had great diffi culty fi nding a title for this book. For long, the working title was Genetic Variation and Extinction. However, this title implies a causal and simple relationship between genetic variation and extinction. I do think that the study of genetic variation is extremely important for conservation biology but, as will become apparent while reading the text, I am not as sure that this relationship is as simple and straightforward as I thought when I began this voyage. I then started to think of alternatives and found two: Evolutionary Conservation Biology and Conservation Biology and Evolution. Of these, the fi rst one has already been used.
