What evidence exists for evaluating the effectiveness of conservation-oriented captive breeding and release programs for imperilled freshwater fishes and mussels?¹

Captive breeding programs are widely applied by conservation practitioners as a means of conserving, reintroducing, and supplementing populations imperilled freshwater fishes mussels. We conducted systematic map to provide an overview the existing literature on effectiveness captive release programs. A key finding is that there limited evaluation such at all three stages (i.e., broodstock collection, rearing/release methods, post-release monitoring). identified clusters evidence for evaluating supplementation associated with methods fish growth survival metrics, monitoring stage genetic diversity, growth, primarily focused salmonids. However, many studies had inadequate experimental designs lacked comparator). Overall, was paucity mussels, highlighting need make information broadly available when undertaken. Outputs from this database heatmaps) suggest requires further evaluation.