How to Decide Whether to Move Species Threatened by Climate Change

Rout, Tracy M.; McDonald‐Madden, Eve; Martin, Tara G.; Mitchell, Nicola J.; Possingham, Hugh P.; Armstrong, Doug P.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075814

Cited by 46 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…For example, if future flows are lower than projected for a 'lower flows' site, then plantings located on relatively low surfaces to maximize water availability while avoiding flood scour may still be too high above the water table to survive. future conditions (Rout et al, 2013). Another risk is that introducing novel species or genotypes might displace locally native species that otherwise might persist under Figure 3.…”

Section: Plantingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating climate change projections into riparian restoration planning and design

et al. 2015

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Climate change and associated changes in streamflow may alter riparian habitats substantially in coming decades. Riparian restoration provides opportunities to respond proactively to projected climate change effects, increase riparian ecosystem resilience to climate change, and simultaneously address effects of both climate change and other human disturbances. However, climate change may alter which restoration methods are most effective and which restoration goals can be achieved. Incorporating climate change into riparian restoration planning and design is critical to long-term restoration of desired community composition and ecosystem services.In this review, we discuss and provide examples of how climate change might be incorporated into restoration planning at the key stages of assessing the project context, establishing restoration goals and design criteria, evaluating design alternatives, and monitoring restoration outcomes. Restoration planners have access to numerous tools to predict future climate, streamflow, and riparian ecology at restoration sites. Planners can use those predictions to assess which species or ecosystem services will be most vulnerable under future conditions, and which sites will be most suitable for restoration. To accommodate future climate and streamflow change, planners may need to adjust methods for planting, invasive species control, channel and floodplain reconstruction, and water management. Given the considerable uncertainty in future climate and streamflow projections, riparian ecological responses, and effects on restoration outcomes, planners will need to consider multiple potential future scenarios, implement a variety of restoration methods, design projects with flexibility to adjust to future conditions, and plan to respond adaptively to unexpected change.

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Section: Plantingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating climate change projections into riparian restoration planning and design

et al. 2015

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“…), in practice decision trees remain an underused tool (Rout et al. ). In a decision tree, the problem is represented as a flow chart, where paths connecting decision nodes (choices among decision alternatives, conventionally represented as squares) and chance nodes (stochastic processes, represented as circles) lead to discrete outcomes (represented as hexagons).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning for ex situ conservation in the face of uncertainty

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et al. 2015

Conservation Biology

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Ex situ conservation strategies for threatened species often require long-term commitment and financial investment to achieve management objectives. We present a framework that considers the decision to adopt ex situ management for a target species as the end point of several linked decisions. We used a decision tree to intuitively represent the logical sequence of decision making. The first decision is to identify the specific management actions most likely to achieve the fundamental objectives of the recovery plan, with or without the use of ex-situ populations. Once this decision has been made, one decides whether to establish an ex situ population, accounting for the probability of success in the initial phase of the recovery plan, for example, the probability of successful breeding in captivity. Approaching these decisions in the reverse order (attempting to establish an ex situ population before its purpose is clearly defined) can lead to a poor allocation of resources, because it may restrict the range of available decisions in the second stage. We applied our decision framework to the recovery program for the threatened spotted tree frog (Litoria spenceri) of southeastern Australia. Across a range of possible management actions, only those including ex situ management were expected to provide >50% probability of the species' persistence, but these actions cost more than use of in situ alternatives only. The expected benefits of ex situ actions were predicted to be offset by additional uncertainty and stochasticity associated with establishing and maintaining ex situ populations. Naïvely implementing ex situ conservation strategies can lead to inefficient management. Our framework may help managers explicitly evaluate objectives, management options, and the probability of success prior to establishing a captive colony of any given species.

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“…; Rout et al. ). We used a systematic 4‐step process: 1, identified the suite of potential source populations; 2, identified attributes that can be used to choose among the possible source populations; 3, weighted these attributes according to which are likely to be the most important to source population survival; and 4, ranked the suitability of the sources by summing the attribute values by the attribute weights for each.…”

Section: Case Studymentioning

confidence: 97%