Over the past 50 years conservation genetics has developed a substantive toolbox to inform species management. One of the most long-standing tools available to manage genetics - the pedigree - has been widely used to characterize diversity and maximize evolutionary potential in threatened populations. Now, with the ability to use high throughput sequencing (HTS) to estimate relatedness, inbreeding, and genome-wide functional diversity, some have asked whether it is warranted for conservation biologists to continue collecting and collating pedigrees for species management. In this perspective, we argue that pedigrees remain a relevant tool, and when combined with genomic data, create an invaluable resource for conservation genomic management. Genomic data can address pedigree pitfalls (e.g., founder relatedness, missing data, uncertainty), and in return robust pedigrees allow for more nuanced research design, including well-informed sampling strategies and quantitative analyses (e.g., heritability, linkage) to better inform genomic inquiry. We further contend that building and maintaining pedigrees provides an opportunity to strengthen trusted relationships among conservation researchers, practitioners, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities. Keywords: conservation genomics, quantitative genetics, pedigree, kinship,ex situ , in situ

Structural variants (SVs) are large rearrangements (> 50 bp) within the genome that impact gene function and the content and structure of chromosomes. As a result, SVs are a significant source of functional genomic variation, i.e. variation at genomic regions underpinning phenotype differences, that can have large effects on individual and population fitness. While there are increasing opportunities to investigate functional genomic variation in threatened species via single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) datasets, SVs remain understudied despite their potential influence on fitness traits of conservation interest. In this future-focused Opinion, we contend that characterizing SVs offers the conservation genomics community an exciting opportunity to complement SNP-based approaches to enhance species recovery. We also leverage the existing literature–predominantly in human health, agriculture and eco-evolutionary biology–to identify approaches for readily characterizing SVs and consider how integrating these into the conservation genomics toolbox may transform the way we manage some of the world’s most threatened species.