Conservation biology emerged as a crisis discipline, with the goal of applying best available science towards stemming the rate of biodiversity loss. As the resources available for protection do not match the scope of the threats, significant efforts have been directed towards developing a framework for identifying and prioritizing “units of conservation”. Work in the ECGL provides substantial theoretical and empirical contributions to this research area, demonstrated in a wide range of vertebrate species of conservation concern including Amazon parrots, painted turtles, monk parakeets, Great Basin spadefoot and others. Likewise, genetic and genomic approaches have contributed to the discovery of cryptic species diversity that, in some cases, has identified novel taxa of conservation interest. As part of an international team of scientists and managers, we have been involved in on-going research involving Galápagos tortoises, revealing cryptic diversity at risk and the “rediscovery” of species previously considered extinct.
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