Climate‐smart management of biodiversity

Abstract

Abstract. Determining where biodiversity is likely to be most vulnerable to climate change and methods to reduce that vulnerability are necessary first steps to incorporate climate change into biodiversity management plans. Here, we use a spatial climate change vulnerability assessment to (1) map the potential vulnerability of terrestrial biodiversity to climate change in the northeastern United States and (2) provide guidance on how and where management actions for biodiversity could provide long-term benefits under climate change (i.e., climate-smart management considerations). Our model suggests that biodiversity will be most vulnerable in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia due to the combination of high climate change velocity, high landscape resistance, and high topoclimate homogeneity. Biodiversity is predicted to be least vulnerable in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire because large portions of these states have low landscape resistance, low climate change velocity, and low topoclimate homogeneity. Our spatial climate-smart management considerations suggest that: (1) high topoclimate diversity could moderate the effects of climate change across 50% of the region; (2) decreasing local landscape resistance in conjunction with other management actions could increase the benefit of those actions across 17% of the region; and (3) management actions across 24% of the region could provide long-term benefits by promoting short-term population persistence that provides a source population capable of moving in the future. The guidance and framework we provide here should allow conservation organizations to incorporate our climate-smart management considerations into management plans without drastically changing their approach to biodiversity conservation.

Assessing the exposure of forest habitat types to projected climate change—Implications for Bavarian protected areas

“…As elevational ranges demonstrably influence the future potential of PAs to host certain habitat types, we add the inclusion of elevational ranges to these recommendations. Other researchers have already mentioned diversity of topography and “topoclimate” as necessary criteria (Heller et al, ; Nadeau, Fuller, & Rosenblatt, ). PAs flexible in space and time represent another progressive conservation concept (Bull, Suttle, Singh, & Milner‐Gulland, ; Hannah, ).…”

“…As elevational ranges demonstrably influence the future potential of PAs to host certain habitat types, we add the inclusion of elevational ranges to these recommendations. Other researchers have already mentioned diversity of topography and "topoclimate" as necessary criteria (Heller et al, 2015;Nadeau, Fuller, & Rosenblatt, 2015). PAs flexible in space and time represent another progressive conservation concept (Bull, Suttle, Singh, & Milner-Gulland, 2013;Hannah, 2008) Numerous case studies have described conflicts during the implementation of Natura 2000 sites and their management (e.g., Beunen & de Vries, 2011;Campagnaro, Sitzia, Bridgewater, Evans, & Ellis, 2019;Crossey, Roßmeier, & Weber, 2019;Gallo, Malovrh, Laktić, De Meo, & Paletto, 2018;Kati et al, 2015;Paletto et al, 2019).…”

Tree vulnerability to climate change: improving exposure‐based assessments using traits as indicators of sensitivity

“…Therefore, despite these advances, climate change vulnerability assessments at a subcontinental scale remain primarily based on biophysical data, and on approaches such as climate envelope models, which identify suitable habitat under current and future conditions (e.g., Nadeau et al. , Zolkos et al. , Rogers et al.…”

“…New mathematical solutions for better integration of multi-source and multi-scale information have been developed by modelers, including hybrid models (Gallien et al 2010) and metamodeling frameworks (Talluto et al 2016), but their application to management remains limited notably by the availability of high-quality data in a suitable format from certain disciplines (Aubin et al 2016, Urban et al 2016. Therefore, despite these advances, climate change vulnerability assessments at a subcontinental scale remain primarily based on biophysical data, and on approaches such as climate envelope models, which identify suitable habitat under current and future conditions (e.g., Nadeau et al 2015a, Zolkos et al 2015, Rogers et al 2017). These models provide valuable insights on the degree to which species are likely to be exposed to climatic changes, but rarely incorporate the breadth of ecological data needed to characterize species' individual sensitivity or adaptive capacity (but see Lawler 2016, Michalak et al 2017).…”

Can Topographic Variation in Climate Buffer against Climate Change-Induced Population Declines in Northern Forest Birds?

“…Moreover, local temperature variation had a significant effect on the density change of northern forest birds from 1981-1999 to 2000-2017, indicating that change in bird density was generally smaller in PAs with higher topographic variation. Thus, we found a clear buffering effect stemming from the local temperature variation of PAs in the population trends of northern forest birds.Diversity 2020, 12, 56 2 of 12 notable fine-grain heterogeneity in local climates caused by variation in topography (i.e., topoclimatic heterogeneity) [16][17][18][19]. The conservation of landscapes with high topoclimatic variation allows species to move shorter distances while tracking suitable conditions.…”