Understanding sensory mechanisms to develop effective conservation and management tools

•Conservation behavior uses behavioral knowledge to solve conservation problems.•Understanding how animals perceive the world is essential for its effective application.•Thus, it is important to understand sensory mechanisms by which animals make assessments.•Mechanistically-informed behavioral tools can be useful for many conservation problems.•Evaluation is essential to identify efficient and profitable applications of behavior.

Applying mechanistic insights from animal behavior to wildlife management and conservation biology problems has had documented successes as well as much promise. For wildlife managers seeking to control problem animals, or conservation biologists seeking to increase the number of threatened or endangered species, a fundamental understanding of sensory mechanisms provides the levers that can modify behavior and influence higher-level population processes. We review recent insights and describe future challenges in using and evaluating sensory mechanisms within a conservation behavior framework.