Abstract
Successfully implementing fundamental concepts into concrete applications is challenging in any given field. It requires communication, collaboration and shared will between researchers and practitioners. We argue that evolutionary biology, through research work linked to conservation, management and forensics, had a significant impact on wildlife agencies and department practices, where new frameworks and applications have been implemented over the last decades. The Quebec government's Wildlife Department (MFFP: Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs) has been proactive in reducing the “research–implementation” gap, thanks to prolific collaborations with many academic researchers. Among these associations, our department's outstanding partnership with Dr. Louis Bernatchez yielded significant contributions to harvest management, stocking programmes, definition of conservation units, recovery of threatened species, management of invasive species and forensic applications. We discuss key evolutionary biology concepts and resulting concrete examples of their successful implementation that derives directly or indirectly from this successful partnership. While old and new threats to wildlife are bringing new challenges, we expect recent developments in eDNA and genomics to provide innovative solutions as long as the research–implementation bridge remains open.
Highlights
Over the last decade, there have been recurrent discussions over the existence of a more or less wide “research–implementation gap” for evolutionary biology in the wildlife sciences (Cook & Sgro, 2019; Knight et al, 2008)
This may be true for a variety of fields, such as telemetry, climatology and geology to name a few, we argue that over the last decades, none has experienced faster growth or a wider impact than genetics and more recently, genomics in addressing otherwise tedious and integrative questions in conservation biology
Evolutionary applications in wildlife sciences have grown rapidly, and as demonstrated by examples of past and present collaborative effort between MFFP and academics, mainly Dr Bernatchez, the implementation of evolutionary concepts had a major impact on critical conservation issues
Summary
There have been recurrent discussions over the existence of a more or less wide “research–implementation gap” for evolutionary biology in the wildlife sciences (Cook & Sgro, 2019; Knight et al, 2008). A consensus appears to exist around the idea that communication, collaboration and integration of evolutionary biology in students’ undergraduate studies are key to linking the work of academics and wildlife practitioners (Cash et al, 2003; Hogg et al, 2017; Shafer et al, 2015). The mission of our department translates into concerted efforts towards sustainable wildlife and habitat conservation using the best available practices. This may be true for a variety of fields, such as telemetry, climatology and geology to name a few, we argue that over the last decades, none has experienced faster growth or a wider impact than genetics and more recently, genomics in addressing otherwise tedious and integrative questions in conservation biology. The MFFP greatly benefits from the maturity of genetics and genomics in three important fields of expertise, namely wildlife management, conservation and forensics (Figure 1)
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