Genetic tools are used in applied conservation management for taxonomic identification, delineation of management units, management of wild populations, captive breeding and reintroduction, and control of invasive species, disease, and hybridisation. 

To assess the extent to which genetics tools are being used for applied conservation management, we conducted a systematic literature review of over 53,767 papers focussing on wildlife research that reported results on species delineation, translocations, and population augmentation. We synthesised information on papers that used genetics tools in an expressly applied manner across all wildlife species. 

We found that the application of genetics tools in conservation management was biased towards fishes, mammals, and birds and northern hemisphere locations, especially the USA and Europe. 

Despite genetics tools being a highly published topic, it was difficult to find published applications of these tools in both the primary and the grey literature. Of the 115 papers on 152 species that could be considered an applied use of a genetics tool expressly for conservation management, only 49 had definable applied outcomes. The remaining 66 made recommendations, but it was often unclear if the recommendations were ever used to make conservation management decisions because of the time-lag between publication of the initial recommendation and publication of the results of the use of the tool in a conservation management situation, as well as the lack of dissemination in the primary literature.  

Our study highlights the relatively low publication rate of applications of genetics tools compared to the general conservation genetics field. These tools appear to have either a low percentage of translations into publication (‘conservation genetics publishing gap’) or a poor uptake among wildlife conservation managers (‘conservation genetics gap’)—the two are indistinguishable in this review.

Policy implications. Conservation genetics tools must be brought to the forefront of conservation policy and management. Users should support the use of systems and accessible databases to increase the uptake of genetic tools for conservation in applied management decisions for wildlife, reducing barriers to disseminating the results to other end users and interested parties.

Publications in the field of conservation genetics that use applied genetics tools for the management of a species were identified through a search of Google, Google Scholar, Medline, SciELO, and Scopus databases using the following terms: wildlife AND “conservation genetics”, “applied conservation genetics”, “conservation genetics management”, "conservation genomics" "conservation genetics" and "invertebrates", “conservation genetics” and “fisheries management”, new species “conservation management” “DNA barcoding” -fungi -plants, new species “applied conservation” “DNA barcoding” -fungi -plants, from the dates 1980–2020 (inclusive). We used an iterative approach to keywords, selecting new keywords as new papers were obtained, workshopping what words worked, and supplementing the searched datasets with targeted journal searches (Animal Conservation, Annual Reviews, Applied Ecology, Basic and Applied Ecology, Biological Conservation, Biodiversity and Conservation, Conservation Biology, Conservation Genetics, Conservation Letters, Ecological Applications, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Wildlife Management, Molecular Ecology, and Oryx). Because of this iterative approach and noting a lack of fisheries-based papers, we specifically searched the databases using the word “fish” and “fisheries”. Web of Science was not used as a subscription was not available. No geographic constraints were applied and publications in English, Spanish, and Portuguese were evaluated. 

Wildlife was used to mean wild animals and included invertebrates, amphibians, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. We developed a priori selection criteria to prevent mission creep (Haddaway et al., 2020). Specifically, studies must concern the application of conservation genetics tools to wildlife conservation interventions directly, in both in situ (wild) and ex situ (zoos or other captive breeding) situations. This means that interventions such as translocation or species identification were directly impacted by the use of the genetic tool and were included, while other interventions, such as habitat protection, only tangentially use the product of the genetic tool, and were not included. The initial search resulted in 53,767 publications, which were subsequently reviewed for relevance and repeats excluded. After applying these criteria, 472 publications from the initial search were further investigated at the abstract or full text level. 

Each paper was categorised as having either “recommendations only” or “successful application” of conservation genetics tools. The "recommendations only" category included papers where a conservation genetics tool was used, but an actual applied on-ground outcome was not evident in either the paper or a further search of the grey literature (up to 2020). The successful application category included papers where a conservation genetics tool was used, and an applied, on-ground intervention occurred as a direct result of the data from the conservation genetics tool. For instance, the paper by Nash et al. (2018) used single nucleotide polymorphic markers (SNPs) to assign pangolin seizures from illegal trade to possible geographic sources based on known-origin pangolin samples. The paper then recommended the use of the tool to repatriate illegally traded pangolins and to explore the possibility of lineage-based taxonomic units. As this paper was published in 2018, there is thus far no published evidence that either recommendation has been used; therefore, the paper is listed as “recommendation only”. Conversely, the paper by Morin et al. (2010) used mitochondrial genomes to determine that rather than one cosmopolitan orca species, the three “ecotypes” should be elevated to full species. These recommendations, based on the genetics tool, resulted in the recognition of types of orca (resident, transient and offshore), and while the taxonomy has not been resolved, the types are treated differently under conservation legislation (e.g. Rehberg-Besler & Jefferies, 2019), and therefore this paper is considered an application of a conservation genetics tool.