RAD Adaptive Management for Transforming Ecosystems

Abstract

Intensifying global change is propelling many ecosystems toward irreversible transformations. Natural resource managers face the complex task of conserving these important resources under unprecedented conditions and expanding uncertainty. As once familiar ecological conditions disappear, traditional management approaches that assume the future will reflect the past are becoming increasingly untenable. In the present article, we place adaptive management within the resist–accept–direct (RAD) framework to assist informed risk taking for transforming ecosystems. This approach empowers managers to use familiar techniques associated with adaptive management in the unfamiliar territory of ecosystem transformation. By providing a common lexicon, it gives decision makers agency to revisit objectives, consider new system trajectories, and discuss RAD strategies in relation to current system state and direction of change. Operationalizing RAD adaptive management requires periodic review and update of management actions and objectives; monitoring, experimentation, and pilot studies; and bet hedging to better identify and tolerate associated risks.

A Multi-Scale Blueprint for Building the Decision Context to Implement Climate Change Adaptation on National Wildlife Refuges in the United States

“…It is useful for describing, observing, and monitoring the current system [31]. Adaptive management is relevant for RAD because it can provide information about the effectiveness of current management strategies, when and how to adjust strategies, and when management objectives become infeasible in nonstationary systems [8].…”

“…These factors, such as site conditions, legacies, colonization, mortality, and disturbance events, shape ecosystem change [35,39]. Scenarios and experimentation via adaptive management are useful approaches for increasing understanding about the range of ecological trajectories [8,40]. Considering a range of ecological trajectories is useful because how ecosystem change unfolds in a particular place is contingent on the timing and the sequence of historical and future events.…”

“…In the past, management targets were easier to communicate because current or historical conditions were known and observable [5]. In a rapidly changing climate, management targets must be innovative and nimble to navigate toward a nonstationary future in which ecosystems may respond differently than they have in the past [6][7][8]. The potential for ecological transformations, defined as a qualitative shift in ecosystem structure, function, or species Earth 2022, 3 composition, increases uncertainty about future conditions and the likelihoods of management success [9][10][11][12][13].…”

RAD: A Paradigm, Shifting

“…For example, Crausbay and colleagues ( 2021 , this issue) establish priorities for scientific questions for supporting manager decision-making, whereas Clifford and colleagues ( 2021 , this issue) explore the internal and external factors that affect how a manager might choose among RAD options, positioning RAD at the nexus between social and ecological systems. Magness and colleagues ( 2021 , this issue) provide foundational principles for ecosystem management in a RAD framework, using the Kenai Peninsula as an example, whereas Lynch and colleagues ( 2021 , this issue) show how the classic adaptive management cycle can be adapted (and complexified) to include RAD.…”

“…No single RAD solution fits all. Many managers will likely employ a portfolio of RAD solutions, ­employing, for example, resistance strategies for ecosystems of high cultural or biological importance, such as the ethnographic landscapes surrounding Devils Tower (Lynch et al 2021 , this issue); directing transitions when alternative ecosystem outcomes vary in desirability (e.g., Acadia National Park; Crausbay et al 2021 , this issue); or simply accepting changes while monitoring them and being ready to shift strategies if needed (Lynch et al 2021 , this issue). In the face of uncertainty, the experiments of today will be the solutions of tomorrow, so managers should be ready to try out different management approaches in different portions of their managed landscapes.…”