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Biodiversity management in the face of climate change: A review of 22 years of recommendations
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Climate change creates new challenges for biodiversity conservation. Species ranges and ecological dynamics are already responding to recent climate shifts, and current reserves will not continue to support all species they were designed to protect. These problems are exacerbated by other global changes. Scholarly articles recommending measures to adapt conservation to climate change have proliferated over the last 22 years. We systematically reviewed this literature to explore what potential solutions it has identified and what consensus and direction it provides to cope with climate change. Several consistent recommendations emerge for action at diverse spatial scales, requiring leadership by diverse actors. Broadly, adaptation requires improved regional institutional coordination, expanded spatial and temporal perspective, incorporation of climate change scenarios into all planning and action, and greater effort to address multiple threats and global change drivers simultaneously in ways that are responsive to and inclusive of human communities. However, in the case of many recommendations the how, by whom, and under what conditions they can be implemented is not specified. We synthesize recommendations with respect to three likely conservation pathways: regional planning; site-scale management; and modification of existing conservation plans. We identify major gaps, including the need for (1) more specific, operational examples of adaptation principles that are consistent with unavoidable uncertainty about the future; (2) a practical adaptation planning process to guide selection and integration of recommendations into existing policies and programs; and (3) greater integration of social science into an endeavor that, although dominated by ecology, increasingly recommends extension beyond reserves and into human-occupied landscapes.
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Biodiversity Risks from Fossil Fuel Extraction
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The overlapping of biodiverse areas and fossil fuel reserves indicates high-risk regions.
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Climate Science Documents
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Biodiversity Under Global Change
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Many common plant species, such as prairie grasses, have evolved traits for the efficient capture and use of two key resources that limit terrestrial productivity: nitrogen (N) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Over the past 60 years, human activity has vastly increased the availability of these resources. Atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by 40%, and N availability has more than doubled. These changes are likely to have important consequences for species interactions, community structure, and ecosystem functioning. On
page 1399 of this issue, Reich investigates one important consequence, biodiversity loss, based on a long-term elevated CO2 and nitrogen fertilization experiment.
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Biogenic vs. geologic carbon emissions and forest biomass energy production
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n the current debate over the CO2 emissions implications of switching from fossil fuel energy sources to include a substantial amount of woody biomass energy, many scientists and policy makers hold the view that emissions from the two sources should not be equated. Their rationale is that the combustion or decay of woody biomass is simply part of the global cycle of biogenic carbon and does not increase the amount of carbon in circulation. This view is frequently presented as justification to implement policies that encourage the substitution of fossil fuel energy sources with biomass. We present the opinion that this is an inappropriate conceptual basis to assess the atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting of woody biomass energy generation. While there are many other environmental, social, and economic reasons to move to woody biomass energy, we argue that the inferred benefits of biogenic emissions over fossil fuel emissions should be reconsidered.
Keywords: bioenergy emissions, biogenic carbon, carbon debt, forest biomass, greenhouse gas accounting
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Biological Indicators of Soil Health
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Participants in this webinar will learn about the biological importance related to soil health management. Advantages and limitations for a variety of biological soil health indicators will be discussed including how they are measured and may be interpreted.
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Videos and Webinars
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Biologist II - 70722 - Ecology Option -048 - January 2022
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The Biologist II – Ecology Option is a permanent, full-time position used by various agencies throughout the state. This is
management and resource work in the study, development, and improvement of state wildlife and plant resources. Employees in this
classification conduct field and laboratory research projects in accordance with established scientific principles and techniques. Work
may include supervision of technical employees and skilled and unskilled laborers.
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Upload New Resources
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Biophysical and Biogeochemical Responses to Climate Change Depend on Dispersal and Migration
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Different species, populations, and individuals disperse and migrate at different rates. The rate of movement that occurs in response to changes in climate, whether fast or slow, will shape the distribution of natural ecosystems in the decades to come. Moreover, land-use patterns associated with urban, suburban, rural, and agricultural development will complicate ecosystem adaptation to climate change by hindering migration. Here we examine how vegetation’s capacity to disperse and migrate may affect the biophysical and biogeochemical characteristics of the land surface under anthropogenic climate change. We demonstrate that the effectiveness of plant migration strongly influences carbon storage, evapotranspiration, and the absorption of solar radiation by the land surface. As a result, plant migration affects the magnitude, and in some cases the sign, of feedbacks from the land surface to the climate system. We conclude that future climate projections depend on much better understanding of and accounting for dispersal and migration.
Keywords: vegetation–climate feedback, global change, carbon storage, evapotranspiration, surface radiation
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Biophysical controls on organic carbon fluxes in fluvial networks.pdf
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Metabolism of terrestrial organic carbon in freshwater ecosystems is responsible for a large amount of carbon dioxide outgassing to the atmosphere, in contradiction to the conventional wisdom that terrestrial organic carbon is recalcitrant and contributes little to the support of aquatic metabolism. Here, we combine recent findings from geophysics, microbial ecology and organic geochemistry to show geophysical opportunity and microbial capacity to enhance the net heterotrophy in streams, rivers and estuaries. We identify hydrological storage and retention zones that extend the residence time of organic carbon during downstream transport as geophysical opportunities for microorganisms to develop as attached biofilms or suspended aggregates, and to metabolize organic carbon for energy and growth. We consider fluvial networks as meta-ecosystems to include the acclimation of microbial communities in downstream ecosystems that enable them to exploit energy that escapes from upstream ecosystems, thereby increasing the overall energy utilization at the network level.
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Biotic Drivers of Stream Planform: Implications for Understanding the Past and Restoring the Future
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Traditionally, stream channel planform has been viewed as a function of larger watershed and valley-scale physical variables, including valley slope, the amount of discharge, and sediment size and load. Biotic processes serve a crucial role in transforming channel planform among straight, braided, meandering, and anabranching styles by increasing stream-bank stability and the probability of avulsions, creating stable multithread (anabranching) channels, and affecting sedimentation dynamics. We review the role of riparian vegetation and channel-spanning obstructions—beaver dams and logjams—in altering channel–floodplain dynamics in the southern Rocky Mountains, and we present channel planform scenarios for combinations of vegetation and beaver populations or old-growth forest that control logjam formation. These conceptual models provide understanding of historical planform variability throughout the Holocene and outline the implications for stream restoration or management in broad, low-gradient headwater valleys, which are important for storing sediment, carbon, and nutrients and for supporting a diverse riparian community.
Keywords: stream planform, riparian vegetation, beaver, old-growth forest, restoration
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Climate Science Documents
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Biotic Multipliers of Climate Change
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A focus on species interactions may improve predictions of the effects of climate change
on ecosystems.
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Climate Science Documents
