Systematic Conservation Planning in the Face of Climate Change: Bet-Hedging on the Columbia Plateau

Schloss, Carrie A.; Lawler, Joshua J.; Larson, Eric R.; Papendick, Hilary L.; Case, Michael J.; Evans, Daniel M.; DeLap, Jack H.; Langdon, Jesse G. R.; Hall, Sonia A.; McRae, Brad H.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0028788

Cited by 43 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…In summary, diet breadth may or may not be a good predictor, depending on the taxa considered: good for birds, butterflies and moths, bad for small mammals. As a conclusion, diet breadth is a good candidate predictive trait for more mobile taxa (birds, some groups of flying insects) and a poor predictor for less mobile taxa such as small mammals [66].…”

Section: Open Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 89%

Novel communities from climate change

Lurgi

López

Montoya

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

174

187

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Climate change is generating novel communities composed of new combinations of species. These result from different degrees of species adaptations to changing biotic and abiotic conditions, and from differential range shifts of species. To determine whether the responses of organisms are determined by particular species traits and how species interactions and community dynamics are likely to be disrupted is a challenge. Here, we focus on two key traits: body size and ecological specialization. We present theoretical expectations and empirical evidence on how climate change affects these traits within communities. We then explore how these traits predispose species to shift or expand their distribution ranges, and associated changes on community size structure, food web organization and dynamics. We identify three major broad changes: (i) Shift in the distribution of body sizes towards smaller sizes, (ii) dominance of generalized interactions and the loss of specialized interactions, and (iii) changes in the balance of strong and weak interaction strengths in the short term. We finally identify two major uncertainties: (i) whether largebodied species tend to preferentially shift their ranges more than small-bodied ones, and (ii) how interaction strengths will change in the long term and in the case of newly interacting species.

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Section: Open Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 89%

Novel communities from climate change

Lurgi

López

Montoya

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

174

187

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“…The method assumes that species persistence is more likely in connected areas with high micro-climate diversity (Weiss et al 1988;Ackerly et al 2010;Dobrowski 2011) and that the landscape between sites remains permeable. Schloss et al (2011) developed a potential reserve network selected to represent abiotic diversity and compared it with one selected to represent current biodiversity. From this, they identified regions where incorporating abiotic data could enhance a biodiversitybased network.…”

Section: Case Study 3: Identifying Climate-resilient Sites For Consermentioning

confidence: 99%

Case studies of conservation plans that incorporate geodiversity

Anderson

Comer

Beier

et al. 2015

Conservation Biology

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Geodiversity has been used as a surrogate for biodiversity when species locations are unknown, and this utility can be extended to situations where species locations are in flux. Recently, scientists have designed conservation networks that aim to explicitly represent the range of geophysical environments, identifying a network of physical stages that could sustain biodiversity while allowing for change in species composition in response to climate change. Because there is no standard approach to designing such networks, we compiled 8 case studies illustrating a variety of ways scientists have approached the challenge. These studies show how geodiversity has been partitioned and used to develop site portfolios and connectivity designs; how geodiversity-based portfolios compare with those derived from species and communities; and how the selection and combination of variables influences the results. Collectively, they suggest 4 key steps when using geodiversity to augment traditional biodiversity-based conservation planning: create land units from species-relevant variables combined in an ecologically meaningful way; represent land units in a logical spatial configuration and integrate with species locations when possible; apply selection criteria to individual sites to ensure they are appropriate for conservation; and develop connectivity among sites to maintain movements and processes. With these considerations, conservationists can design more effective site portfolios to ensure the lasting conservation of biodiversity under a changing climate.

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“…Geophysical diversity as a surrogate for species diversity has a long history in conservation planning (e.g., Hunter et al 1988;Faith & Walker 1996;review in Rodrigues & Brooks 2007), and recently it has been recognized for its potential role in conservation planning under climate change (Schloss et al 2011). We used different aspects of geophysical diversity for different purposes: geological representation to capture species diversity and topographic and elevation diversity to identify places that have the maximum resilience to climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating Climate Resilience for Conservation across Geophysical Settings

Anderson

Clark

Sheldon

2014

Conservation Biology

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Conservationists need methods to conserve biological diversity while allowing species and communities to rearrange in response to a changing climate. We developed and tested such a method for northeastern North America that we based on physical features associated with ecological diversity and site resilience to climate change. We comprehensively mapped 30 distinct geophysical settings based on geology and elevation. Within each geophysical setting, we identified sites that were both connected by natural cover and that had relatively more microclimates indicated by diverse topography and elevation gradients. We did this by scoring every 405 ha hexagon in the region for these two characteristics and selecting those that scored >SD 0.5 above the mean combined score for each setting. We hypothesized that these high-scoring sites had the greatest resilience to climate change, and we compared them with sites selected by The Nature Conservancy for their high-quality rare species populations and natural community occurrences. High-scoring sites captured significantly more of the biodiversity sites than expected by chance (p < 0.0001): 75% of the 414 target species, 49% of the 4592 target species locations, and 53% of the 2170 target community locations. Calcareous bedrock, coarse sand, and fine silt settings scored markedly lower for estimated resilience and had low levels of permanent land protection (average 7%). Because our method identifies—for every geophysical setting—sites that are the most likely to retain species and functions longer under a changing climate, it reveals natural strongholds for future conservation that would also capture substantial existing biodiversity and correct the bias in current secured lands.Identificación de Sitios Duraderos para la Conservación Usando la Diversidad del Paisaje y las Conexiones Locales para Estimar la Capacidad de Recuperación al Cambio ClimáticoResumenLos conservacionistas necesitan un método mediante el cual poder conservar la diversidad biológica mientras permiten que las especies y las comunidades se reorganicen con respecto al clima cambiante. Desarrollamos y probamos tal método, el cual basamos en características físicas asociadas con la diversidad ecológica y la capacidad de recuperación del sitio con respecto al cambio climático, en el noreste de Norteamérica. Mapeamos comprensivamente 30 escenarios geofísicos distintos basados en la geología y la elevación. Dentro de cada escenario geofísico identificamos sitios que estaban conectados por una cubierta natural y que tenían relativamente más microclimas indicados por la topografía diversa y los gradientes de elevación. Hicimos esto al puntuar cada hexágono de 450 ha en la región con estas dos características y al seleccionar aquellos que tuvieron una puntuación >SD 0.5 por encima del puntaje combinado promedio para cada escenario. Nuestra hipótesis fue que estos sitios con altas puntuaciones tuvieron la mayor capacidad de recuperación. Los comparamos con los sitios seleccionados por The Nature Conservancy por sus...

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Systematic Conservation Planning in the Face of Climate Change: Bet-Hedging on the Columbia Plateau

Cited by 43 publications

References 55 publications

Novel communities from climate change

Novel communities from climate change

Case studies of conservation plans that incorporate geodiversity

Estimating Climate Resilience for Conservation across Geophysical Settings

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