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Reserve Design under Climate Change: From Land Facets Back to Ecosystem Representation
Richard R Schneider1, Erin M Bayne1
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Plos One
|May 16, 2015
Summary
Climate change will alter ecosystem distributions, but proportional representation targets in conservation reserves can be maintained. Ecosystems may act as proxies for stable land features, supporting current reserve design approaches.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Conservation Biology
- Climate Change Science
Background:
- Global warming is projected to shift ecosystem distributions, challenging the long-term effectiveness of current conservation reserve systems.
- Existing reserve designs often rely on coarse-filter ecosystem representation, which may become outdated under climate change.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess if proportional ecosystem representation targets can be maintained in conservation reserves under future climate change scenarios.
- To investigate the relationship between ecosystem distribution shifts and the stability of reserve composition.
Main Methods:
- Bioclimatic envelope models were used to project future distributions of major Alberta, Canada ecosystems.
- The Marxan conservation planning software was employed to design reserve systems under varying representation targets and spatial clumping.
- The composition of these reserves was analyzed across projected time periods.
Main Results:
- Climate envelope projections for the 2080s indicate significant shifts in the ecosystem types within reserves.
- Despite these shifts, proportional ecosystem representation targets were largely maintained across all simulated time periods.
- Minor exceptions to target maintenance were observed, suggesting some sensitivity to planning parameters.
Conclusions:
- The stability of proportional ecosystem representation suggests ecosystems may function as proxies for underlying, stable abiotic land facets.
- Conventional ecosystem-based reserve design may remain effective for accommodating climate change, potentially aligning with abiotic-focused approaches.
- Further research could explore the precise relationship between ecosystem and land facet stability in reserve planning.
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