Darwinian Differential Diagnosis: A Tool for Addressing Natural and Anthropogenic Selection in Fish Conservation and Fisheries

In a prior teaming-up session we outlined the likely pervasive role that natural and anthropogenic selection play in a range of salmonid conservation contexts and provided examples of tools to quantify selection in applied settings.  Our intent was to foster greater incorporation of principles of selection in salmonid management, but in practice there is an important implementation gap between recognition that selection might be a general concern for fish conservation and fisheries, and the decision to deploy resources to more directly address it in a specific conservation or fisheries program.  In this regard, we believe managers and policy makers would benefit from a structured tool to initially assess the likelihood that selection constrains successful outcomes in their program and weigh the potential return on investment of diverting limited resources toward measuring and managing it. We refer to this assessment scheme as a ‘Darwinian Differential Diagnosis’ in analogy to the role of differential diagnosis in guiding treatment options in medicine.  In this talk we present our rationale for this tool, some ideas of its elements and structure, and how it might be applied and refined in case studies of anadromous salmonid conservation.