{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_external48_20260801","source_assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__biology_ecology","selection_stratum":"REJECTION_LOW_BAND_AUDIT","search_queries":["site:usgs.gov native seed supply inventory restoration demand seed shortage report","site:fs.usda.gov Seedlot Selection Tool matching seedlots planting sites climate official","native seed supply chain bottlenecks restoration procurement planting windows primary research","native seed network inventory exchange seed transfer approval parallel review restoration","Standards for Native Seeds in Ecological Restoration pathogen genetic sourcing PDF Pedrini official","native plant material transfer zones genetic risks outbreeding pathogen restoration primary research","\"Native Seed Network\" seed availability database buyers suppliers restoration","native seed inventory database restoration seedlot match procurement platform","shared seed inventory restoration projects native seed exchange platform provenance","parallel approval workflow native seed transfer restoration risk tier","site:blm.gov/sites/default/files \"Action 3.2.4\" native seed acquisition"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"An Assessment of Native Seed Needs and the Capacity for Their Supply: Final Report","publisher":"National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine","url":"https://doi.org/10.17226/26618","source_class":"AUTHORITATIVE_SECONDARY","publication_date":"2023","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Native-seed users report severely insufficient supply, while suppliers identify unpredictable demand, short planning horizons, difficult species, and unavailable stock seed as major constraints.","The assessment documents substitutions when preferred seed is unavailable, calls for regional coordination and central data capability, and recognizes tribal sovereignty and engagement in native-plant planning.","The report identifies BLM, other land-management agencies, regional partnerships, tribes, seed suppliers, and restoration practitioners as active stakeholders and plausible adopters."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"How to increase the supply of native seed to improve restoration success: The US native seed development process","publisher":"U.S. Geological Survey / Restoration Ecology","url":"https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70223886","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2021-09-06","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Genetically appropriate native seed cannot currently be sourced for many restoration projects.","Seed supply involves collection, evaluation, production, certification, procurement, storage, and restoration, usually requiring planning beyond individual projects."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Seed planning, sourcing, and procurement","publisher":"U.S. Forest Service / Restoration Ecology","url":"https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/61316.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2020-08","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Appropriate native seed can require three or more years to acquire, and a missed harvest window can delay supply for years.","Viability, purity, provenance, genetic diversity, seed zones, transfer guidance, certification, laboratory testing, permits, budgets, and coordination are material implementation requirements.","Seed zones facilitate sharing and exchange, but species-specific zones are absent for many herbaceous restoration species and geographic distance alone is not a reliable compatibility rule."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Seedlot Selection Tool and Climate-Smart Restoration Tool: Web-based tools for sourcing seed adapted to future climates","publisher":"U.S. Forest Service / Ecosphere","url":"https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs_journals/2022/rmrs_2022_st_clair_j001.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2022","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Existing tools search for suitable seedlots for planting sites or suitable planting sites for seedlots using climate and user-defined transfer limits.","The tools can compare and prioritize an inventory of multiple seedlots, apply geographic and species-range constraints, and expose climate-match results.","Their outputs are decision support rather than biological clearance, inventory custody, consent, or regulatory approval."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"National Seed Strategy","publisher":"Bureau of Land Management","url":"https://www.blm.gov/programs/natural-resources/native-plant-communities/national-seed-strategy","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2015","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["The strategy seeks genetically appropriate seed and timely, informed seeding decisions through coordination, source-availability data, seed-transfer guidance, and science-delivery tools.","BLM reports continuing demand beyond supply and identifies hundreds of public and private partners involved in native-plant conservation."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"National Seed Strategy Business Plan","publisher":"Bureau of Land Management","url":"https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/uploads/programs_natural-resources_native-plant-communities_national-seed-strategy_NSS-BUSINESS-PLAN.pdf","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2015","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["The official plan already scoped regional availability databases, seed-source-to-site matching, an interagency inventory system, source-identified seed sharing, and procurement tools for interagency acquisition.","The plan describes substantial cooperation, contractor expertise, website maintenance, training, procurement coordination, ecological expertise, laboratory research, and field work as cost components.","Its historical resource plans provide ordinal cost analogues for a calendar-2026 bounded audit, startup, and limited regional operation, but not direct 2026 quotations."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"SeedPOD: the Seed Portal for Online Data","publisher":"Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew","url":"https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/SeedPOD","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Kew describes fragmented knowledge exchange and difficulty finding high-quality, genetically diverse native seed.","The active project is designed to publish provenance, processing, quantity, and viability information, accept sample requests, and help users identify appropriate available sources.","The page states an intended open release in 2026 but does not document a risk-tiered multi-authority approval workflow or evaluated cycle-time effect."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Plant and Vendor Finder tool","publisher":"Conservation Biology Institute","url":"https://consbio.org/software/usda-crp-toolkit-pilot/","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["A USDA-contracted tool already combines site-suitability information with vendor catalogues and inventory to help users locate purchasable native seed or seedlings.","The product demonstrates technical feasibility of a shared web interface, inventory upload, ecological filtering, and vendor matching, while not addressing transfer authorization."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"WEAK","rationale":"Independent sources strongly support the broader shortage, timing, provenance, and information-fragmentation problem. They do not establish the candidate's narrower wedge: unused, viable, biologically compatible lots stranded primarily by coarse transfer rules, siloed allocation, or serial approvals. The evidence instead makes genuine scarcity, long production lead times, unavailable stock seed, and necessary biological review serious competing explanations.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S7"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Agency surveys, the National Seed Strategy, operational matching tools, regional partnerships, and Kew's active portal show sustained demand for better coordination and source-availability information from land managers, suppliers, custodians, and agencies. No source documents stakeholder commitment to the specific parallel, risk-tiered approval mechanism, and tribal or Indigenous authorization cannot be inferred from general institutional participation.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"National Seed Strategy availability, matching, inventory, and procurement tool suite","similarity":"The official strategy and business plan combine regional seed-availability databases, seed-source-to-site matching, multiagency inventory, source-identified sharing, and procurement tools intended to support timely restoration decisions. This covers most of the candidate's information, matching, coordination, and acquisition composition.","remaining_difference":"The located strategy documents do not specify a prospectively validated low-risk classifier spanning viability, genetic, pathogen, donor-reserve, custody, consent, and authority criteria; parallel substantive review; or a controlled comparison of decision time and safe-match completion.","source_ids":["S5","S6"]},{"name":"Kew SeedPOD","similarity":"SeedPOD is designed to expose lot-level provenance, quantity, processing, and viability data, let custodians receive requests, and help practitioners identify appropriate available sources. This closely matches the shared-record and stranded-inventory discovery portions.","remaining_difference":"The public documentation does not show cross-custodian allocation, risk-tier assignment, parallel multi-authority approval, unchanged substantive gates, or comparative evaluation against ordinary review.","source_ids":["S7"]},{"name":"Seedlot Selection Tool plus USDA Plant and Vendor Finder","similarity":"Together these existing tools prioritize seedlots for planting sites using climate and transfer constraints, identify ecologically suitable plants, and connect resulting needs to vendor catalogues and inventory.","remaining_difference":"They are decision-support and market-discovery tools rather than a governed transfer workflow incorporating pathogen screening, donor reserves, custody, consent, regulatory clearance, and reviewer-agreement thresholds.","source_ids":["S4","S8"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"For pre-specified common-species cases, a shared lot dossier plus concurrent, independently recorded review under a validated low-risk rule can reduce median decision time and increase unanimously safe match completion by at least 20% without changing any biological, custody, consent, or statutory criterion. Only this narrow workflow-and-evaluation claim remains plausibly distinctive in the bounded search.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Lot inventories, vendor matching, seed-source suitability tools, transfer zones, laboratory viability and purity testing, provenance tracking, certification, and interagency coordination all exist or have been officially scoped. Integration for a small shadow study is technically credible. No source validates the proposed full compatibility classifier, pathogen field set, risk tiers, parallel authorization protocol, reviewer reliability, or equity-allocation rule.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S6","S7","S8"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Appropriate native seed affects restoration quality and missed supply windows can cause multi-year delays, so recovering genuinely compatible stranded lots could matter. Impact is capped because sources primarily document scarcity and production constraints, not the prevalence or ecological importance of procedurally stranded lots.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"Government strategies, surveyed users and suppliers, current portals, and vendor tools demonstrate demand for availability data and coordination. Pull for the specific risk-tiered parallel approval workflow is not documented.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S7","S8"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"Parallel review could improve cycle time, but most information, inventory, matching, and procurement components are already established or planned. No comparative evidence shows that serial approval is a major delay source or that this composition outperforms better planning, production, storage, or local collection.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S6","S7"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"Substantial prior-art collision leaves only the risk-tiered concurrent-review protocol and its quantitative evaluation as a potentially distinctive increment.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Existing platforms and transfer tools demonstrate the main data and matching capabilities, while standard practice supplies viability, provenance, and genetic review inputs. Implementability remains conditional on data access, a validated classifier, pathogen procedures, and acceptable reviewer agreement.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S6","S7","S8"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"Agencies and regional partnerships can coordinate seed programs, but permissions, custodial control, procurement rules, land-manager decisions, and tribal sovereignty remain substantive authorities rather than workflow fields. No joint authorization for this study has been documented.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S5","S6"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":3,"rationale":"A safe shadow comparison can be preregistered and uses well-defined lot and suitability fields. Readiness is limited by fragmented records, uncertain availability of complete request histories, absent baseline cycle-time data, and an unvalidated risk-tier protocol.","source_ids":["S3","S6","S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"A shadow-only study could identify missed restoration opportunities without moving seed, and existing guidance supports provenance, genetic diversity, permits, viability testing, and conservative transfer limits. Whether a fast path can preserve every substantive safeguard is unverified.","source_ids":["S3","S4"]},"scalability":{"score":2,"rationale":"Web inventory and matching systems can scale organizationally, but compatibility remains species-, population-, ecosystem-, and jurisdiction-specific. Species-specific transfer guidance is missing for many taxa, and provisional climatic zones cannot resolve every genetic or ecological risk.","source_ids":["S3","S4"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"A 12-month, 30-case shadow audit for two common species: data agreements; request and inventory reconciliation; provenance, viability, purity, compatibility, donor-reserve, custody, consent, and delay-cause coding; limited retained-sample laboratory checks where authorized; independent reviewer time; workflow simulation; software configuration; evaluation; and participant coordination. No transfer, planting, or wild release.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Records are substantially accessible from a small number of partner organizations.","Existing transfer guidance and laboratory services can be used without new genetic research programs.","The broad band is a calendar-2026 resource equivalent informed by older official program analogues, not a price quotation or simple inflation adjustment.","Rights-holder and custodian participation is compensated but does not require litigation or statutory rulemaking."],"source_ids":["S1","S3","S6","S7"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Limited regional startup covering a governed shared-record system, integrations and security, data and custody agreements, risk-tier protocol development and validation, pathogen and genetic review design, consent controls, procurement and legal review, training, accessibility, independent oversight, and evaluation instrumentation.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Deployment is limited to common species and several participating organizations in one region.","Existing inventory, GIS, and case-management systems are adapted rather than replaced.","No threatened-species pathway, new statutory regime, or national platform is included.","Official historical database, inventory, and procurement plans are used only as resource-scope analogues."],"source_ids":["S3","S4","S6","S7","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"One limited 12-month operation after separate authorization, including case coordination, lot testing, independent biological and governance review, software support, audit and equity monitoring, quarantine readiness, and contained common-garden evaluation for only unanimously cleared lots. Wild release is excluded.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Only a small subset of 30 cases reaches contained plots.","Existing contained sites, laboratories, and quarantine procedures are available.","The estimate includes multidisciplinary labor, testing, coordination, equipment, software, compliance, monitoring, and evaluation but excludes major capital construction and long-term wild-population monitoring."],"source_ids":["S1","S3","S6"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"A limited regional service maintaining records and integrations, coordinating expert and authority reviews, conducting viability and biological screening, supporting custodian and rights-holder participation, auditing donor reserves and equitable access, maintaining incident and quarantine procedures, and evaluating decision time and safe-match completion.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Annual volume remains a limited regional caseload rather than a national system.","Expert, custodian, regulator, and governance review remains labor-intensive despite parallel scheduling.","Species-specific research, new storage facilities, large seed production programs, and wild-release monitoring are outside this band."],"source_ids":["S1","S3","S6"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"External evidence verifies seed shortages, timing constraints, substitutions, fragmented information, and demand for better coordination, but not the defining claim that viable compatible lots are materially stranded primarily by inventory, allocation, or serial approval friction.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S7"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"BLM, USDA-related programs, restoration land managers, seed suppliers and custodians, regional partnerships, and tribal authorities are externally documented actors in seed sourcing, inventory, procurement, and restoration governance. Participation in this specific study remains uncommitted.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S6","S8"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"Comparison with the located prior art leaves a narrow testable increment: validated low-risk classification plus parallel independent review, unchanged substantive gates, and at least 20% improvement in both median decision time and unanimous safe-match completion.","source_ids":["S4","S6","S7","S8"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"Thirty shadow cases involving two common species can be evaluated without moving or planting seed, using ordinary review as the comparator and explicit prevalence, performance, and reviewer-disagreement falsifiers.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S7"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"There is no safety reason to stop a consented, data-only shadow review, but any physical transfer or contained planting remains blocked until pathogen procedures, genetic and donor safeguards, custody, land access, tribal or Indigenous authority where applicable, and reviewer reliability are resolved.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S4"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The four bands explicitly include labor, data, software, testing, compliance, coordination, equipment, oversight, and evaluation. Official strategy cost analogues support their order of magnitude, while low confidence is retained where physical testing, partner count, and jurisdictional requirements remain unspecified.","source_ids":["S3","S6"]}},"next_evidence_step":"With voluntary data-sharing approval, conduct a preregistered 12-month shadow review of 30 missed or delayed requests for two common, non-threatened native species across no more than three partner organizations. Reconstruct ordinary-review outcomes and elapsed time, independently audit whether candidate lots were unused, viable, provenance-documented, biologically compatible under predeclared criteria, and delayed primarily by inventory, allocation, or procedure, then run the identical cases through a simulated shared-record and parallel-review workflow. No seed moves or is planted. Falsify the problem wedge if fewer than 10% of missed requests had such a lot; reject the lever if projected unanimous safe-match completion and median decision time do not each improve by at least 20% versus ordinary review, or if independent safety classifications disagree in more than 10% of proposed fast-path cases.","blocking_evidence":["A linked request-to-lot audit establishing the prevalence of viable compatible seed delayed primarily by inventory, allocation, or procedural causes.","A prospectively specified classifier for provenance, viability, pathogen risk, genetic risk, donor reserves, custody, consent, equity, authority, and uncertainty routing.","Independent-reviewer agreement data demonstrating that low-risk classification is reproducible.","Documented willingness and jurisdiction-specific authority from participating custodians, land managers, regulators, landholders, and rights-holding Indigenous bodies.","Evidence that the narrow parallel-review increment improves both decision time and safe-match completion beyond existing inventory and matching practices."],"research_disposition":"PROBLEM_PREVALENCE_STUDY","world_novelty_boundary":"This bounded search found substantial prior-art collision in inventory visibility, seed-source matching, interagency coordination, and procurement facilitation. It did not find the complete validated risk-tiered parallel-approval protocol with unchanged substantive gates and controlled cycle-time evaluation. That absence is not a world-novelty claim, and patent, procurement-system, non-English, unpublished, and jurisdiction-specific practice searches were not exhaustive."}