Forest management for novelty, persistence, and restoration influenced by policy and society

Abstract

The ecological literature offers many conflicting recommendations for how managers should respond to ecosystem change and novelty. We propose a framework in which forest managers may achieve desired forest characteristics by combining strategies for (1) restoring historical conditions, (2) maintaining current conditions, and (3) transitioning toward novel conditions. Drawing on policy studies and the ecological and social sciences, we synthesize research on factors that shape forest management responses to ecosystem novelty and change. Although the ecological literature often suggests the likelihood of transitions to novelty, we found that a management focus on restoration and persistence strategies was supported by landowners, private and public lands policy, and forest manager capacity and culture. In this era of unprecedented change, managers and policy makers must address ecosystem novelty to achieve desired forest futures without eroding support for forest conservation and management.

Spotted owls and forest fire: Comment

“…While the annual area burned by fire is still below historical levels (Taylor et al 2016), some forest types in the west are burning at higher severities when compared to pre‐European settlement periods (Mallek et al 2013, Safford and Stevens 2017). As such, they face an increased risk of conversion to non‐forest ecosystems (e.g., shrublands, non‐native grasslands) following large, severe fires because of compromised seed sources, post‐fire soil erosion and loss, high‐severity re‐burn, and climatic thresholds (Coppoletta et al 2016, Stevens et al 2017, Rissman et al 2018, Shive et al 2018, Wood and Jones 2019). Restoration methods such as mechanical thinning and prescribed and managed wildland fire that reduce accumulated surface and ladder fuels (e.g., removal of small‐ and medium‐sized trees, especially non‐fire adapted species) may reduce the spatial extent of severe fires and increase forest resilience to fire in a changing climate (Agee and Skinner 2005, Stephens et al 2013, Hessburg et al 2016, Tubbesing et al 2019) and, in doing so, promote key ecosystem services (Hurteau et al 2014, Kelsey et al 2017, Wood and Jones 2019).…”

Differing climatic mechanisms control transient and accumulated vegetation novelty in Europe and eastern North America

“…A defining ecological characteristic of this time period is its dynamism; species distributions shift as climate changes, and ecosystems show large changes in composition, often including mixtures of species no longer found at present. These records of climate-driven range dynamics and a growing understanding of the driving mechanisms of past novel communities, combined with on-going climate changes at present, are helping shift the conceptual focus of conservation biology to broaden from frameworks primarily focused on resilience and restoration to frameworks that also include efforts to facilitate responses of ecosystems to changing and novel climates [21][22][23]. A key need in conservation biology is to develop climate metrics that best indicate climate exposure and vulnerability [86,87].…”

“…High levels of climate novelty create challenges for ecological forecasting owing to reduced predictive skill as future environmental states move outside the environmental domains used for model calibration and testing [19,20]. More broadly, the anticipated trajectory of ecosystems away from historic and well-understood baselines towards novel states is leading conservation biologists toward a conceptual reframing that focuses on ecological renovation instead of restoration [7] and on enabling adaptive responses to directional changes, instead of facilitating ecosystem compositional resilience and recovery to stable baseline states [21][22][23]. Ecosystem and environmental novelty are central to this new framework: whether a contemporary ecosystem composition is novel relative to historic counterparts is a proposed firstorder branch-point in environmental decision-making [24].…”

Framing management of social-ecological systems in terms of the cost of failure: the Sierra Nevada, USA as a case study

“…A century of fire suppression and land use legacies have increased tree densities and available fuels which, together with climate change, have contributed to the recent observed increase in mega-disturbances that threaten human life and values, biodiversity, and forest ecosystem persistence (McIntyre et al 2015, Hessburg et al 2016. Because Sierra Nevada forest ecosystems are adapted to a frequent, low-severity disturbance regime, uncharacteristically large and severe disturbances can lead to failed forest regeneration and ecosystem type conversion , Rissman et al 2018, Shive et al 2018. Over the next several decades, a continuation of this altered disturbance regime could result in the conversion of mixed-conifer forest to a chaparral-dominated ecosystem (table 1).…”

“…Extreme wildfire events and sustained losses of iconic forest landscapes could affect forest recreation opportunities and their perceived recreational value. For example, the 2013 Rim Fire burned >100 000 ha, approximately 30% of which occurred within Yosemite National Park, converting some forested areas into invasive grasslands and shrubdominated ecosystem types (Rissman et al 2018). The cost of that fire in terms of lost recreation and tourism were estimated to be as high as $211 million (Batker et al 2013).…”