Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, 120 W. Samford Avenue, Auburn, AL, 36849, USA.
School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, Auburn University, 382 Mell Street, Auburn, AL, 36849, USA.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2024 Apr;99(2):348-371. doi: 10.1111/brv.13025. Epub 2023 Oct 16.
Conservation translocation is a common strategy to offset mounting rates of population declines through the transfer of captive- or wild-origin organisms into areas where conspecific populations are imperilled or completely extirpated. Translocations that supplement existing populations are referred to as reinforcements and can be conducted using captive-origin animals [ex situ reinforcement (ESR)] or wild-origin animals without any captive ancestry [in situ reinforcement (ISR)]. These programs have been criticized for low success rates and husbandry practices that produce individuals with genetic and performance deficits, but the post-release performance of captive-origin or wild-origin translocated groups has not been systematically reviewed to quantify success relative to wild-resident control groups. To assess the disparity in post-release performance of translocated organisms relative to wild-resident conspecifics and examine the association of performance disparity with organismal and methodological factors across studies, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 821 performance comparisons from 171 studies representing nine animal classes (101 species). We found that translocated organisms have 64% decreased odds of out-performing their wild-resident counterparts, supporting claims of systemic issues hampering conservation translocations. To help identify translocation practices that could maximize program success in the future, we further quantified the impact of broad organismal and methodological factors on the disparity between translocated and wild-resident conspecific performance. Pre-release animal enrichment significantly reduced performance disparities, whereas our results suggest no overall effects of taxonomic group, sex, captive generation time, or the type of fitness surrogate measured. This work is the most comprehensive systematic review to date of animal conservation translocations in which wild conspecifics were used as comparators, thereby facilitating an evaluation of the overall impact of this conservation strategy and identifying specific actions to increase success. Our review highlights the need for conservation managers to include both sympatric and allopatric wild-reference groups to ensure the post-release performance of translocated animals can be evaluated. Further, our analyses identify pre-release animal enrichment as a particular strategy for improving the outcomes of animal conservation translocations, and demonstrate how meta-analysis can be used to identify implementation choices that maximize translocated animal contributions to recipient population growth and viability.
保护转移是一种常见的策略，通过将圈养或野生起源的生物转移到同种群体受到威胁或完全灭绝的地区，来抵消种群数量下降的速度。补充现有种群的转移被称为强化，可以使用圈养起源的动物[原地强化(ESR)]或没有任何圈养祖先的野生起源的动物[异地强化(ISR)]进行。这些项目因成功率低和饲养实践导致个体遗传和表现缺陷而受到批评，但圈养起源或野生起源的转移群体的释放后表现尚未进行系统审查，以量化相对于野生居民对照组的成功。为了评估相对于野生居民同种生物的释放后表现的差异，并检查表现差异与跨研究的生物和方法因素的关联，我们对 171 项研究的 821 项性能比较进行了系统回顾和荟萃分析，这些研究代表了九个动物类群（101 个物种）。我们发现，被转移的生物表现出比其野生居民同类低 64%的可能性，这支持了系统性问题阻碍保护转移的说法。为了帮助确定未来能最大限度地提高项目成功的转移实践，我们进一步量化了广泛的生物和方法因素对转移生物和野生居民同种生物表现差异的影响。释放前动物丰容显著降低了性能差异，而我们的结果表明，分类群、性别、圈养世代时间或测量的适应性替代物类型对性能差异没有总体影响。这项工作是迄今为止最全面的关于以野生居民为对照的动物保护转移的系统综述，从而促进了对这种保护策略的整体影响的评估，并确定了提高成功率的具体行动。我们的综述强调了保护管理者需要包括同域和异域野生参考群体，以确保可以评估转移动物的释放后表现。此外，我们的分析确定了释放前动物丰容作为改善动物保护转移结果的特定策略，并展示了元分析如何用于确定最大限度地提高转移动物对受体种群增长和生存能力贡献的实施选择。
