Evaluating Species’ Adaptive Capacity in a Changing Climate: Applications to Natural-Resource Management in the Northwestern U.S.

Natural resource managers are confronted with the pressing challenge to develop conservation plans that address complex ecological and societal needs against the backdrop of a rapidly changing climate. Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) provide valuable information that helps guide management and conservation actions in this regard. An essential component to CCVAs is understanding adaptive capacity, or the ability of a species to cope with or adjust to climate change. However, adaptive capacity is the least understood and evaluated component of CCVAs. This is largely due to a fundamental need for guidance on how to assess adaptive capacity and incorporate this information into conservation planning...

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Persist in place or shift in space? Evaluating the adaptive capacity of species to climate change

Abstract (from Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment): Assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change serves as the basis for climate-adaptation planning and climate-smart conservation, and typically involves an evaluation of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (AC). AC is a species’ ability to cope with or adjust to changing climatic conditions, and is the least understood and most inconsistently applied of these three factors. We propose an attribute-based framework for evaluating the AC of species, identifying two general classes of adaptive responses: “persist in place” and “shift in space”. Persist-in-place attributes enable species to survive in situ, whereas the shift-in-space response...

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Vital Futures: Conservation Adaptation Planning for Landscape and Climate Changes in the Southeast

The Southeast is currently undergoing high rates of population growth, urbanization, and land use change while also experiencing climatic changes. These changes are threatening, and will continue to threaten, wildlife and their habitats. Most existing conservation programs and activities, however, focus on maintaining systems in their current condition, or returning them to a historic state, rather than enabling systems to adapt to projected changes. This project was designed to support the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) effort in developing a collaborative network of conservation partners, shared conservation goals, and regional strategies to manage fish, wildlife, and other natural resources...