Managing for biodiversity: The effects of climate, management and natural disturbance on wildlife species richness

Abstract

AimManagers are increasingly facing an uncertain future given changing climates and ecological trajectories. The interacting effects of climate, natural disturbance, and management actions complicate future projections, and there is a need for approaches that integrate these factors—especially for predicting future vegetation and species richness.LocationCentral Sierra Nevada Mountains, USA.MethodsWe used outputs from a spatially explicit landscape disturbance succession model that incorporated forest management actions, disturbance, and climate to estimate habitat and potential species richness for 202 vertebrate species and five functional groups from 2020 to 2100. We examined species richness outcomes of three forest management scenarios under three climate trajectories. We modelled broadscale drivers of landscape‐level species richness, and proximate effects of management and disturbance at each pixel.ResultsClimate and forest management scenario had significant effects on potential species richness across the landscape, particularly at lower elevations; however, only management had significant effects at higher elevations. We found no effect of the interaction between climate and management scenario. The historical climate and the minimal management scenario generally resulted in higher species richness compared with other scenarios. Positive proximate effects generally included mechanical thinning and prescribed fire, as well as low and medium severity fire and beetle outbreaks. High severity fire had a consistently negative effect on species richness. We also quantified the contribution of protected areas and found that protected areas had higher species richness compared with ecologically similar unprotected lands, especially in climate futures that deviated from the historical climate.Main ConclusionsOur findings highlight that managing for biodiversity is complex, and effects of climate, disturbance, and management differ among species, functional groups, topography and scales. However, landscape disturbance succession models provide a science‐based tool for untangling broadscale drivers and proximate effects of biodiversity and managing for ecological integrity in a changing climate.