Researchers assessed how an expansion of forest reserves and climate-adaptive management may improve ecological connectivity and resilience under different climate scenarios. Resilience is measured as the capacity for these systems to maintain extant forest communities and aboveground live biomass. Forest landscape change was simulated via a spatially explicit forest ecosystem model, LANDIS-II. Simulations covered areas in northern Minnesota and northern lower Michigan that represent northern Great Lakes forest types. Restoring and maintaining ecological connectivity is one of the primary climate change adaptation strategies available to land managers, in addition to silvicultural practices. This study is integrated in an ongoing regional Climate Change Response Framework linking the results to land management throughout the northwoods.
