Prescriptive Evolution to Conserve and Manage Biodiversity

We are witnessing a global, but unplanned, evolutionary experiment with the biodiversity of the planet. Anthropogenic disturbances such as habitat degradation and climate change result in evolutionary mismatch between the environments to which species are adapted and those in which they now exist. The impacts of unmanaged evolution are pervasive, but approaches to address them have received little attention. We review the evolutionary challenges of managing populations in the Anthropocene and introduce the concept of prescriptive evolution, which considers how evolutionary processes may be leveraged to proactively promote wise management. We advocate the planned management of evolutionary processes and explore the advantages of evolutionary interventions to preserve and sustain biodiversity. We show how an evolutionary perspective to conserving biodiversity is fundamental to effective management. Finally, we advocate building frameworks for decision-making, monitoring, and implementation at the boundary between management and evolutionary science to enhance conservation outcomes.