Suchergebnisse

This report is divided into five parts. Following this introduction, Section two provides an overview of the institutions and most important features in the landscape of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) at the federal level in the United States. Section three detailed the actual systems for performance M&E that is now in place in the Executive Branch and coordinated (or led) by the office of management and budget, including a look at their evolution and expected future trends. The focus is on the executive system, because it directly supports management and budgeting decisions, and because it provides a key basis for evaluation and research conducted by other agencies (such as the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO and Congressional Budget Office, or CBO). Section four discusses the strengths and particular challenges faced by these systems, and section five concludes the report with lessons that may be useful to other countries.

Objectively delimiting species boundaries remains an important challenge in systematics and becomes urgent when unresolved taxonomy complicates conservation and recovery efforts. We examined species boundaries in the imperiled freshwater mussel genus Cyclonaias (Bivalvia: Unionidae) using morphometrics, molecular phylogenetics, and multispecies coalescent models to help guide pending conservation assessments and legislative decisions. Congruence across multiple lines of evidence indicated that current taxonomy overestimates diversity in the C. pustulosa species complex. The only genetically and morphologically diagnosable species in the C. pustulosa species complex were C. pustulosa and C. succissa and we consider C. aurea, C. houstonensis, C. mortoni, and C. refulgens to be synonyms of C. pustulosa. In contrast, all three species in the C. nodulata complex (C. necki, C. nodulata, and C. petrina) were genetically, geographically, and morphologically diagnosable. Our findings have important conservation and management implications, as three nominal species (C. aurea, C. houstonensis, and C. petrina) are being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act.