Application of conservation biology research to management

We conducted a survey of all primary authors of "Contributed Papers" and "Research Notes" in Conservation Biology from 1987 to 1998 to assess the perceived effectiveness of published management recommendations No systematic survey has previously assessed the degree to which authors believe that resource managers are using the growing body of research published in Conservation Biology. In March 1999, we sent surveys to 667 authors of 790 published papers ask asking whether their papers included management recommendations whether such recommendations have been used in practice, and why they believed they have or have not been used. We received completed surveys from 198 authors of 223 papers. The percentage of papers that included management recommendations increased from 1987 to 1991, then stabilized at about 75%. Author perception of the use of management recommendations generally increased over the 5 years from 1994 to 1998. Initiatives of federal, state, and local agencies were the most often-cited cause of successful implementation of management recommendations accounting for over half of all such cases. Our survey suggests that authors in Conservation Biology have increased the use of explicit management recommendations in their papers and that authors believe their recommendations are being used to an increasing degree.