An ecogeographic framework for in situ conservation of forest trees in British Columbia

Hamann, Andreas; Smets, Pia; Yanchuk, Alvin D.; Aitken, Sally N.

doi:10.1139/x05-181

Cited by 35 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Evaluation of present protection coverage shows capricious results with some biological characteristics lacking adequate protection. Biases exist, especially in large reserves over 10,000 km 2 , toward protection of more seasonal, higher elevation, lower biodiversity environments [4,79]. Critiques of protected area systems identify a bias toward low biodiversity regions that protect barren or glacial environments [4,8,19] rather than southern forests and riparian habitats that host many more species at risk [80].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity Indicators Show Climate Change Will Alter Vegetation in Parks and Protected Areas

et al. 2013

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While multifaceted, a chief aim when designating parks and protected areas is to support the preservation of biological diversity, in part, through representing and conserving the full range of landscape conditions observed throughout a representative area. Parks and protected areas are, however, typically developed using a static interpretation of current biodiversity and landscape conditions. The observed and potential climate change impacts to biodiversity have created a need to also contemplate how parks and protected areas will respond to climate change and how these areas will represent the future range of landscape conditions. To assess change in biodiversity, broad-scale ecosystem information can be sourced from indirect remotely sensed indicators. Quantifying biodiversity through indirect indicators allows characterization of inter-relationships between climate and biodiversity. Such characterizations support the assessment of possible implications of climatic change, as the indicators can be generated using modeled forecasts of future climatic conditions. In this paper we model and map impacts of climate change on British Columbia’s parks and protected areas by quantifying change in a number of remotely sensed indicators of biodiversity. These indicators are based on the measured amount of incoming solar energy used by vegetation and map the overall annual energy utilization, variability (seasonality), and latent or baseline energy. We compare current conditions represented by parks and protected areas, to those forecasted in the year 2065. Our results indicate that parks and protected areas are forecasted to become more productive and less seasonal, due to increased vegetation productivity in higher elevation environments. While increased vegetation productivity may be beneficial for biodiversity overall, these changes will be particularly problematic for sensitive and specialist species. Future gaps in vegetation conditions protected by parks and protected areas are observed in the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains and the central interior region of British Columbia. Protected areas along the Coast Mountains, Vancouver Island highlands, and the Rocky Mountains show the greatest levels of change in the biodiversity indicators, including decreasing seasonality, with the Mountain Hemlock ecozone most at risk. Examples of large parks that are predicted to experience rapid change in vegetation characteristics include Strathcona, Garabaldi, and Kitlope. Our maps of future spatial distributions of indirect biodiversity indicators fill a gap in information products available for adaptive parks management and provide an opportunity for dialogue and further research on the use of future scenarios of landscape conditions in conservation planning

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity Indicators Show Climate Change Will Alter Vegetation in Parks and Protected Areas

et al. 2013

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“…Ecozones are not internally homogenous in their composition of species and ecosystems. Land-cover classes likely exhibit considerable variation in species composition and ecosystem service provisioning either regionally (Scott et al 2001;Hamann et al 2005) or along productivity and elevation gradients. The converse is also true.…”

Section: Gap Analysis Of the Boreal Ppa Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protected areas in boreal Canada: a baseline and considerations for the continued development of a representative and effective reserve network

2014

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REVIEWProtected areas in boreal Canada: a baseline and considerations for the continued development of a representative and effective reserve network 1 Margaret E. Andrew, Michael A. Wulder, and Jeffrey A. Cardille Abstract: Boreal forests maintain regionally important biodiversity and globally important ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and freshwater resources. Many boreal systems have limited anthropogenic disturbances and are preserved, in effect, to date largely by their harsh climates and remoteness. As of 2011, almost 10% of Canada is subject to some manner of formal protection, with 4.5% of this protected area found within the boreal zone. The management of existing parks and protected areas (PPAs) is shared amongst many federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions. Although there are currently low levels of anthropogenic development in some portions of the boreal zone (especially the north), if expansion of protected areas is of interest, there are challenges to traditional PPA networks that may be more prominent in the boreal zone than elsewhere: (1) the boreal zone is home to charismatic mammal species with area requirements much larger than typical PPAs; (2) the boreal zone is characterized by natural disturbance regimes that impact large areas; and (3) projected changes to climate for the boreal zone are among the greatest in the world, creating temporal considerations for conservation planning exercises. There is currently no PPA assessment specific to boreal Canada. To address this lack of an assessment, we developed a conservation gap analysis of the current PPA system with respect to a variety of environmental surrogates (ecozones, land cover, vegetation productivity, and landscape structure). The amount of formally protected land varied within each surrogate, with few commonly reported features meeting national or international conservation targets. Furthermore, few reserves met the areal requirements that have been previously recommended to protect large mammals or accommodate the disturbance regimes present. We also discuss considerations and implications of area-based versus value-based protection objectives. While recognizing that there are still scientific challenges around understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of PPAs, based upon our review and assessment, the following considerations should inform conservation options for the boreal zone: (1) representation of the distribution of natural features within the PPA network; (2) effective maintenance of habitat requirements and spatial resilience to both cyclical and directional changes in spatial patterns through large, connected reserves; and (3) implementation of sustainable forest management practices (where applicable) throughout the broader landscape, as traditional on-reserve protection is unlikely to be sufficient to meet conservation goals. The Canadian boreal is unique in possessing large tracts of inaccessible forested lands that are not subject to management interventions, thereby offering functions similar...

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“…The frequency of major species in BC including Douglas-fir has been estimated for each ecosystem unit (subzone-variant) (Hamann et al, 2005). Through associating the frequency of Douglas-fir for each ecosystem unit with RF consensus projections of ecosystem climate niche distribution, we projected the climate envelope for this species in future periods.…”

Section: Case Study: Ecosystem Climate Niche Shifts and Reforestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projecting future distributions of ecosystem climate niches: Uncertainties and management applications

Wang

Campbell

O’Neill

et al. 2012

Forest Ecology and Management

144

122

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An ecogeographic framework for in situ conservation of forest trees in British Columbia

Cited by 35 publications

References 12 publications

Biodiversity Indicators Show Climate Change Will Alter Vegetation in Parks and Protected Areas

Biodiversity Indicators Show Climate Change Will Alter Vegetation in Parks and Protected Areas

Protected areas in boreal Canada: a baseline and considerations for the continued development of a representative and effective reserve network

Projecting future distributions of ecosystem climate niches: Uncertainties and management applications

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