Conservation practitioners face complex challenges due to resource limitations, biological and socioeconomic trade-offs, involvement of diverse interest groups, and data deficiencies. To help address these challenges, there are a growing number of frameworks for systematic decision making. Three prominent frameworks are structured decision making, systematic conservation prioritization, and systematic reviews. These frameworks have numerous conceptual linkages, and offer rigorous and transparent solutions to conservation problems. However, they differ in their assumptions and applicability. Here, we provide guidance on how to choose among these frameworks for solving conservation problems, and how to identify less rigorous techniques when time or data availability limit options. Each framework emphasizes the need for proper problem consideration and formulation, and includes steps for monitoring and evaluation. We recommend clear and documented problem formulation, adopting structured decision-making processes, and archiving results in a global database to support conservation professionals in making evidencebased decisions in the future.

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The mobilization of mammalian lipid reserves is strongly stimulated during exercise to reach a maximum at moderate intensities, but the effects of swimming speed on fish lipolysis have never been quantified. Continuous infusion of 2-[H]glycerol was used to measure the rate of appearance of glycerol or lipolytic rate ( glycerol) in rainbow trout kept at rest, or during graded exercise in a swim tunnel up to critical swimming speed (). Results show that glycerol is 1.67±0.18 µmol kg min in control animals, and remains at a steady level of 1.24±0.10 µmol kg min in exercising fish at all swimming intensities. Baseline lipolytic rate provides more than enough fatty acids from lipid reserves to accommodate all the oxidative fuel requirements for swimming at up to 2 body lengths per second (BL s), and more than 50% of the energy needed at (3.4±0.1 BL s). Such 'excess lipolysis' also means that trout sustain high rates of fatty acid reesterification. Maintaining steady lipolysis at rest and throughout graded swimming is strikingly different from mammals that stimulate glycerol by twofold to fivefold to support exercise. Instead, trout act like 'lipolytic machines' that do not modulate glycerol even when their metabolic rate triples - a strategy that eliminates the need to increase lipolytic rate during exercise. This study also supports the notion that maintaining a high rate of reesterification (or triacylglycerol/fatty acid cycling) may be a mechanism widely used by ectotherms to achieve rapid membrane remodelling in variable environments.

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