Table 2.
Examples of adaptation actions that focus on protection of key ecosystem features as a means of supporting resilience; many of these options are not yet proven and require testing
| Adaptation approach: protect key ecosystem features |
|---|
| National Forests (Joyce and others 2008) |
| ✓ Facilitate natural (evolutionary) adaptation through management practices (e.g., prescribed fire and other silvicultural treatments) that shorten regeneration times and promote interspecific competition |
| ✓ Promote connected landscapes to facilitate species movements and gene flow, sustain key ecosystem processes (e.g., pollination and dispersal), and protect critical habitats for threatened and endangered species |
| National Parks (Baron and others 2008) |
| ✓ Remove barriers to upstream migration in rivers and streams |
| ✓ Reduce fragmentation and maintain or restore species migration corridors to facilitate natural flow of genes, species and populations |
| ✓ Use wildland fire, mechanical thinning, or prescribed burns where it is documented to reduce risk of anomalously severe fires |
| ✓ Minimize alteration of natural disturbance regimes, for example through protection of natural flow regimes in rivers or removal of infrastructure that prohibits the allowance of wildland fire |
| ✓ Aggressively prevent establishment of invasive non-native species or diseases where they are documented to threaten native species or current ecosystem function |
| National Wildlife Refuges (Scott and others 2008) |
| ✓ Manage risk of catastrophic fires through prescribed burns |
| ✓ Reduce or eliminate stressors on conservation target species |
| ✓ Improve the matrix surrounding the refuge by partnering with adjacent owners to improve/build new habitats |
| ✓ Install levees and other engineering works to alter water flows to benefit refuge species |
| ✓ Remove dispersal barriers and establish dispersal bridges for species |
| ✓ Use conservation easements around the refuge to allow species dispersal and maintain ecosystem function |
| ✓ Facilitate migration through the establishment and maintenance of wildlife corridors |
| Wild & Scenic Rivers (Palmer and others 2008) |
| ✓ Maintain the natural flow regime through managing dam flow releases upstream of the wild and scenic river (through option agreements with willing partners) to protect flora and fauna in drier downstream river reaches, or to prevent losses from extreme flooding |
| ✓ Use drought-tolerant plant varieties to help protect riparian buffers |
| ✓ Create wetlands or off-channel storage basins to reduce erosion during high flow periods |
| ✓ Actively remove invasive species that threaten key native species |
| National Estuaries (Peterson and others 2008) |
| ✓ Help protect tidal marshes from erosion with oyster breakwaters and rock sills and thus preserve their water filtration and fisheries enhancement functions |
| ✓ Preserve and restore the structural complexity and biodiversity of vegetation in tidal marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves |
| ✓ Adapt protections of important biogeochemical zones and critical habitats as the locations of these areas change with climate |
| ✓ Connect landscapes with corridors to enable migrations to sustain wildlife biodiversity across the landscape |
| ✓ Develop practical approaches to apply the principle of rolling easements to prevent engineered barriers from blocking landward retreat of coastal marshes and other shoreline habitats as sea level rises |
| Marine Protected Areas (Keller and others 2008) |
| ✓ Identify ecological connections among ecosystems and use them to inform the design of MPAs and management decisions such as protecting resistant areas to ensure sources of recruitment for recovery of populations in damaged areas |
| ✓ Manage functional species groups necessary to maintaining the health of reefs and other ecosystems |
| ✓ Design marine protected areas with dynamic boundaries and buffers to protect breeding and foraging habits of highly migratory and pelagic species |
| ✓ Monitor ecosystems and have rapid-response strategies prepared to assess ecological effects of extreme events as they occur |
| ✓ Identify and protect ecologically significant (“critical”) areas such as nursery grounds, spawning grounds, and areas of high species diversity |