| Under the 2012 Planning Rule, the United States Forest Service is obligated to assess and manage for ecological integrity as well as the viability of individual species. Effective biodiversity conservation planning requires an appropriate balance between habitat-based, coarse-filter approaches and insights from fine-filter, species-level assessments and monitoring. Striking a balance between coarse-filter and fine-filter assessments of biological diversity has challenged land managers for decades. We suggest a combined coarse-filter and fine-filter approach, with the latter focusing on monitoring threatened, at-risk, and rare species, along with a modest number of focal species selected with complementary and comprehensive functional roles. Systematic approaches exist for identifying and prioritizing a subset of species for fine-filter assessment and monitoring. Indirect estimates of a species' status and trend based on its spatial distribution can provide defensible surrogate measures. Focusing on the dynamics of species' distributions, rather than traditional measures of population size and growth rate, increases the efficiency of broad-scale monitoring programs. Advancements in wildlife monitoring, based on detection/non-detection data, including the use of sign surveys, genetic evaluation, and historical presence-absence survey data decrease the cost of monitoring changes in distribution, which can be inferred from the proportion of sample units at which species are detected.
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