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Breaking out of the echo chamber: missed opportunities for genetics at conservation conferences

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Abstract

Genetic approaches have proven useful for addressing various conservation problems, but genetics remains poorly integrated into conservation practice. Multidisciplinary conservation conferences present excellent opportunities for bridging the conservation-genetics gap and facilitating cross-disciplinary projects. We hypothesize that there is a tendency for presentations featuring genetic approaches to be siloed into approach specific sessions, creating an “echo chamber”; geneticists are left talking amongst themselves, hindering collaboration across disciplines. To test this, we reviewed abstracts from the past six Society for Conservation Biology conferences and assessed how presentations featuring genetics/genomics were distributed throughout the respective programs. We found that: the segregation of presentations featuring genetics varied widely between conferences (22–78 %); that no other method or approach was segregated to the same degree; and that the vast majority (99 %) of presentations featuring genetics had broader applications that made them appropriate for other sessions. We argue that segregating genetics at conservation conferences in this way is unhelpful and serves to strengthen the idea that genetics is not relevant to a wider conservation audience. We recommend that; (1) conference organisers endeavour to facilitate the integration of genetics into sessions based on the conservation questions addressed, rather than the methods used to address them; and (2) geneticists make the practical application of their work clear at abstract submission and during presentations. These recommendations are not novel, but our data illustrate a clear need for them to be implemented to better facilitate integration of genetic research that will benefit conservation outcomes.
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... Conservation scientists planning symposia focused on a specific species, conservation issue, or management approach could also target a physiologist as a potential speaker, where relevant. Recently, it was noted that conservation genetics, another multi-disciplinary field, has been facing presentations being siloed into topic-specific sessions at conservation conferences, creating an environment where many conservation scientists who work outside of genetics likely do not get exposed to new techniques and their potential to aid in their questions (Taylor and Soanes 2016). When incorporating more physiological approaches, we echo (Taylor and Soanes 2016) in stating that presentations should focus not just on the technique, but on the conservation problems that can be solved by employing it to ensure as diverse an audience as possible. ...
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... All rights reserved. conferences in primary industry, conservation and genomics can strive to incorporate crosssector talks and break down organisational silos by minimising field-specific sessions, as proposed by Taylor & Soanes (2016) and practiced by cross-sector meetings like MapNet (see Box 3). We also challenge scientists in both primary industry and conservation to become good interdisciplinary mentors to promote a culture of interdisciplinary research. ...
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