Ecological costs and benefits of communal behavior in a presocial spider

Summary Philoponella oweni (Uloboridae) is a facultatively communal spider found in the southwestern United States. Solitary females and communal groups of females coexist in the same habitats. Communal females are known to produce more eggs than solitary females. Communal females might acquire the energy for the production of additional eggs by one of three means: they might have a longer life span, and thus more time in which to acquire energy; web maintenance might be more efficient in a communal group; or communal females might spend more time feeding. Field data from a marked population in Arizona showed the third alternative was true.Two possible causes for the greater time spent feeding by communal females were investigated; either the communal web or group is a more efficient trap for insects, or the communal groups are located at sites where insects are more abundant. Analysis of feeding rates and sticky trap data confirmed the second alternative.Potential web attachment sites are limited in some habitats, and mortality during dispersal is very high. When potential web attachment sites are scarce more of the population is found in communal groups; when they are abundant more of the population is solitary. The pattern of dispersal and overwintering is this species suggests that females renewing a colony in the spring could be related.     

The costs and benefits of predator inspection behaviour in Thomson's gazelles

Summary When Thomson's gazelles (Gazella thomsoni) detect stalking predators, such as cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) and lions (Panthera leo), they often approach and follow the predator for up to 72 min (average 14 min). Coursing predators are rarely approached. Gazelle groups were more likely to approach cheetahs if the groups were larger, if the vegetation was low, or if the cheetahs came closer to the group. Immature gazelles were more likely to approach than adults, and a higher proportion of group members participated in inspection behaviour in small groups than in large ones. Gazelles approached closer in less risky situations: if they were in larger groups or if the vegetation was low. Inspection behaviour caused cheetahs to move further between rests and between hunting attempts. Approaching cheetahs was risky, particularly for younger gazelles (probability of being killed while inspecting a cheetah was 1 in 5000 approaches for adults and 1 in 417 approaches for half-grown/adolescent gazelles), and the risks were higher than monitoring cheetahs from a distance. The time costs of predator inspection were also considerable (less than 4.2% of daylight time budget), suggesting that the benefits must be substantial to offset these costs. The results suggested that inspection behaviour was multifunctional, causing stalking predators to move out of the vicinity, enabling gazelles to monitor the predators' movements, and providing an opportunity, particularly for younger animals, to learn about predators. By approaching, gazelles also inform predators that they have been detected and alert other gazelles to the predators' presence.     

Environmental and social factors influence chorusing behaviour in a tropical frog: examining various temporal and spatial scales

Many animals use conspicuous display to attract mates, and there should be selection for displays to occur at times and places that maximise the probability of mating, while minimising energetic costs and predator attraction. To select the best times for display, individuals may use environmental cues, the presence of other individuals, or both, but few studies have examined these sources of variation in display activity. In this study, we examined physical environmental and social factors triggering displays in a tropical, terrestrially breeding frog, Cophixalus ornatus. To measure the influence of physical environmental conditions on calling activity, we recorded temperature, rainfall, moon illumination/visibility, humidity, barometric pressure and intensity of calling activity throughout a breeding season at six locations along a 560-m transect. The intensity of calling varied daily, seasonally, and at a small spatial scale. Variation in calling activity from day to day was large. There was also a strong seasonal trend in calling activity: few males called at the start of the season, activity peaked shortly after the beginning of the season, and then declined linearly from the peak to the end of the season. There was also consistent variation among sites along the transect, which may have been due to variations in frog density at each site, or to consistent microscale variations in physical conditions, or both. After statistically removing consistent local variation among sites, a principal components analysis suggested that a maximum of 35.8% of the variation in calling activity among days was due to factors common to all sites, such as weather, moon illumination, or large-scale social facilitation (e.g. of choruses by other choruses). The remainder of the variation among sites (64.2%) was due to site-specific factors, such as small-scale social facilitation or unmeasured, apparently stochastic effects, such as microenvironmental physical factors that do not vary consistently over sites. Regressions of environmental variables on residual calling activity (after removing consistent effects of site and season), alone or in combination, accounted for very little of the variation in the number of calling males (maximum 10%). Thus, our data, showing strong seasonal effects and consistent variation among sites combined with large amounts of variation in the number of calling males at small spatial scales, suggest that environmental conditions, such as temperature, rainfall, moon illumination and barometric pressure, which act over large spatial scales, may determine the overall environmental envelope within which calling can occur but do not account for most of the variation in the number of calling males on a day-to-day or site-to-site basis. Similarly, variations in the number of calling males at small spatial scales suggest that social facilitation is a relatively unimportant trigger for displays on a large scale in these frogs. On the other hand, our data suggest that social facilitation may have important effects on variation in the number of calling males on a day-to-day and site-to-site basis. We used playback experiments to assess whether the sound of calling could initiate displays. We played either a taped chorus or white noise in areas where few (zero to two) males were calling. The number of calling males increased both during and after the chorus stimulus, whereas there was no increase in calling in response to white noise. These data suggest that examining variation in calling activity at small spatial scales can reveal the sources of variation for the number of calling males, and indicate that, in these frogs, males tend to use the calling of other individuals as a cue to determine when to display. Received: 19 October 1999 / Revised: 30 June 2000 / Accepted: 26 August 2000     

The acoustic structure of chimpanzee pant-hooting facilitates chorusing

Duetting or chorusing behaviour occurs in a wide variety of animals and is posited to fulfil various important functions including territory defence and social bonding. The structure of calls produced in choruses might be shaped in a way that facilitates such joint vocal displays. In this study, we test the hypothesis that flexibility to modify the temporal structure of chimpanzee pant-hoots, vocalisations often given jointly with other individuals, facilitates chorusing. The results of this study, which was conducted on two communities of wild chimpanzees in Uganda, support this hypothesis. First, the duration of the build-up phase of the pant-hoot correlated with the latency with which the partner joined in the call, suggesting that males prolong the duration of the build-up to allow others to join in the call and to increase the likelihood of a chorus occurring. Second, the loud climax phases were significantly longer when produced in choruses than alone, which suggests that males prolong this part of the call when calling in choruses. Within chorus pant-hoots, there was a positive relationship between the number of climax elements given by two calling partners, suggesting that males adjust the temporal structure of their call to mirror their partner's call. We conclude that the basic acoustic structure of chimpanzee pant-hoots and the flexibility with which males adjust the duration of the constituent phases promote chorusing, and that the temporal structure of this rather stereotyped vocalisation is sensitive to fine details of the vocal responses of the audience.     

The costs of male parental care and its evolution in a neotropical frog

Summary Parental care is practiced exclusively by males of the Puerto Rican frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui. Males brood clutches of direct-developing eggs in non-aquatic nest sites and defend eggs against cannibalistic nest intruders. Here, I report on energetic and mating costs incurred by males that provide parental care, and suggest how these proximate costs affect male fitness and the evolution of male parental care in this species. Energetic costs are small for brooding males in comparison to non-brooding, calling males. Brooding males had a higher frequency of empty stomachs and lost small, but significant, fractions of their initial body mass during parental care. Abdominal fat bodies of brooding males during the middle third of parental care were significantly smaller than those of calling males; those of males brooding eggs in earlier or later stages were not different. The mating cost of parental care is greater. Most brooding males cease calling during parental care. However, gravid females are available (i.e., known to mate) on most nights during the principal breeding season; hence non-calling males miss potential opportunities to mate. A mating cost was estimated by calculating nightly mating probabilities for calling males in a plot where nightly calling male densities and daily oviposition schedules were known. On average, a male exhibiting normal calling behavior would be expected to obtain a new mate once every 35.7 days. Hence a brooding male that ceased calling for a 20-day parental care period would miss, on average, 0.56 additional mates. Males that were more successful than average in attracting mates could miss up to 1.63 matings. A marginal value model (Fig. 1) is used to analyze the net effect on male fitness of parental care benefits and costs in E. coqui (Fig. 3). The model indicates that males garner the highest reproductive success by providing care from oviposition through hatching. There is no stage during the pre-hatching period at which a desertion strategy would yield higher reproductive success. In fact, the model suggests that males should provide full parental care even in the face of much higher mating costs than currently obtain in the system.     

The immediate costs and long-term benefits of assisted gene flow in large populations

With the genetic health of many plant and animal populations deteriorating due to climate change outpacing adaptation, interventions, such as assisted gene flow (AGF), may provide genetic variation necessary for populations to adapt to climate change. We ran genetic simulations to mimic different AGF scenarios in large populations and measured their outcomes on population-level fitness to determine circumstances in which it is worthwhile to perform AGF. In the absence of inbreeding depression, AGF was beneficial within a few generations only when introduced genotypes had much higher fitness than local individuals and traits affecting fitness were controlled by a few genes of large effect. AGF was harmful over short periods (e.g., first ∼10–20 generations) if there was strong outbreeding depression or introduced deleterious genetic variation. When the adaptive trait was controlled by many loci of small effect, the benefits of AGF took over 10 generations to realize—potentially too long for most climate-related management scenarios. The genomic integrity of the recipient population typically remained intact following AGF; the amount of genetic material from the donor population usually constituted no more of the recipient population's genome than the fraction of the population introduced. Significant genomic turnover (e.g., >50% replacement) only occurred when the selective advantage of the adaptive trait and translocation fraction were extremely high. Our results will be useful when adaptive management is used to maintain the genetic health and productivity of large populations under climate change.     

Averting behavior and the benefits of reduced soiling

The individual's choice of cleaning frequency is examined theoretically under assumptions more general than those of previous authors. The individual is assumed to maximize utility over “cleanliness” and a general commodity, where cleanliness is determined by frequency of cleaning and ambient pollution. Allowance is made for the possibility that the cost per cleaning episode is positively affected by pollution and negatively affected by the frequency of cleaning. The present framework is used to make comparisons and comments regarding the assumptions and results of Watson and Jaksch [J. Environ. Econ. Manag.9 (1982), 248–262] and Courant and Porter [J. Environ. Econ. Manag.8 (1981), 321–329].     

The costs and benefits of territory sharing for the Caribbean coral reef fish,Scarus iserti

Summary Along the Caribbean coast of Panama, groups of unrelated female striped parrotfish, Scarus iserti, co-defend a common feeding territory. Field manipulations of group size and composition were performed to examine the benefits and costs accrued by dominant fish within these shared territories. Dominant fish benefit from the presence of relatively large subordinates because they share in the defense of the territory. Removals of these fish caused increases in defense time and decreases in feeding time for dominant group members. Dominants benefit from the presence of small subordinates because they increase the foraging efficiency of dominants. Removals of smaller subordinates caused reductions in the feeding time of dominant fish, although no changes in defense time occurred. Concurrently, dominant fish reduce costs of resource depletion by displacing subordinate group members from good food patches. Dominance interactions within a group reduce the amount of time subordinates spend feeding (subordinate individuals fed at higher rates following the removal of a dominant) and limit a subordinate's access to high quality resources. This combination of benefits and reduced costs ultimately contributes to the economic defensibility of a striped parrotfish territory and has led to the evolution of group territorial behavior in the absence of kin selection and cooperative parental care.     

The organization of work in Polybia occidentalis: costs and benefits of specialization in a social wasp

Summary Nest construction, a complex social activity requiring the coordination of 3 tasks (Fig.2), was compared in large (<350 adults) and small (<50 adults) colonies of Polybia occidentalis. The 3 tasks—water foraging, pulp foraging, and building—are performed by 3 separate groups of workers (Fig.4). Of the 8 acts comprising the 3 tasks, 5 regularly involve the transfer of water or pulp from one worker to another on the nest.Small colonies required nearly twice as long (35.4 worker-min) as large colonies (20.1 workermin) to complete a unit amount of construction work. Behavioral acts involving material transfer among workers were responsible for most of the increase in small colonies. In other words, the waiting times experienced by material donors and recipients were greater in small colonies. In small colonies workers switched among the three tasks more frequently than in large colonies (Fig. 4). This was the result of more frequent switching by generalists (workers that performed 2 or 3 of the tasks), rather than by a decrease in the proportion of specialists (workers performing only 1 task type) (Fig. 3).The series-parallel system by which Polybia occidentalis organizes nest construction has a major advantage over the series operation of solitary wasps. Pulp foragers collect and carry loads that are 6.1 times as large as builders can work with at the nest, and water foragers bring in loads that appear to be limited only by crop capacity and that provide all the moisture necessary for the complete processing of 0.74 of a foraged pulp load. As a result P. occidentalis can collect and process a given amount of nest material using 2.6 times fewer foraging trips than would be required by the series system. This in turn means that P. occidentalis not only achieves an energy saving that probably more than offsets the increased costs of material handling at the nest, but it reduces the exposure of its foragers to predators in the field.     

Predicting emergence, chorusing, and oviposition of periodical cicadas

Periodical cicadas in the genus Magicicada have an unusual life history that includes an exceptionally long life cycle and a massive, synchronized emergence. Distributions in woodland habitat are extremely patchy, and an unresolved problem is how the patchiness is generated and maintained. We undertook a study in Princeton, New Jersey, USA, to determine if habitat factors such as tree height, distance to the nearest neighbor, and amount of foliage influence distributions of nymphal emergences, centers of chorusing aggregations, and oviposition sites. Emerging nymphs were counted, chorus centers were identified by measuring decibel levels of their songs, and oviposition was estimated from the foliage "flags" that are produced by trees in response to the damage caused by egg-laying. All three distributions were mapped on 50 trees in a human-managed area of 75 x 130 m. We were unable to identify habitat features that were associated with the distribution of emergences, except that tulip trees (Liriodendron) had significantly fewer emergences than two other genera, ash (Fraxinus) and beech (Fagus). Using multiple linear regression analysis, we found that the distribution of emergences was the best predictor of the distribution of chorus centers and oviposition sites. In an analysis of ash trees alone, tree height and spacing, in addition to cicada emergences, predicted chorus centers and oviposition incidence. Thus the distribution of the offspring generation (oviposition) is shown to be similar to the parental generation (emergence). We suggest that their stability is maintained across generations by extremely low dispersal and mutual attraction. Aggregations may be thought of as self-perpetuating, randomly distributed assemblages, initially established through the interaction of factors, including successful exploitation of underground resources, and avoidance of fungal disease and aboveground predation in the development of high-density mating aggregations.     

The costs and benefits of cooperation between the Australian lycaenid butterfly,Jalmenus evagoras,and its attendant ants

Summary The larvae and pupae of the Australian lycaenid butterfly, Jalmenus evagoras associate mutualistically with ants in the genus Iridomyrmex. Four ant exclusion experiments in three field sites demonstrated that predation and parasitism of J. evagoras are so intense that individuals deprived of their attendant ants are unlikely to survive. Larvae and pupae of J. evagoras aggregate, and the mean number of attendant ants per individual increases with larval age and decreases with group size. Field observations showed that young larvae could gain more attendant ants per individual by joining the average size group of about 4 larvae than by foraging alone. Aggregation behaviour is influenced by ant attendance: young larvae and pupating fifth instars aggregated significantly more often on plants with ants than on plants where ants had been excluded. In return for tending and protecting the larvae, ants were rewarded by food secretions that can amount to as much as 409 mg dry biomass from a single host plant containing 62 larvae and pupae of J. evagoras over a 24 h period. Larval development in the laboratory lasted approximately a month, and larvae that were tended by ants developed almost 5 days faster than larvae that were not tended. However, tended individuals, particularly females, pupated at a significantly lower weight than their untended counterparts, and the adults that eclosed from these pupae were also lighter and smaller. On average, pupae that were tended by ants lost 25% more weight than untended pupae, and in contrast with larvae, they took longer to eclose than pupae that were not tended. These experimental results are discussed in terms of costs and benefits of association for both partners, and of aggregation for the lycaenids.     

Lekking behavior in the neotropical frog Ololygon rubra

Summary This is the first study to document in detail the satisfaction of Bradbury's four criteria for categorizing any anuran as a classical lekking species. The paternal care of male neotropical frogs, Ololygon rubra, consisted of minimal contributions of their genes. Males competed acoustically at traditional, defended, clustered sites (Fig. 1, Table 3) to attract gravid females, who paired with the males at these locations but took the amplectant males to oviposition sites away from the pairing sites. Individual males apparently did not control resources necessary for attracting females, because there were no correlations between male numbers and measured habitat variables, or between male numbers and oviposition sites. On chorusing nights, males always arrived at their display arenas before any females were observed. Females moved freely among clusters and males, before making their choices of mates. However, males employed other mate acquisition strategies that tended to undermine the initial female choices. The predictions that lekking species should have a relatively extended breeding season, a highly biased operational sex ratio (OSR), and an absence of male control of resources essential for female acquisition were also evaluated and corroborated. These frogs have two long breeding seasons encompassing a total of about 6 months (Fig. 2). There were strongly male biased nightly OSRs (Table 1), that contributed to high variance in male reproductive success (RS), but reduced indices of sexual selection, and a relatively low coefficient of variation (CV) of male RS (Table 5) compared to other amphibians. Thus, all of this evidence supports the conclusion that O. rubra in coastal Guyana uses a lek mating system.     

Nest-building by crested tit Parus cristatus males: an analysis of costs and benefits

In a population of crested tits in Belgium, one out of three breeding males participated in nest-building. Since variation in the amount of nest-building among 11 building males was low, analysis of male nest-building allowed a logistic regression design. The probability of building increased with male condition and for late nests. The effect of male condition decreased with date, and date was the only factor predicting nest-building for repeat broods. The effect of male condition on nest-building suggests that building entails important costs for males. Based on correlative data, we argue that building by males shortens the interval between the start of nest-building and the onset of egg-laying by about 5 days. Since clutch size, incubation and nestling time did not differ between early and late broods, male nest-building apparently affects fledging date. Since early fledgers (early dispersers) are more likely to settle in future winter flocks, building behaviour by crested tit males should be favoured by natural selection. So far, male nest-building in hole-breeding birds might have been overlooked due to the widespread use of artificial nest-boxes in behavioural studies.     

The use of incubation behavior to adjust avian reproductive costs after egg laying

Reproduction in birds requires the input of time and energy during discrete breeding phases leading to investment trade-offs between laying date, clutch size, body mass, and incubation constancy. We investigated costs during incubation by experimentally enlarging 25 clutches of white-tailed ptarmigan Lagopus leucurus. The experiment was conducted in 2 years, one with harsh weather that forced a natural delay in reproduction. When forced to delay egg-laying, females began incubation with poorer body condition and foraged more during incubation. Rates of mass loss during incubation were not affected by clutch enlargement, and did not differ between harsh and benign years; however, females that were heavier at the start of incubation lost more mass than lighter females. Clutch-enlarged females had reduced nest attendance compared to control birds in both years and incubation periods increased by up to 2 days relative to controls. In the harsh year, there was a trend for clutch-enlarged females to have lower nest success, but there was no effect on overwinter survival. Different behavioral responses by females in the 2 years showed that incubation costs may depend on other factors such as female quality, food supply, or weather conditions. Incubation is a dynamic period during which birds may adjust energy balances by varying body condition and food intake. Received: 28 March 2000 / Received in revised form: 18 August 2000 / Accepted: 2 July 2000     

Indirect genetic benefits of polyandry in a spider with direct costs of mating

The search for the evolutionary explanation of polyandry is increasingly focused on direct and indirect selection on female resistance. In a polyandrous spider Stegodyphus lineatus, males do not provide material benefits and females are resistant to remating. Nevertheless, polyandrous females may obtain indirect genetic benefits that offset the costs associated with multiple mating. We manipulated the opportunity for females to select between different partners and examined the effect of female mating history (mated once, mated twice, or rejected the second male) on offspring body mass, size, condition, and survival under high- and low-food rearing regimens. We found that multiple mating, not female choice, results in increased female offspring body mass and condition. However, these effects were present only in low-food regimen. We did not find any effects of female mating history on male offspring variables. Thus, the benefits of polyandry depend not only on sex, but also on offspring environment. Furthermore, the observed patterns suggest that indirect genetic benefits cannot explain the evolution of female resistance in this system.     

Effects of costs and benefits of brood care on filial cannibalism in the sand goby

This study tested experimentally whether clutch size and the cost of care affect filial cannibalism in the sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus. Evolutionary models of filial cannibalism suggest that egg eating has evolved as a way for the male parent to prolong his breeding season. These models assume that eggs function as an alternative energy source for the constrained parent. I manipulated clutch size by allowing males to mate with either one or two females, representing a small and a large clutch, respectively. The addition of a small male shore crab, a common egg predator, increased the cost of care. I quantified fat reserves as a measure of the condition of guarding males. Males who did not build nests had lower fat reserves than males who built nests, suggesting that males with low energy reserves do not start breeding. Males with small clutches lost their nest to the crab more often than males with large clutches. Neither filial cannibalism nor the amount of eggs eaten were affected by the treatments. Males who consumed eggs had a higher fat percentage than males who did not eat eggs. The result that males with small clutches lost their nests to the crabs supports the idea that eggs are defended only if the benefit from continued care will outweigh the cost and that males therefore are sensitive to the trade-off between present and future reproductive success. Received: 15 May 1997 / Accepted after revision: 15 November 1997     

Sexual conflict in a polygynous primate: costs and benefits of a male-imposed mating system

Fundamental reproductive interests dictate that females generally benefit most from mate selectivity and males from mate quantity. This can create conflict between the sexes and result in sexual coercion: male use of aggression to garner mating success at a cost to females. Potential fitness costs of sexual coercion, however, can be difficult to measure. Here, we demonstrate benefits to males and costs to females of female defense polygyny in wild hamadryas baboons, cercopithecoid primates in which females are coercively transferred among social units by males, restricting both female choice and bonding among female kin. Of all coercive transfers (takeovers) of females with young infants, 67 % were followed by infant mortality, which was significantly more likely to occur after takeovers than at other times. As expected, infant mortality decreased time to subsequent conception but lengthened intervals between surviving infants. Following infant survival, whether a female had experienced a takeover after the previous birth was a significant predictor of subsequent interbirth interval, with interbirth intervals of females remaining with the same male between births being significantly shorter than those of females incurring takeovers between births. Together, these results reveal that takeovers increase the chance of infant mortality while delaying subsequent conception. Male-driven female defense polygyny in this species is thus costly to females in two ways. These results demonstrate that reproductive strategies benefitting males can evolve despite substantial costs to females. These costs may be mitigated over the long term, however, by female counterstrategies and protective behavior by males.     

Costs and benefits of pocket gopher foraging: linking behavior and physiology

Animals can attain fitness benefits by maintaining a positive net energy balance, including costs of movement during resource acquisition and the profits from foraging. Subterranean rodent burrowing provides an excellent system in which to examine the effects of movement costs on foraging behavior because it is energetically expensive to excavate burrows. We used an individual-based modeling approach to study pocket gopher foraging and its relationship to digging cost, food abundance, and food distribution. We used a unique combination of an individual-based foraging-behavior model and an energetic model to assess survival, body mass dynamics, and burrow configurations. Our model revealed that even the extreme cost of digging is not as costly as it appears when compared to metabolic costs. Concentrating digging in the area where food was found, or area-restricted search (ARS), was the most energetically efficient digging strategy compared to a random strategy. Field data show that natural burrow configurations were more closely approximated by the animals we modeled using ARS compared to random diggers. By using behavior and simple physiological principles in our model, we were able to observe realistic body mass dynamics and recreate natural movement patterns.     

Modeling genetic benefits and financial costs of integrating biobanking into the conservation breeding of managed marsupials

Managed breeding programs are an important tool in marsupial conservation efforts but may be costly and have adverse genetic effects in unavoidably small captive colonies. Biobanking and assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) could help overcome these challenges, but further demonstration of their potential is required to improve uptake. We used genetic and economic models to examine whether supplementing hypothetical captive populations of dibblers (Parantechinus apicalis) and numbats (Myrmecobius fasciatus) with biobanked founder sperm through ARTs could reduce inbreeding, lower required colony sizes, and reduce program costs. We also asked practitioners of the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) captive recovery program to complete a questionnaire to examine the resources and model species research pathways required to develop an optimized biobanking protocol in the black-footed ferret. We used data from this questionnaire to devise similar costed research pathways for Australian marsupials. With biobanking and assisted reproduction, inbreeding was reduced on average by between 80% and 98%, colony sizes were on average 99% smaller, and program costs were 69- to 83-fold lower. Integrating biobanking made long-standing captive genetic retention targets possible in marsupials (90% source population heterozygosity for a minimum of 100 years) within realistic cost frameworks. Lessons from the use of biobanking technology that contributed to the recovery of the black-footed ferret include the importance of adequate research funding (US$4.2 million), extensive partnerships that provide access to facilities and equipment, colony animals, appropriate research model species, and professional and technical staff required to address knowledge gaps to deliver an optimized biobanking protocol. Applied research investment of A$133 million across marsupial research pathways could deliver biobanking protocols for 15 of Australia's most at-risk marsupial species and 7 model species. The technical expertise and ex situ facilities exist to emulate the success of the black-footed ferret recovery program in threatened marsupials using these research pathways. All that is needed now for significant and cost-effective conservation gains is greater investment by policy makers in marsupial ARTs.