SUSTAINABILITY: CONSERVATION STRATEGIES AND BEST PRACTICES - 3.2.9 - Andy Danylchuk

The jaguar of the river: Using a community centered approach for science-based conservation and management of golden dorado in the Neotropics Andy Danylchuk Golden dorado (Salminus brasiliensis) is an iconic wild fish species inhabiting neotropical watersheds in parts of South America. As an aggressive predator, golden dorado play an important ecological role in structuring food webs, while their striking golden-yellow body coloring and dramatic fight on the end of a fishing line helps drive an economically and culturally important recreational fishery. Unfortunately, golden dorado are under a wide range of human mediated disturbances (i.e., dams, climate change), and their extremely wide geographic distribution spanning massive watersheds can make understanding and responding to such threats challenging. To mitigate these challenges, we shed light on how we used a community centered approach to first assemble a chromosomal-level reference genome of golden dorado and combine it with whole genome re-sequencing of individuals across their range to assess contemporary population structure and historical gene flow. Identifying hierarchical genetic population differentiation across their distribution at both geographic breaks and at human-mediated barriers is now being used to inform community centered tagging efforts to better understand movement contingencies and finer-scale gene flow. A community centered approach was also used to survey recreational anglers to understand their awareness of potential threats to golden dorado populations and identify knowledge gaps that could help shape education and outreach campaigns. Such consistent engagement with the recreational angling community created momentum that has fostered the formation of a grassroots stakeholder movement (the Golden Dorado Conservation Coalition) that is advocating for science-informed conservation and management efforts for golden dorado and the watersheds they inhabit.