The USGS Powell Center has released new guidance to help land and natural-resource managers navigate a future where climate-driven environmental conditions increasingly diverge from historical norms.
From the USGS:
A new manuscript from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center offers a forward‑looking framework for understanding and managing ecosystems as climate‑driven environmental conditions move further away from historical norms. The work, led by researchers at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, synthesizes emerging ecological and climatological research to address a pressing question for natural resource managers: What happens when resisting ecological change is no longer feasible, and ecosystem reassembly becomes inevitable?
The manuscript developed by the “Ecosystem Stability Drivers” Working Group, draws on two years of collaborative analysis by USGS scientists, federal partners, and academic experts. By examining data from terrestrial and marine systems around the world, the group sought to identify the mechanisms that support ecosystem resilience in the face of “abiotic shocks,” such as heatwaves and droughts, which are expected to intensify in the coming decades.
In the essay published in Conservation Biology, the authors outline the range of ecological transitions that may occur as climatic conditions diverge from historical baselines. These transitions may include shifts in dominant species, declines in ecosystem structure and function, or even the conversions to an entirely different system (Forest to grassland conversions, for example) as ecosystems reorganize under unprecedented environmental pressures.
Rather than viewing these changes solely as losses, the manuscript encourages managers to recognize ecosystem reassembly as a realistic and increasingly common outcome of climatic novelty. By shifting focus from restoring past conditions to planning for future ones, the authors argue that managers can better enhance ecosystem resilience and maintain critical ecological functions.
The paper concludes with practical guidance to help managers anticipate ecological transitions and design strategies that “future‑proof” management actions. This includes tools for predicting when and where transitions are likely to occur and approaches for optimizing functional outcomes even as ecosystems reorganize.
The manuscript represents the first major publication from the Powell Center working group and sets the stage for continued research into the drivers of ecosystem stability in a rapidly changing world.
RESEARCH PAPER: Scenarios and strategies for future-proofing ecosystem management under climatic novelty
By: Lauren T. Toth, Elizabeth T. Borer, Deron E. Burkepile, Joan Dudney, Nathan P. Lemoine, Julianna J. Renzi, Kathryn A. Smith, Travis A. Courtney, Sara A. Goeking, William M. Hammond, David L. Hoover, Sandra MacFadyen, Michael J. Osland, Joseph E. Townsend, Robert Y. Fidler
Abstract: Climate change is driving unprecedented declines in dominant, habitat-forming foundation species across marine and terrestrial ecosystems globally. As climatic novelty becomes the norm, ecosystem reassembly will become increasingly common. Predicting and understanding these transitions, and their implications for future ecosystem functioning, is essential for designing effective forward-looking management strategies.
We explored 3 scenarios that describe a range of ecosystem reassembly trajectories following declines in previously dominant habitat-forming taxa: compensation, in which functionally similar subdominant or immigrating taxa maintain ecosystem structure and function; decline, in which no compensation occurs leading to loss of ecosystem structure and function; and transformation, in which the ecosystem present historically can no longer persist and shifts into a fundamentally different ecosystem type with distinct structure and function.
This range of potential outcomes highlights the urgent need to assess the ecological feasibility and functional implications of potential management actions. Scientists and managers can work together to quantify local-scale climatic novelty and ecosystem resilience to better predict the most likely reassembly trajectories and identify management interventions that will optimize ecosystem function. This approach would allow for more proactive planning to support persistence of ecosystem structure and function, helping to future-proof ecosystem management in a rapidly changing world.
Click here to read this open access paper.
