This dissertation consists of three papers on the use of incentives for conservation of endangered species on private land. The first paper examines incentives based on providing landowners with assurances regarding future regulation in exchange for their participation in a conservation agreement. The second and third papers are empirical analyses...
More than 1500 species of plants and animals in the United States are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The U.S. Departments of Interior and Commerce are required, under Section 4(f)(1) of the ESA, to develop recovery plans for ESA-listed species under the respective agency...
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is considered by many to be among the most powerful and most contentious environmental laws in the United States. Persistent challenges to the Act’s implementation make reaching conservation goals problematic. Most notably, the very nature of the law—providing protections for species already at...
A major goal of conservation biology is to elucidate the population genetic structure in threatened species and assess the relative importance of the evolutionary forces that shape that population genetic structure. I conducted three studies in the declining amphibian Rana cascadae to assess levels of population genetic differentiation and the...
The number of endangered species is rapidly increasing while paucity of adequate information and resources delays establishment of conservation actions. The IUCN’s listing system is insufficient to determine conservation priorities and many species lack information even to be evaluated (i.e., “data deficient”). Here I proposed and tested the Rapid Endangered...
Island systems and species are susceptible to extinction because of their small population size and an ecological naiveté from an evolutionary past lacking strong competition and predation. For example, only one-fifth of the world’s bird species occur on islands, yet more than 90% of the avian extinctions witnessed during historic...