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Beyond Reserves and Corridors: Policy Solutions to Facilitate the Movement of Plants and Animals in a Changing Climate
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As the Earth’s climate changes, many species will have to move across human-dominated landscapes to track suitable climates and changing ecosystems. Given the magnitude of projected future climate change, expanding and connecting reserve networks—two of the most commonly recommended adaptation strategies for protecting biodiversity in a changing climate—will be necessary but insufficient for preventing climate-induced extinctions. In the present article, we explore additional policy options that could be implemented to facilitate species movements in a changing climate. We discuss both existing and new policies that have the potential to increase landscape permeability, protect species on the move, and physically move species to address climate change.
Keywords: climate change, adaptation, species movement, policy
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Cross-scale Drivers of Natural Disturbances Prone to Anthropogenic Amplification: The Dynamics of Bark Beetle Eruptions
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Biome-scale disturbances by eruptive herbivores provide valuable insights into species interactions, ecosystem function, and impacts of global change. We present a conceptual framework using one system as a model, emphasizing interactions across levels of biological hierarchy and spatiotemporal scales. Bark beetles are major natural disturbance agents in western North American forests. However, recent bark beetle population eruptions have exceeded the frequencies, impacts, and ranges documented during the previous 125 years. Extensive host abundance and susceptibility, concentrated beetle density, favorable weather, optimal symbiotic associations, and escape from natural enemies must occur jointly for beetles to surpass a series of thresholds and exert widespread disturbance. Opposing feedbacks determine qualitatively distinct outcomes at junctures at the biochemical through landscape levels. Eruptions occur when key thresholds are surpassed, prior constraints cease to exert influence, and positive feedbacks amplify across scales. These dynamics are bidirectional, as landscape features influence how lower-scale processes are amplified or buffered. Climate change and reduced habitat heterogeneity increase the likelihood that key thresholds will be exceeded, and may cause fundamental regime shifts. Systems in which endogenous feedbacks can dominate after external forces foster the initial breach of thresholds appear particularly sensitive to anthropogenic perturbations.
Keywords: thresholds, plant-insect interactions, landscape disturbance, forest management, anthropogenic change
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Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians
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Many scientists argue that we are either entering or in the midst of the sixth great mass extinction. Intense human pressure, both direct and indirect, is having profound effects on natural environ- ments. The amphibians—frogs, salamanders, and caecilians—may be the only major group currently at risk globally. A detailed worldwide assessment and subsequent updates show that one- third or more of the 6,300 species are threatened with extinction. This trend is likely to accelerate because most amphibians occur in the tropics and have small geographic ranges that make them susceptible to extinction. The increasing pressure from habitat destruction and climate change is likely to have major impacts on narrowly adapted and distributed species. We show that salamanders on tropical mountains are particularly at risk. A new and significant threat to amphibians is a virulent, emerging infec- tious disease, chytridiomycosis, which appears to be globally distributed, and its effects may be exacerbated by global warming. This disease, which is caused by a fungal pathogen and implicated in serious declines and extinctions of >200 species of amphibians, poses the greatest threat to biodiversity of any known disease. Our data for frogs in the Sierra Nevada of California show that the fungus is having a devastating impact on native species, already weakened by the effects of pollution and introduced predators. A general message from amphibians is that we may have little time to stave off a potential mass extinction.
chytridiomycosis climate change population declines Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis emerging disease
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North Carolina Natural Heritage Program
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North Carolina Natural Heritage Program's mission is to provide science and incentives to inform conservation decisions and support conservation of significant natural areas in North Carolina.
By gathering and sharing information about rare species and natural communities, the Program ensures public access to information that is needed to weigh the ecological significance of natural areas and to evaluate potential ecological impacts of conservation and development projects. The Program sits within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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Conservation Planning Process
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Dr. Robert Baldwin of Clemson University explains in this video the steps involved in the conservation planning process.
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Butler, Patricia
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Coordinator, Climate Change Response Framework
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Wetland restorations offer environmental, economic benefits
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Scientists with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service recognize the environmental and economic benefits regional wetlands provide and the importance of preserving wetland resources.
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National Strategy Will Help Safeguard Fish, Wildlife and Plants in a Changing Climate
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In partnership with State and Tribal agencies, the Obama Administration today released the first nationwide strategy to help public and private decision makers address the impacts that climate change is having on natural resources and the people and economies that depend on them. Developed in response to a request by Congress, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is the product of extensive national dialogue that spanned nearly two years and was shaped by comments from more than 55,000 Americans.
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National Fish, Wildlife, & Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy
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The purpose of the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is to inspire and enable natural resource administrators, elected officials, and other decision makers to take action to adapt to a changing climate. Adaptation actions are vital to sustaining the nation’s ecosystems and natural resources — as well as the human uses and values that the natural world provides.
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Emerging Consensus Shows Climate Change Already Having Major Effects on Ecosystems and Species
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Plant and animal species are shifting their geographic ranges and the timing of their life events – such as flowering, laying eggs or migrating – at faster rates than researchers documented just a few years ago, according to a technical report on biodiversity and ecosystems used as scientific input for the 2013 Third National Climate Assessment.
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