Recovery goals for keystone species

Recovery goals for endangered species are commonly based on the population size thought sufficient to ensure viability (the concept of minimum viable population or MVP). More recently, authors such as Soule et al. (2005) have proposed that recovery goals for strongly-interacting or keystone species be defined based on the population size sufficient to recover that keystone role. A new paper by Estes and colleagues analyzes how such a strategy could be used to define recovery goals for sea otters. Defining such thresholds may be more difficult in terrestrial ecosystems  (see a forthcoming paper on this topic by Christina Eisenberg and colleagues: Eisenberg, Cristina, K. Norman Johnson, Hal Salwasser, and Jerry Franklin, “Ecologically Effective Populations and Trophic Cascades: The Potential for Wolf Recovery to Shift Conservation Policy,” BioScience ).

Link to paper