Linking evolutionary potential to extinction risk: applications and future directions

Extinction‐risk assessments play a major role in prioritizing conservation action at national and international levels. However, quantifying extinction risk is challenging, especially when including the full suite of adaptive responses to environmental change. In particular, evolutionary potential (EP) – capacity evolve genetically based changes that increase fitness under changing conditions has proven difficult evaluate, limiting its inclusion assessments. Theory, experiments, simulations, field studies all highlight importance EP characterizing mitigating risk. Disregarding can therefore result ineffective allocation resources inadequate recovery planning. Fortunately, proxies for be estimated from environmental, phenotypic, genetic data. Some incorporated into quantitative extinction‐risk assessments, whereas others better inform basic actions maximize resilience future Integration decision making challenging but essential remains an important issue innovation applied science. Front Ecol Environ 2022;