Conservation of rare or threatened species may be influenced by legal and governmental systems, cultural norms and values, economic constraints, and existing ecological knowledge. In this case study, we examine a timeline of conservation interventions designed to support a federally and state listed species, California tiger salamander, and the integration of scientific study to support applied learning. The goal of our study was to better understand how to leverage scientific effort to achieve conservation benefit and compare the relative contributions of scientific, economic, and regulatory support for conservation.
Results/Conclusions
In our case study, we found that both species and community-level ecological understanding is required to conserve individual species, however economic resources and social constraints lag behind the growing body of ecological knowledge and present a more formidable barrier to the conservation of the species. Scientific contributions were most closely linked to measurable environmental benefit when the study was directly linked to addressing a barrier to conservation in a specific ecosystem. For example, breeding ponds were created adjacent to occupied habitat, but dispersal patterns were unknown within the landscape and it was unclear whether assisted migration would be needed to facilitate occupancy by California tiger salamander. The contributions of population and movement studies influenced the design and length of drift fence required to direct migrating salamanders to wildlife tunnels that were constructed under the road and prompted assisted migration to an isolated wetland. Multifaceted approaches, including application of regulatory tools, in particular the creation of a Habitat Conservation Plan, in combination with well-funded and pro-active management and scientific inquiry have supported a relatively stable population of California tiger salamanders at Stanford University in recent decades.