title: A protocol for better design, application, and communication of population viability analyses.
abstract: Population viability analyses (PVAs) contribute to conservation theory, policy, and management. Most PVAs focus on single species within a given landscape and address a specific problem. This specificity often is reflected in the organization of published PVA descriptions. Many lack structure, making them difficult to understand, assess, repeat, or use for drawing generalizations across PVA studies. In an assessment comparing published PVAs and existing guidelines, we found that model selection was rarely justified; important parameters remained neglected or their implementation was described vaguely; limited details were given on parameter ranges, sensitivity analysis, and scenarios; and results were often reported too inconsistently to enable repeatability and comparability. Although many guidelines exist on how to design and implement reliable PVAs and standards exist for documenting and communicating ecological models in general, there is a lack of organized guidelines for designing, applying, and communicating PVAs that account for their diversity of structures and contents. To fill this gap, we integrated published guidelines and recommendations for PVA design and application, protocols for documenting ecological models in general and individual-based models in particular, and our collective experience in developing, applying, and reviewing PVAs. We devised a comprehensive protocol for the design, application, and communication of PVAs (DAC-PVA), which has 3 primary elements. The first defines what a useful PVA is; the second element provides a workflow for the design and application of a useful PVA and highlights important aspects that need to be considered during these processes; and the third element focuses on communication of PVAs to ensure clarity, comprehensiveness, repeatability, and comparability. Thereby, DAC-PVA should strengthen the credibility and relevance of PVAs for policy and management, and improve the capacity to generalize PVA findings across studies.
authors.affiliation: UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Conservation Biology, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany. guy.peer@ufz.de
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pe'er
authors.forename: Yiannis G
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Matsinos
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Johst
authors.forename: Kamila W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Franz
authors.forename: Camille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Turlure
authors.forename: Viktoriia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Radchuk
authors.forename: Agnieszka H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Malinowska
authors.forename: Janelle M R
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Curtis
authors.forename: Ilona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Naujokaitis-Lewis
authors.forename: Brendan A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Wintle
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Henle
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004463:Ecology / Q000379:methods*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011158:Population Growth; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D035501:Uncertainty
keywords: ciencia de la comunicación; documentación del modelo; ecological modeling; evaluación de riesgo; meta análisis; meta-analysis; model documentation; modelación ecológica; reportaje estandarizado; risk assessment; science communication; standardized reporting