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Conservation and Management Strategies Create Opportunities for Integrative Organismal Research
Integrative and Comparative Biology
  • Lance D McBrayer, Georgia Southern University
  • Richard W Orton, University of Texas at Arlington
  • Chase T Kinsey, Clemson University
  • Lauren K Neel, Arizona State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-12-2020
DOI
10.1093/icb/icaa069
Abstract

Conservation and management activities are geared toward the achievement of particular goals for a specific species, or groups of species, at the population level or higher. Conversely, organismal or functional research is typically organized by hypothesis tests or descriptive work that examines a broader theory studying individual organismal traits. Here, we outline how integrative organismal biologists might conduct mutually beneficial and meaningful research to inform or assist conservation and management biologists. We argue that studies of non-target species are very useful to both groups because non-target species can meet the goals of managers and organismal biologists alike, while also informing the other. We highlight our work on a threatened lizard species’ thermal physiology, behavior, and color pattern—all of which are impacted by species management plans for sympatric, threatened, bird species. We show that management practices affect activity time, thermal adaptation, and substrate use, while also altering predation rates, crypsis, ectoparasite load, and sexual coloration in the study species. These case studies exemplify the challenges of conservation and management efforts for threatened or endangered species in that non-target species can be both positively and negatively affected by those efforts. Yet, the collaboration of organismal biologists with conservation and management efforts provides a productive system for mutually informative research.

Comments

Georgia Southern University faculty member, Lance McBrayer co-authored Conservation and Management Strategies Create Opportunities for Integrative Organismal Research.

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Citation Information
Lance D McBrayer, Richard W Orton, Chase T Kinsey and Lauren K Neel. "Conservation and Management Strategies Create Opportunities for Integrative Organismal Research" Integrative and Comparative Biology Vol. 60 Iss. 2 (2020) p. 509 - 521
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/lance-mcbrayer/144/