to human-induced environmental changes highlights the need to better understand and integrate evolutionary perspectives into life sciences and, more broadly, into biodiversity conservation. Evolutionary changes are complex and multi-causal, operating across numerous timescales. Emerging fields such as eco-evolutionary dynamics, genomics, and non-genetic inheritance are substantially advancing knowledge in this area. To better integrate and value these changes, we define the concept of 'evolutionary footprint' as the impact of a driver on the micro- and macroevolutionary trajectories of a biological entity. By selecting metrics that capture changes in adaptive traits, genetic diversity, macroevolutionary processes, and phylogenetic patterns, and by interpreting the magnitude of these changes relative to natural history baselines, we provide a quantitative method for scoring evolutionary footprints. We illustrate this framework with two case studies, one concerning the evolution of a plant species in response to human-induced pollinator decline and another addressing potential human impacts on the mammal taxon. We discuss key challenges associated with integrating multiple timescales and levels of biodiversity within the framework, as well as the difficulties of predicting evolutionary changes, accounting for non-genetic processes, and developing the required databases. This new type of indicator may foster the integration of knowledge about evolutionary processes and eco-evolutionary dynamics into conservation science and offer new insights and avenues for an evocentric approach to biodiversity conservation.

1.7 million foxes, mustelids and corvids are culled in France annually to reduce sanitary risks and economic losses to human activities and properties. The efficiency of the implemented lethal control strategy has never been assessed. We analyzed seven years of data reporting damage costs and lethal control effort across the country, and failed to find a link between control effort and change in reported damage costs, and reducing even cancelling control effort does not boost damage. We further report that the control effort does not drive breeding numbers in corvids. We also provide the first economic assessment of native vertebrate pest control in France. The monetary valuation of lethal control effort was estimated at 103-123 million euros annually, while official annual damage costs sum to 8-23 million euros. There is no evidence of any benefit from control effort. Lethal control does not drive population numbers, and possibly reduces ecosystem services associated with these species, including rodent predation and seed dispersal.

Mixed-source translocation can reduce immediate extinction risk by increasing population size, genetic diversity, and individual fitness, but their long-term consequences remain debated. To rescue the perennial plant Arenaria grandiflora from extinction in the Fontainebleau Forest (northern France), local and non-local (Chinon, Central France) plants were multiplied in vitro, and clones were translocated to unoccupied sites in their original area of distribution. Therefore, the translocated populations presented higher genetic diversity compared to either source populations. Since then, two decades of demographic and genetic monitoring revealed that the genetic diversity of the restored populations remained stable while the relative amount of non-local genetic ancestry increased over generations. We found no evidence of maladaptation and, instead, a higher fitness of admixed individuals compared to individuals resembling either local or non-local gene-pools. This study provides unique insights into the dynamics between admixture and fitness in a conservation translocation program spanning approximately five generations.

Conservation translocations are a well-known conservation tool used to reverse the effects of local population extinctions and restore ecosystems. Compared with mammals and birds, plants are underrepresented in translocation programs, and little is known about the potential taxonomic and phylogenetic biases of plant translocation efforts. We aimed to assess how translocated plant species may contribute to the conservation of phylogenetic diversity (PD) among European countries. Focusing on angiosperms across 4 European countries with well-documented flora and comprehensive sampling of translocated plant species, we determined whether species translocations were related to species conservation status with binomial generalized linear mixed models with threat status as a binary response variable. Then, we evaluated the taxonomic and phylogenetic biases of translocated plant species relative to national floras based on PD and evolutionary distinctiveness (ED). To evaluate PD and ED, we constructed null models to assess the deviation of observed values from those expected under a scenario in which translocated species were randomly sampled from the species pool of national floras in each country. Although most species lacked conservation status assessment, plant translocations mainly targeted species with high extinction risk at national, European, and global scales. Although plant orders with a higher representativeness of translocated species also tended to have a higher representativeness of native species, the probability of species being translocated varied significantly across plant order, suggesting a significant taxonomic bias. Based on null models and considering all countries, PD and mean ED of translocated plants were higher than expected by chance in most countries. These results suggest that although translocation programs were implemented independently across countries, the diversity of translocated plant species is relevant to conserving PD from national to continental scales and restoring evolutionarily distinct species when these species succeed. We argue that PD indicators should be incorporated into translocation planning to restore target species’ evolutionary trajectories and to contribute to conservation of PD.

Inbreeding depression is widely recognised as a near-universal phenomenon of high conservation concern, particularly as wild populations continue to decline. However, most research to date has focused on early life stages, leaving later-life effects comparatively understudied, especially for wild populations of long-lived species. The Pyrenean brown bear (Ursus arctos), characterised by a small population, high levels of inbreeding and conflicts with human activities, embodies the conservation challenges faced by many large mammals. We analysed 27 years of monitoring data to quantify inbreeding depression across multiple life stages on survival, reproduction and dispersal. Our results reveal strong inbreeding depression effects, particularly in early life stages, including a reduction in litter size and in natal dispersal distance. In adults, more inbred mothers exhibit lower cub survival. The cumulative effect of inbreeding, as measured by lifetime breeding success, also shows a negative impact. These findings highlight the necessity of assessing inbreeding depression across the entire life cycle to accurately evaluate its threat to population dynamics and viability. Such comprehensive assessments will become increasingly essential for wild plant and animal populations constrained by habitat destruction, human-wildlife conflict and harvesting pressures.

The increasing abundance of animal species thriving in urban environments is a source of conflicts with managers and users of public spaces. Although opportunistic urban species often use resources originating from human food leftovers, the potential impact of a reduction in these resources on their demography is hard to quantify. The COVID-19 epidemic, which led many countries to set up lockdowns, gave us the opportunity to estimate the impact of a drastic reduction in such food resources and human activities on the demography of an urban bird population. Based on 7 years (2015-2021) of capture-mark-recapture of carrion crows (Corvus corone) in the city of Paris, France, we used multi-state models to examine the intra-annual (3-month time steps) apparent survival and movement patterns of crows during and outside COVID-19 lockdowns. We showed that the apparent survival of juvenile carrion crows decreased down during lockdown, while adult movements increased during this period, with more adult crows moving out of the urban district. Lockdown modified the demography of this urban crow population, suggesting that the reduction in food resources was sufficient to affect fitness and reduce carrying capacity.

Conservation references have long been used in conservation biology to compare current biodiversity processes and states with past conditions. However, beyond the paucity of data for the construction of ancient, even prehuman, references, the relevance of these ancient references for studying ecosystems radically modified by human activities is questionable, particularly when the notions of conservation references and conservation objectives are confused and when several conservation ethics coexist that require distinct references. Because of this implicit heterogeneity in the nature of the references and their temporal baseline, conservation references not only have different meanings, but also deliver different messages. I propose establishing a common framework for conservation references to approach past biological systems and build comparable references between studies and projects. The selection of these references (distinct from conservation objectives) should be an early, explicit, standardized, and transparent milestone in any conservation process and these references should be based on state, pressure, or process dynamics, rather than fixed states. Finally, the importance of the diversity of temporal baselines used to build conservation references and to measure anthropogenic impacts should be recognized to understand the biodiversity crisis in its entirety.

Current oncogenic theories state that tumors arise from cell lineages that sequentially accumulate (epi)mutations, progressively turning healthy cells into carcinogenic ones. While those models found some empirical support, they are little predictive of intraspecies age-specific cancer incidence and of interspecies cancer prevalence. Notably, in humans and lab rodents, a deceleration (and sometimes decline) of cancer incidence rate has been found at old ages. Additionally, dominant theoretical models of oncogenesis predict that cancer risk should increase in large and/or long-lived species, which is not supported by empirical data. Here, we explore the hypothesis that cellular senescence could explain those incongruent empirical patterns. More precisely, we hypothesize that there is a trade-off between dying of cancer and of (other) ageing-related causes. This trade-off between organismal mortality components would be mediated, at the cellular scale, by the accumulation of senescent cells. In this framework, damaged cells can either undergo apoptosis or enter senescence. Apoptotic cells lead to compensatory proliferation, associated with an excess risk of cancer, whereas senescent cell accumulation leads to ageing-related mortality. To test our framework, we build a deterministic model that first describes how cells get damaged, undergo apoptosis, or enter senescence. We then translate those cellular dynamics into a compound organismal survival metric also integrating life-history traits. We address four different questions linked to our framework: can cellular senescence be adaptive, do the predictions of our model reflect epidemiological patterns observed among mammal species, what is the effect of species sizes on those answers, and what happens when senescent cells are removed? Importantly, we find that cellular senescence can optimize lifetime reproductive success. Moreover, we find that life-history traits play an important role in shaping the cellular trade-offs. Overall, we demonstrate that integrating cellular biology knowledge with eco-evolutionary principles is crucial to solve parts of the cancer puzzle.

Species translocations are increasingly used to improve the conservation status of threatened species, restore communities, or in response to mitigation hierarchy. Post-translocation monitoring is an essential step in any translocation protocol, as only demographic data collected over a sufficiently long period can be used to estimate whether a translocated population is viable and thus determine whether translocation is successful. We gathered European monitoring data from 575 plant translocation units to document monitoring time and determine how it varies. We examined this variation by translocation motivation between conservation-driven translocations (undertaken outside the mitigation hierarchy) and mitigation-driven translocations. We also compared the monitoring time to the type of biological material translocated and the number of individuals. We show that mitigation-driven translocations were more monitored in the first few years after translocation but for a shorter time than conservation-driven translocations. The same was observed for translocations made with diaspores compared to translocations made with plants. Moreover, monitoring time increased with the number of translocated plants but not with the number of diaspores. Although conservation-driven and mitigation-driven translocation programs exhibited distinct temporal monitoring patterns, both motivations of translocations were associated with rapid discontinuation of the monitoring. Indeed, after four years monitoring continued in only 37.9% of non-extinct population units. After ten years, this percentage falls to 11.8%. We recommend that translocations be monitored more assiduously over longer periods, and that the monitoring data be readily available to improve future translocations.

Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) derived from Species Distribution Model (SDM) has been used to infer or predict local demographic properties such as abundance for many species. Across species studied, HSI has either been presented as a poor predictor of abundance or as a predictor of potential rather than realized abundance. The main explanation of the lack of relationship between HSI and abundance is that the local abundance of a species varies in time due to various ecological processes that are not integrated into correlative SDM. To better understand the HSI-abundance relationship, in addition to the study of the association between HSI and mean abundance, we explored its variation over time. We used data from 10-years monitoring of a Houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata) population in Morocco. From various occurrence data we modelled the HSI. From (independent) count data we calculated four local abundance indices: mean abundance, maximum abundance, the temporal trend of abundance and the coefficient of variation of abundance over the study period. We explored the relationship between HSI and abundance indices using linear, polynomial and quantile regressions. We found a triangular relationship between local abundance (mean and maximum) and HSI, indicating that the upper limit of mean and maximum abundance increased with HSI. Our results also indicate that sites with the highest HSI were associated with least variation in local abundance, the highest variation being observed at intermediate HSI. Our results provide new empirical evidence supporting the generalization of the triangular relationship between HSI and abundance. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that HSI obtained from SDMs can reflect the local abundance potentialities of a species and emphasize the importance of investigating this relationship using temporal variation in abundance.

Conservation breeding programs pursue the double objective of preserving genetic diversity and producing individuals to support in situ conservation measures. Genetic management and monitoring are commonly based on pedigree analyses and are therefore dependent on the pedigree quality and the underlying assumption that founders of the captive population are neither inbred nor related to each other or to the captive population. Should founders be related, this assumption may lead to an overestimation of genetic diversity and an underestimation of inbreeding in captivity. In this study, we examined the effects of the founder assumption on estimates of genetic diversity by combining three approaches: (1) computer simulations of pedigrees of theoretical captive populations and their associated in situ source populations, (2) analysis of pedigrees of real conservation breeding programs and (3) microsatellite‐based computation of kinship among founders from a captive population of houbara bustard. The theoretical approach revealed that the captive population's average mean kinship Mk increases linearly with founder average Mk. The bias in Mk due to the founder assumption was strongly related to the effective size of the source population and to pedigree quality while remaining critical after 25 generations of captivity. Results based on real populations were consistent with theoretical ones and confirmed the overestimation of genetic diversity in captive populations. Overall, our results indicate that under situations classically encountered in conservation breeding programs (e.g. small and isolated source population, incomplete pedigrees), estimates of genetic diversity are potentially highly overestimated, challenging the genetic management of captive populations of species of conservation concern.

Population reinforcement, through translocations of individuals, aims to restore populations of threatened species. The increase in population size or geographic distribution is often used as positive facts when assessing the recovery of a species, making abundance monitoring a major criterion. Based on 8‐year monitoring of a reinforced population of North African Houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata), over an area of 50 170 km² in the eastern region of Morocco, we assessed the success of management actions by assessing spatial and temporal variation in abundance as well as the factors driving this variation. We used count data to estimate and spatialize population abundance. We then assessed environmental (climate) and management covariates (release effort and hunting management) associated with temporal and spatial variation in abundance. The overall estimate of abundance in the study area was 16 918 individuals (95% CI = 13 629–21 027) over our study period, with strong variation between years (range = 10 409–32 401). Our results highlighted strong spatial heterogeneity over the study area, linked to spatial variation in local climate and management conditions. Local abundances were negatively associated with local temperature, were higher in hunting than in non‐hunting areas, and were positively influenced by the number of birds released around the focal point. In addition to describing the spatio‐temporal variation in the abundance of the species on a large scale, we estimated two major proxies of its conservation status: population size and population trend. The determination of these proxies and the comparison with the counterfactual state of the species confirms the beneficial impact of the restoration and protection program on the dynamics of the North African Houbara bustard, while underlining the dependence of these dynamics on ongoing management.

Poaching can have major impacts on wild animal populations and is pervasive in tropical regions. The spatial distribution of this furtive activity is particularly difficult to estimate in large natural areas, and this hinders the development of effective anti-poaching strategies. We used passive acoustic recorders in combination with occupancy models to develop a predictive map of poaching presence in the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest of Argentina and Brazil. Poaching activity was measured by gunshots detected by the recorders that were active for 7 months (August 2018 to February 2019) on 90 sampling sites distributed in an area of 4637 km2. A total of 15,936 h of landscape sounds were recorded, detecting gunshots at 43 sites. Using occupancy models, we evaluated eight variables that might influence poaching occurrence and detectability. Poaching was higher in areas with higher accessibility, with a higher proportion of rural areas, and far from control posts of park rangers. The detectability of gunshots was lower during periods of heavy rainfall. We validated the occupancy models through field surveys conducted in the same period resulting in a predictive capacity of 82% of our best model. Our results show that this region is under very high poaching pressure, even within the protected area's boundaries and that urgent actions must be taken. The methods we used for estimating poaching pressure and the predictive maps developed could serve as a tool for developing and implementing anti-poaching strategies to reduce this pervasive threat.

Jankowski's Bunting Emberiza jankowskii is one of several grassland birds that have suffered major population declines across their ranges, and the cause of these declines remains largely unknown. To determine what demographic drivers are responsible for their decline, we combined specific annual female productivity from a local Jankowski's Bunting population and survival probabilities from the Ortolan Bunting, an ecologically similar species. We used an age-structured matrix population model to examine the population dynamics of Jankowski's Bunting and showed that they may not be capable of sustaining a stable population, even without environmental stochasticity and density dependence. Compared to other Emberiza buntings with similar population trends, our results indicate that the population decline in Jankowski's Bunting is largely caused by a particularly low reproductive success, and in particular a very low survival of eggs and nestlings. Despite the relatively low elasticity of the population dynamics to breeding parameters, our analysis suggests that increasing the number of fledglings to levels similar to those of closely related species would result in a growing population. Given that the reproductive success is highly influenced by nest predation or human disturbance, we suggest that initial conservation actions reducing interference from human activities are meaningful to improve the reproductive success of remaining Jankowski's Bunting populations and allow the species to persist in the long term.

Reintroduction, the human-mediated movement of organisms to re-establish locally extinct populations, has become a popular conservation tool. However, because reintroductions often focus on local or national conservation issues, their contribution to the conservation of biodiversity at large scale remains unclear. While taxonomic biases have already been identified in reintroduction programs at regional scales, studies have stressed the need to account for other facets of biodiversity when assessing the relevance of the allocation of conservation efforts. In particular, it may be very fruitful to discriminate if and how such taxonomic biases may influence the functional complementarity of reintroduction targets, and to which extent reintroduction practitioners may have focused on species performing more singular functions than others. Here, we investigate the diversity of functional traits supported by reintroduced species of terrestrial birds and mammals in Europe. For each taxonomic group, we explored the functional representativeness of reintroduction targets at the European scale, i.e., whether species involved in reintroduction programs collectively represent the range of functional trait variation observed in the regional assemblage. Because additional conservation value could have been given by practitioners to species performing singular functions, we also measured the functional distinctiveness of reintroduced species. We found that reintroductions of birds did not focus on functionally distinct species, and that the subset of reintroduced birds is representative of the functional diversity at a continental scale. However, reintroductions of mammals involved more functionally distinct species than expected, even though reintroduced mammals are not collectively representative of the functional diversity of the continental assemblage.

Although density-dependent processes and their impacts on population dynamics are key issues in ecology and conservation biology, empirical evidence of density-dependence remains scarce for species or populations with low densities, scattered distributions, and especially for managed populations where densities may vary as a result of extrinsic factors (such as harvesting or releases). Here, we explore the presence of density-dependent processes in a reinforced population of North African Houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata). We investigated the relationship between reproductive success and local density, and the possible variation of this relationship according to habitat suitability using three independent datasets. Based on eight years of nests monitoring (more than 7000 nests), we modeled the Daily Nest Survival Rate (DNSR) as a proxy of reproductive success. Our results indicate that DNSR was negatively impacted by local densities and that this relationship was approximately constant in space and time: (1) although DNSR strongly decreased over the breeding season, the negative relationship between DNSR and density remained constant over the breeding season; (2) this density-dependent relationship did not vary with the quality of the habitat associated with the nest location. Previous studies have shown that the demographic parameters and population dynamics of the reinforced North African Houbara bustard are strongly influenced by extrinsic environmental and management parameters. Our study further indicates the existence of density-dependent regulation in a low-density, managed population.

Human-wildlife conflicts are associated with a threat to large carnivores, as well as with economic and social costs, thus challenging conservation management around the world. In this study, we explored the effectiveness of common management interventions used worldwide for the purpose of conflict reduction using an evidence-based framework combining expert assessment of intervention effectiveness, impact and uncertainty of assessment. We first conducted a literature review of human-large carnivore conflicts across the world. Based on this review, we identified three main types of management interventions (non-lethal, translocations, and lethal management) and we assessed their effectiveness. Our review indicates that, although the characteristics of conflicts with large carnivores are heavily influenced by the local context and the species, the main issues are depredation on livestock, space-sharing, and attacks on humans. Non-lethal interventions are more likely to reduce conflict, whereas translocations and lethal interventions are mostly ineffective and/or harmful to carnivore populations, without fostering successful long-term coexistence. The literature on conflict management is often imprecise and lacks consistency between studies or situations, which generally makes comparisons difficult. Our protocol allows for the reliable comparison of experiments characterized by heterogeneous standards, response variables, protocols, and quality of evidence. Nevertheless, we encourage the use of systematic protocols with common good standards in order to provide more reliable empirical evidence. This would clarify the relative effectiveness of conflict management strategies and contribute to the global reduction in the occurrence of human-large carnivore conflicts across the world.