Translocations of flora and fauna for conservation and restoration: ecological, evolutionary, and socio-economic impacts at multiple scales

Numerous stakeholders with different values and expectations conduct reintroductions, reinforcements, or assisted colonisations of wild populations in a wide range of ecosystems. While biodiversity conservation and restoration are generally implemented within a human time frame, they might constitute major transitions at the scale of evolution. Current research on conservation translocations aims to improve translocation success to ensure that they contribute to species or ecosystem recovery in the long term and that their potential impacts on social ecosystems are managed to avoid retroactively undermining their performance. However, few studies have considered a strategic approach in the assessment and optimisation of the allocation of translocation efforts at larger scales. Indeed, in the context of global changes including climate change, land use intensification and biological invasions, the extent to which an accumulation of locally implemented translocations can contribute to biodiversity conservation on regional, continental or global scales remains unclear. Since conservation translocations raise debates regarding their economic and human costs, as well as ethical and environmental issues, it is important to provide evidence-based arguments to describe where, when and how they can contribute to biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration/rewilding in their evolutionary, functional and social dimensions at larger spatial, temporal and organisational scales. This is the main purpose of Transloc.