Setting priorities for conservation: the influence of uncertainty on species rankings of Indiana mammals Original Research Article

Systems for ranking species can aid governmental agencies and other groups in determining conservation priorities. However, current systems rarely account for the effects that uncertainty, i.e. incomplete knowledge of a species or biological variability within a species, may have on determining a speciesʹ rank. We tested whether three methods of incorporating uncertainty into a ranking system produced changes in conservation priorities. Our analysis focused on 55 species of mammals native to Indiana, USA. Uncertainty was incorporated into a ranking system by permitting survey respondents to assign probabilities to each category of a question. The ranks between species priority scores for methods with and without uncertainty were highly correlated. All methods gave results comparable to the qualitative ranking system currently in use. However, some species of conservation concern received substantially different ranks across methods. We recommend using a variety of scoring methods to produce a robust assessment of a speciesʹ conservation status.