Integrating knowledge from across the natural and social sciences is necessary to effectively address societal tradeoffs between human use of biological diversity and its preservation. Collaborative processes can change the ways decision makers think about scientific evidence, enhance levels of mutual trust and credibility, and advance the conservation policy discourse. Canada has responsibility for a large fraction of some ma...

Phylogeographic analyses using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have revealed many examples of apparently deep historical subdivisions (‘phylogroups’) within many vertebrates. It remains unclear whether these phylogroups represent independently evolving, adaptively differentiated lineages or groups that show little functional differentiation and, hence, will merge on contact. Here, we use mtDNA sequence data to evaluate the phylogeog...

Throughout its distribution in North America, the threatened eastern massasauga rattlesnake ( Sistrurus c. catenatus ) persists in a series of habitat‐isolated disjunct populations of varying size. Here, we use six microsatellite DNA loci to generate information on the degree of genetic differentiation between, and the levels of inbreeding within populations to understand how evolutionary processes operate in these populations...