-
Reconciling nature conservation and traditional farming practices: a spatially explicit framework to assess the extent of High Nature Value farmlands in the European countryside
-
Over past centuries, European landscapes have been shaped by human management. Traditional, low intensity agricultural practices, adapted to local climatic, geographic, and environmental conditions, led to a rich, diverse cultural and natural heritage, reflected in a wide range of rural landscapes, most of which were preserved until the advent of industrialized agriculture (Bignal & McCracken 2000; Paracchini et al. 2010; Oppermann et al. 2012). Agricultural landscapes currently account for half of Europe’s territory (Overmars et al. 2013), with ca. 50% of all species relying on agricultural habitats at least to some extent (Kristensen 2003; Moreira et al. 2005; Halada et al. 2011). Due to their acknowledged role in the maintenance of high levels of biodiversity, low-intensity farming systems have been highlighted as critical to nature conservation and protection of the rural environment (Beaufoy et al. 1994; Paracchini et al. 2010; Halada et al.2011; Egan & Mortensen 2012).
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Fear of failure in conservation: The problem and potential solutions to aid conservation of extremely small populations
-
The potential for extirpation of extremely small populations (ESPs) is high due to their vulnerability to
demographic and environmental stochasticity and negative impacts of human activity. We argue that
conservation actions that could aid ESPs are sometimes delayed because of a fear of failure. In human
psychology, the fear of failure is composed of several distinct cognitive elements, including ‘‘uncertainty
about the future’’ and ‘‘upsetting important others.’’ Uncertainty about the future is often driven by information obstacles in conservation: information is either not easily shared among practitioners or information is lacking. Whereas, fear of upsetting important others can be due to apprehension about angering constituents, peers, funders, and other stakeholders. We present several ways to address these fears in hopes of improving the conservation process. We describe methods for increased information sharing and improved decision-making in the face of uncertainty, and recommend a shift in focus to cooperative actions and improving methods for evaluating success. Our hope is that by tackling stumbling blocks due to the apprehension of failure, conservation and management organizations can take steps to move from fear to action.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Protected areas in Borneo may fail to conserve tropical forest biodiversity under climate change
-
Protected areas (PAs) are key for conserving rainforest species, but many PAs are becoming increasingly
isolated within agricultural landscapes, which may have detrimental consequences for the forest biota
they contain. We examined the vulnerability of PA networks to climate change by examining connectivity
of PAs along elevation gradients. We used the PA network on Borneo as a model system, and examined
changes in the spatial distribution of climate conditions in future. A large proportion of PAs will not
contain analogous climates in future (based on temperature projections for 2061–2080), potentially
requiring organisms to move to cooler PAs at higher elevation, if they are to track climate changes. For
the highest warming scenario (RCP8.5), few (11–12.5%; 27–30/240) PAs were sufficiently topographically
diverse for analogous climate conditions (present-day equivalent or cooler) to remain in situ. For the
remaining 87.5–89% (210–213/240) of PAs, which were often situated at low elevation, analogous climate
will only be available in higher elevation PAs. However, over half (60–82%) of all PAs on Borneo are too
isolated for poor dispersers (<1 km per generation) to reach cooler PAs, because there is a lack of connecting
forest habitat. Even under the lowest warming scenario (RCP2.6), analogous climate conditions will
disappear from 61% (146/240) of PAs, and a large proportion of these are too isolated for poor dispersers
to reach cooler PAs. Our results suggest that low elevation PAs are particularly vulnerable to climate
change, and management to improve linkage of PAs along elevation gradients should be a conservation
priority
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Conserving the Stage: Climate Change and the Geophysical Underpinnings of Species Diversity
-
Conservationists have proposed methods for adapting to climate change that assume species distributions are primarily explained by climate variables. The key idea is to use the understanding of species-climate relationships to map corridors and to identify regions of faunal stability or high species turnover. An alternative approach is to adopt an evolutionary timescale and ask ultimately what factors control total diversity, so that over the long run the major drivers of total species richness can be protected. Within a single climatic region, the temperate area encompassing all of the Northeastern U.S. and Maritime Canada, we hypothesized that geologic factors may take precedence over climate in explaining diversity patterns.
If geophysical diversity does drive regional diversity, then conserving geophysical settings may offer an approach to conservation that protects diversity under both current and future climates. Here we tested how well geology predicts the species diversity of 14 US states and three Canadian provinces, using a comprehensive new spatial dataset. Results of linear regressions of species diversity on all possible combinations of 23 geophysical and climatic variables indicated that four geophysical factors; the number of geological classes, latitude, elevation range and the amount of calcareous bedrock, predicted species diversity with certainty (adj. R2 = 0.94). To confirm the species-geology relationships we ran an
independent test using 18,700 location points for 885 rare species and found that 40% of the species were restricted to a single geology. Moreover, each geology class supported 5–95 endemic species and chi-square tests confirmed that calcareous bedrock and extreme elevations had significantly more rare species than expected by chance (P,0.0001), strongly corroborating the regression model. Our results suggest that protecting geophysical settings will conserve the stage for current and future biodiversity and may be a robust alternative to species-level predictions.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Multi-year drought-induced morbidity preceding tree death in Southeastern US forests
-
Recent forest diebacks combined with threats of future drought focus attention on the extent to which tree death is caused by catastrophic events as opposed to chronic declines in health that accumulate over years. While recent attention has focused on large-scale diebacks, there is concern that increasing drought stress and chronic morbidity may have pervasive impacts on forest composition in many regions. Here we use long-term, whole-stand inventory data from Southeastern US forests to show that trees exposed to drought experience multi-year declines in growth prior to mortality. Following a severe, multi-year drought, 72% of trees that did not recover their pre-drought growth rates died within 10 years. This pattern was mediated by local moisture availability. As an index of morbidity prior to death, we calculated the difference in cumulative growth after drought relative to surviving conspecifics. The strength of drought-induced morbidity varied among species and was correlated with drought tolerance. These findings support the ability of trees to avoid death during drought events but indicate shifts that could occur over decades. Tree mortality following drought is predictable in these ecosystems based on growth declines, highlighting an opportunity to address multi-year drought-induced morbidity in models, experiments, and management decisions.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Stop misuse of biodiversity offsets
-
Governments should not meet existing conservation targets using the compensation that developers pay for damaging biodiversity, say Martine Maron and colleagues.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Novel climates, no-analog communities, and ecological surprises
-
No-analog communities (communities that are compositionally unlike any found today) occurred frequently in the past and will develop in the greenhouse world of the future. The well documented no-analog plant communities of late-glacial North America are closely linked to “novel” climates also lacking modern analogs, characterized by high seasonality of temperature. In climate simulations for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 and B1 emission scenarios, novel climates arise by 2100 AD, primarily in tropical and subtropical regions. These future novel climates are warmer than any present climates globally, with spatially variable shifts in precipitation, and increase the risk of species reshuffling into future no-analog communities and other ecological surprises. Most ecological models are at least partially parameterized from modern observations and so may fail to accurately predict ecological responses to these novel climates. There is an urgent need to test the robustness of ecological models to climate conditions outside modern experience.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Seeing the landscape for the trees: Metrics to guide riparian shade management in river catchments
-
Rising water temperature (Tw) due to anthropogenic climate change may have serious conse- quences for river ecosystems. Conservation and/or expansion of riparian shade could counter warming and buy time for ecosystems to adapt. However, sensitivity of river reaches to direct solar radiation is highly het- erogeneous in space and time, so benefits of shading are also expected to be site specific. We use a network of high-resolution temperature measurements from two upland rivers in the UK, in conjunction with topo- graphic shade modeling, to assess the relative significance of landscape and riparian shade to the thermal behavior of river reaches. Trees occupy 7% of the study catchments (comparable with the UK national aver- age) yet shade covers 52% of the area and is concentrated along river corridors. Riparian shade is most ben- eficial for managing Tw at distances 5–20 km downstream from the source of the rivers where discharge is modest, flow is dominated by near-surface hydrological pathways, there is a wide floodplain with little land- scape shade, and where cumulative solar exposure times are sufficient to affect Tw. For the rivers studied, we find that approximately 0.5 km of complete shade is necessary to off-set Tw by 18C during July (the month with peak Tw) at a headwater site; whereas 1.1 km of shade is required 25 km downstream. Further research is needed to assess the integrated effect of future changes in air temperature, sunshine duration, direct solar radiation, and downward diffuse radiation on Tw to help tree planting schemes achieve
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
A Chinese cave links climate change, social impacts, and human adaptation over the last 500 years
-
The collapse of some pre-historical and historical cultures, including Chinese dynasties were presumably linked to widespread droughts, on the basis of synchronicities of societal crises and proxy-based climate events. Here, we present a comparison of ancient inscriptions in Dayu Cave from Qinling Mountains, central China, which described accurate times and detailed impacts of seven drought events during the period of 1520–1920 CE, with high-resolution speleothem records from the same cave. The comparable results provide unique and robust tests on relationships among speleothem δ18O changes, drought events, and societal unrest. With direct historical evidences, our results suggest that droughts and even modest events interrupting otherwise wet intervals can cause serious social crises. Modeling results of speleothem δ18O series suggest that future precipitation in central China may be below the average of the past 500 years. As Qinling Mountain is the main recharge area of two large water transfer projects and habitats of many endangered species, it is imperative to explore an adaptive strategy for the decline in precipitation and/or drought events.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Energy Assessment News Release
-
A new study and online mapping tool by the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and The Nature Conservancy are intended to inform discussions among conservation agencies and organizations, industry, policy makers, regulators and the public on how to protect essential natural resources while realizing the benefits of increased domestic energy production.
Located in
Tools & Resources
/
Assessing Future Energy Development
