Incorporating Climate Science in Applications of the U.S. Endangered Species Act for Aquatic Species

Abstract

Aquatic species are threatened by climate change but have received comparatively less attention than terrestrial species. We gleaned key strategies for scientists and managers seeking to address climate change in aquatic conservation planning from the literature and existing knowledge. We address 3 categories of conservation effort that rely on scientific analysis and have particular application under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA): assessment of overall risk to a species; long-term recovery planning; and evaluation of effects of specific actions or perturbations. Fewer data are available for aquatic species to support these analyses, and climate effects on aquatic systems are poorly characterized. Thus, we recommend scientists conducting analyses supporting ESA decisions develop a conceptual model that links climate, habitat, ecosystem, and species response to changing conditions and use this model to organize analyses and future research. We recommend that current climate conditions are not appropriate for projections used in ESA analyses and that long-term projections of climate-change effects provide temporal context as a species-wide assessment provides spatial context. In these projections, climate change should not be discounted solely because the magnitude of projected change at a particular time is uncertain when directionality of climate change is clear. Identifying likely future habitat at the species scale will indicate key refuges and potential range shifts. However, the risks and benefits associated with errors in modeling future habitat are not equivalent. The ESA offers mechanisms for increasing the overall resilience and resistance of species to climate changes, including establishing recovery goals requiring increased genetic and phenotypic diversity, specifying critical habitat in areas not currently occupied but likely to become important, and using adaptive management. Incorporación de las Ciencias Climáticas en las Aplicaciones del Acta Estadunidense de Especies en Peligro para Especies Acuáticas.

Relative contributions of neutral and non‐neutral genetic differentiation to inform conservation of steelhead trout across highly variable landscapes

“…It is likely that the relevance and contribution of non‐neutral variation is frequently overlooked or underutilized in conservation planning, but given recent calls for the incorporation of climate science in application of the ESA (e.g., McClure et al. ), the utility of such information should be highlighted. In the absence of efforts to regularly evaluate putatively adaptive population differences, there is presumably a greater risk of the loss of genetic diversity as climates and habitats continue to change through time.…”

Forecasting ocean warming impacts on seabird demography: a case study on the European storm petrel

“…In particular, the differential re sponses of age classes to environmental constraints shape survival and reproductive traits at a population level and probably in fluence the response of populations to global climate change (Pardo et al 2013). As a consequence, in order to understand the influence of future climate on this and other seabird species, an assessment on how climate is currently related to population metrics is needed (McClure et al 2013). These results can then be projected onto a possible future scenario in order to model demographic responses to anticipated climate-related changes, the magnitude of which is not yet recorded in human history (McClure et al 2013).…”

“…As a consequence, in order to understand the influence of future climate on this and other seabird species, an assessment on how climate is currently related to population metrics is needed (McClure et al 2013). These results can then be projected onto a possible future scenario in order to model demographic responses to anticipated climate-related changes, the magnitude of which is not yet recorded in human history (McClure et al 2013). We are thus modelling demographic traits and their variability in response to environmental constraints.…”

Declining streamflow induces collapse and replacement of native fish in the American Southwest

“…This is a critical knowledge gap, given the growing importance of these predictions for biodiversity conservation (IPCC ) and the need to quantify the effects of climate change and other stressors on biodiversity (McClure et al . ; Staudt et al . ).…”