As natural resource management agencies and conservation organizations seek guidance on responding to climate change, myriad potential actions and strategies have been proposed for increasing the long-term viability of some attributes of... more
As natural resource management agencies and conservation organizations seek guidance on responding to climate change, myriad potential actions and strategies have been proposed for increasing the long-term viability of some attributes of natural systems. Managers need practical tools for selecting among these actions and strategies to develop a tailored management approach for specific targets at a given location. We developed and present one such tool, the participatory Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) framework, which considers the effects of climate change in the development of management actions for particular species, ecosystems and ecological functions. Our framework is based on the premise that effective adaptation of management to climate change can rely on local knowledge of an ecosystem and does not necessarily require detailed projections of climate change or its effects. We illustrate the ACT framework by applying it to an ecological function in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, USA)--water flows in the upper Yellowstone River. We suggest that the ACT framework is a practical tool for initiating adaptation planning, and for generating and communicating specific management interventions given an increasingly altered, yet uncertain, climate.
As natural resource management agencies and conservation organizations seek guidance on responding to climate change, myriad potential actions and strategies have been proposed for increasing the long-term viability of some attributes of... more
As natural resource management agencies and conservation organizations seek guidance on responding to climate change, myriad potential actions and strategies have been proposed for increasing the long-term viability of some attributes of natural systems. Managers need practical tools for selecting among these actions and strategies to develop a tailored management approach for specific targets at a given location. We developed and present one such tool, the participatory Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT) framework, which considers the effects of climate change in the development of management actions for particular species, ecosystems and ecological functions. Our framework is based on the premise that effective adaptation of management to climate change can rely on local knowledge of an ecosystem and does not necessarily require detailed projections of climate change or its effects. We illustrate the ACT framework by applying it to an ecological function in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, USA)--water flows in the upper Yellowstone River. We suggest that the ACT framework is a practical tool for initiating adaptation planning, and for generating and communicating specific management interventions given an increasingly altered, yet uncertain, climate.
Global climate change during the 21st century is anticipated to have consequences on potential niche viability for woody plant species. Previous research on modeling bioclimatic envelopes has allowed us to predict where to find species... more
Global climate change during the 21st century is anticipated to have consequences on potential niche viability for woody plant species. Previous research on modeling bioclimatic envelopes has allowed us to predict where to find species assemblages under future climate scenarios and hence predict loss or gain of specific habitats. However, species may not identically respond to climate change. This could result in species disassembling and disagreement between predicted potential niches and realized niches. Therefore, it is critical to examine potential niche shifts at the species level. We used a spatially explicit demographic model to predict shifts in tree species of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains in the context of competition with neighboring plant functional types as well as disturbance (i.e. fire) under various climate change scenarios. Additionally, we incorporated a dispersal model to account for intermediary dispersal strategies. In particular, we were interested in modeling Pinus species found in the "checkerboard" region of the northern Sierra Nevada. These populations are of novel interest due to their disparate management strategies (private vs. public landownership). Our findings have important implications for the assessment of the impact of climate change on these high elevation Montane species.
