Data from: Conservation through the lens of (mal)adaptation: concepts and meta-analysis

Evolutionary approaches are gaining popularity in conservation science,
with diverse strategies applied in efforts to support adaptive population
outcomes. Yet conservation strategies differ in the type of adaptive
outcomes they promote as conservation goals. For instance, strategies
based on genetic or demographic rescue implicitly target adaptive
population states whereas strategies utilizing transgenerational
plasticity or evolutionary rescue implicitly target adaptive processes.
These two goals are somewhat polar: adaptive state strategies optimize
current population fitness, which should reduce phenotypic and/or genetic
variance, reducing adaptability in changing or uncertain environments;
adaptive process strategies increase genetic variance, causing
maladaptation in the short term, but increase adaptability over the long
term. Maladaptation refers to suboptimal population fitness, adaptation
refers to optimal population fitness, and (mal)adaptation refers to the
continuum of fitness variation from maladaptation to adaptation. Here we
present a conceptual classification for conservation that implicitly
considers (mal)adaptation in the short-term and long-term outcomes of
conservation strategies. We describe cases of how (mal)adaptation is
implicated in traditional conservation strategies, as well as strategies
that have potential as a conservation tool but are relatively
underutilized. We use a meta-analysis of a small number of available
studies to evaluate whether the different conservation strategies employed
are better suited toward increasing population fitness across multiple
generations. We found weakly increasing adaptation over time for
transgenerational plasticity, genetic rescue, and evolutionary rescue.
Demographic rescue was generally maladaptive, both immediately after
conservation intervention and after several generations. Interspecific
hybridization was adaptive only in the F1 generation, but then rapidly
lead to maladaptation. Management decisions that are made to support the
process of adaptation must adequately account for (mal)adaptation as a
potential outcome and even as a tool to bolster adaptive capacity to
changing conditions.