Improving species status assessments under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and implications for multispecies conservation challenges worldwide

Despite its successes, the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) has proven challenging to implement due to funding limitations, workload backlog, and other problems. As threats to species survival intensify and as more species come under threat, the need for the ESA and similar conservation laws and policies in other countries to function efficiently has grown. Attempts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to streamline ESA decisions include multispecies recovery plans and habitat conservation plans. We address species status assessment (SSA), a USFWS process to inform ESA decisions from listing to recovery, within the context of multispecies and ecosystem planning. Although existing SSAs have a single-species focus, ecosystem-based research can efficiently inform multiple SSAs within a region and provide a foundation for transition to multispecies SSAs in the future. We considered at-risk grassland species and ecosystems within the southeastern United States, where a disproportionate number of rare and endemic species are associated with grasslands. To initiate our ecosystem-based approach, we used a combined literature-based and structured World Café workshop format to identify science needs for SSAs. Discussions concentrated on 5 categories of threats to grassland species and ecosystems, consistent with recommendations to make shared threats a focus of planning under the ESA: (1) habitat loss, fragmentation, and disruption of functional connectivity; (2) climate change; (3) altered disturbance regimes; (4) invasive species; and (5) localized impacts. For each threat, workshop participants identified science and information needs, including database availability, research priorities, and modeling and mapping needs. Grouping species by habitat and shared threats can make the SSA process and other planning processes for conservation of at-risk species worldwide more efficient and useful. We found a combination of literature review and structured discussion effective for identifying the scientific information and analysis needed to support the development of multiple SSAs. Article impact statement: Species status assessments can be improved by an ecosystem-based approach that groups imperiled species by shared habitats and threats.     

Levels of dioxins in fish and fishery products on the German market

In 1995-1998 the contents of polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans of 184 pooled fish samples were analysed. Sampling focused on fish and fishery products with a market share of more than 1% and covered all fishing grounds important for the supply of the German market. Investigation included 15 different fish species, shrimp, mussel and squid samples and various fishery products, typically on the German market. Generally lean fish species like cod, saithe or Alaska pollock were less contaminated on fresh weight basis than fat fish species like herring, Greenland halibut and sardine. In herring the dioxin content is related to the fishing ground. Low concentrations were found in North Sea herring, high concentrations measured in samples from the Baltic Sea. Dioxin contents in fishery products did not differ significantly from the raw fish samples. Results allow an estimation of the daily intake of dioxins and furans via fish consumption in Germany. Based on a daily fish consumption of 20 g the average intake of dioxins via fish is 6.2 pg WHO-PCDD/F-TEQs per person and day.