Lattice-work corridors for climate change: a conceptual framework for biodiversity conservation and social-ecological resilience in a tropical elevational gradient

Abstract

Lattice-work corridors for climate change: a conceptual framework for biodiversity conservation and social-ecological resilience in a tropical elevational gradient. ABSTRACT. Rapid climate change poses complex challenges for conservation, especially in tropical developing countries where biodiversity is high while financial and technical resources are limited. The complexity is heightened by uncertainty in predicted effects, both for ecological systems and human communities that depend heavily on natural resource extraction and use. Effective conservation plans and measures must be inexpensive, fast-acting, and able to increase the resilience of both the ecosystem and the social-ecological system. We present conservation practitioners with a framework that strategically integrates climate change planning into connectivity measures for tropical mountain ecosystems in Costa Rica. We propose a strategy for doubling the amount of habitat currently protected in riparian corridors using measures that are relatively low cost and fast-acting, and will employ and expand human capital. We argue that habitat connectivity must be enhanced along latitudinal gradients, but also within the same elevational bands, via a lattice-work corridor system. This is needed to facilitate range shifts for mobile species and evolutionary adaptation for less mobile species. We think that conservation measures within the elevational bands must include conservation-friendly land uses that improve current and future human livelihoods under dynamic conditions. Key components include community involvement, habitat priority-setting, forest landscape restoration, and environmental services payments. Our approach is fundamentally adaptive in that the conservation measures employed are informed by on-the-ground successes and failures and modified accordingly, but are relatively low risk and fast-acting. Our proposal, if implemented, would satisfy tenets of climate-smart conservation, improve the resilience of human and ecological communities, and be a model for other locations facing similar challenges.

Impending extinction crisis of the world’s primates: Why primates matter

“…These forests also have lower and less variable annual deforestation rates than protected ones ( 124 ). In both land-sparing (favoring species with large area requirements) and land-sharing approaches, promoting biodiversity and the use of lattice-work corridors to connect landscapes along latitudinal and elevational gradients may promote a diversity of habitats for the long-term persistence of primate species that differ in their ecological requirements and may mitigate some of the deleterious effects of climate change ( 125 , 126 ). A recent study of the fauna, including lemurs, of a 90-km-long biodiversity corridor connecting two national parks in Madagascar showed the need to differentiate among passive dispersers (species that settle randomly around the source population), active dispersers (species that settle only in favorable habitats), and gap-avoiding dispersers (species that avoid dispersing across nonhabitat areas).…”

Connectivity for species on the move: supporting climate‐driven range shifts

“…Other gradient‐based approaches do not explicitly incorporate climate data but rely on the fundamental principle that temperatures are generally cooler at higher elevations and latitudes, and that species will shift uphill and toward the poles accordingly. Townsend and Masters (), for instance, proposed a latticework corridor system that follows riparian networks both across elevational bands (to facilitate movement) and within elevational bands (to promote population persistence), whereas Anderson et al . () modeled connectivity in the eastern US to prioritize conduits for northward and upward shifts.…”

New concepts, models, and assessments of climate-wise connectivity

“…Riparian corridors are commonly used as movement corridors by many species of animals and plants (including terrestrial and aquatic species), support important ecological processes, provide cooler and moister microclimates than the immediate surrounding (especially important in summer or dry seasons), and tend to span climatic gradients as they are oriented along elevational gradients (Beier 2012, Krosby et al 2014. In addition, riparian areas often enjoy popular support for water quality and recreation benefits, and do not require modeling, making them easy to convey for community conservation efforts (Townsend and Masters 2015). In many places, riparian zones often already have some legal protection (Fremier et al 2015), though the legal requirements may not be wide enough to support a full suite of species that could potentially benefit from the corridors.…”

“…Kilbane (2012) solicited community involvement to modify a systematic trans-continental network of corridors across Australia to match local conditions. Townsend and Masters (2015) recommended involving stakeholders in delineating and protecting connectivity in tropical mountain ecosystems by protecting elevational connectivity along rivers which can enable range shifts to higher elevations, and promoting population viability in perpendicular elevational bands through conservation-friendly land uses. These approaches increase landscape permeability, can incorporate environmental gradients, and are simple in design which makes involvement by the local communities easier, an essential component for successful connectivity conservation implementation (Keeley et al 2018).…”