Conservation prioritisation emphasises currently threatened species, but there are strong arguments for complementary, more proactive approaches based on forecasting future extinction risk for unthreatened species. Forecasting methods vary in the timescale of extinction risk estimation and include established methods such as Population Viability Analysis (PVA) and Early Warning Systems, and emerging ‘Over-the-Horizon’ (OTH) methods. We develop a framework that integrates extinction risk assessment across timescales and outlines tradeoffs between shorter- and longer-term extinction prevention goals. This framework facilitates use of extinction risk forecasting in decision-theoretic conservation prioritisation that explicitly considers alternative time horizons for extinction prevention. Considering extinction risk on extended timescales offers a future-proof approach to conservation planning that may prevent more extinctions than focusing exclusively on currently threatened species.

Edit and visualize phylogenetic trees directly in your browser. PhyloWeaver lets you interactively rearrange tree topologies and export high-quality figures for publications and presentations.

After 440 positions were slashed last year, the CSIRO has announced more staff cuts across the country in a bid to remain financially viable.

The staff association at the nation’s leading scientific research organisation says the latest round of cuts marks “a sad day for publicly funded science”.

A longstanding question in ecology asks whether or not species that achieve large geographic ranges also have large climatic niche breadths. Using ...

Although an assumption of equilibrium dynamics underlies most ecological theory, the evidence for this dynamic in nature and in empirical studies is scarce. This creates an unfortunate disconnect bet...

Host-parasite arms races facilitate rapid evolution and can fuel speciation. Cuculus cuckoos are deceptive egg mimics that exhibit a broad diversity of counterfeit egg phenotypes, representing host-ad...

Ramm et al. show that Quaternary climate change predicts local extinctions and intraspecific differences in genetic diversity of the threatened Mountain Dragon (Rankinia diemensis). Their data suggest...