Breakout

Title: In a future distinctly different from the past, what metrics do we use for conservation?

Organizer: Marni Koopman, Climate Change Scientist, National Center for Conservation Science and Policy

Session Goals: Identify a set of conservation metrics with which to prioritize species and areas for conservation under a changing climate

Additional Discussants:
Mark Anderson, Director of Conservation Science, Eastern U.S. Region, The Nature Conservancy

Robin O’Malley, Program Director, Environmental Reporting, Heinz Center

Bethany Bradley, Princeton University

Dominick DellaSala, Executive Director, Conservation Science and Policy Program, NCCSP
 
Marietta Eaton, Bureau of Land Management

Curt Flather, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station

Greg Hayward, USDA Forest Service

Amy Keister, US Fish and Wildlife Service 







Summary:

Conservation goals have traditionally focused on restoring and maintaining genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity.  Conservation practitioners identify areas of high biological diversity, biological integrity, endemism, and threat in order to prioritize areas for conservation focus.  All of these metrics depend on historical data to rank potential areas.  When we consider climate change, however, historical data tells us little about what the future landscape will encompass.  Ecological communities are expected to unravel as species respond in an individual manner to the variable impacts of climate change.  Novel species combinations and depauperate ecosystems, caused by extinctions of up to 30% of all species, are expected to be widespread within the next century.  Threats from such stressors as habitat conversion, pollution, invasive species, loss of keystone species, and altered fire and water regimes will be exacerbated by climate change, but the geographical distribution of climate stress impacts may also cause areas with few current stressors to become significantly degraded. 

Such dramatic and unavoidable change will challenge ecologists, land managers, and conservation practitioners, making educated and responsible preparation planning vital to their future success.  In order to proactively prepare for climate change, however, we will need to develop new metrics with which to prioritize conservation areas and document success.  During this breakout session, we will discuss the following issues, with the goal of outlining a process for developing strategies as well as appointing a smaller group to explore the issues further:

1.  Conservation metrics and prioritization – as climate change progresses, natural areas are expected to experience climate stress and, often, biome level change.  Some areas are expected to experience greater climate stress than others.  As climate models become increasingly sophisticated, and climate projections more reliable, we are better able to determine where the highest and lowest projected climate stress and biome level change might occur.  One approach to conservation would be to focus on areas of projected high climate stress and high biodiversity, but doing so might be fighting a losing battle.  Alternatively, we could focus conservation efforts on areas of low climate stress, thereby increasing the chances of success but potentially sacrificing areas of great species richness.  Which approach might be most appropriate, and is there a middle ground for providing the greatest overall ecological benefit?  Within an area, do we focus on preserving biological diversity, or ecosystem function?

2.  National ecosystem indicator species – developing a set of species that act as indicators for specific habitat types would allow us to monitor changes in suites of species and their habitat in response to climate change and other stressors.  First, however, criteria for choosing species to act as indicators would need to be developed.  What criteria should be included?  Paleoecological data tell us that species in an ecological community will respond to climate change individually, thereby unravelling species associations.  Will species that are currently good indicators continue to serve this purpose under climate change?  Will we need to constantly need to update our suite of species and how would this impact the detection of long term trends?  What role should indicator species play in climate change adaptation?

3.  Adaptive management – as climate change progresses, adaptive management will become increasingly valuable as an approach to increasing our understanding of climate change impacts and ecological relationships while also maintaining biological diversity across the landscape.  Unfortunately, adaptive management has become a  catch phrase, and the rigorous scientific method that characterizes adaptive management is often lost as the phrase is used more casually.  How can we restore the rigorous scientific approach to adaptive management, and how can adaptive management serve us best in a changing climate?  What data needs to be collected, how does that information fit with the national ecosystem indicator species discussed above, and can we implement standardized adaptive management practices to prevent the misuse of such a powerful and necessary tool?  What will constitute a “control” under climate change?