Operationalizing Ecological Resilience Concepts for Managing Species and Ecosystems at Risk

Samuel A Cushman,Craig R Allen,Jeanne C Chambers

doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00241

Abstract

This review provides an overview and integration of the use of resilience concepts to guide natural resources management actions. We emphasize ecosystems and landscapes and provide examples of the use of these concepts from empirical research in applied ecology. We begin with a discussion of definitions and concepts of ecological resilience and related terms that are applicable to management. We suggest that a resilience-based management approach facilitates regional planning by providing the ability to locate management actions where they will have the greatest benefits and determine effective management strategies. We review the six key components of a resilience-based approach, beginning with managing for adaptive capacity and selecting an appropriate spatial extent and grain. Critical elements include developing an understanding of the factors influencing the general and ecological resilience of ecosystems and landscapes, the landscape context and spatial resilience, pattern and process interactions and their variability, and relationships among ecological and spatial resilience and the capacity to support habitats and species. We suggest that a spatially explicit approach, which couples geospatial information on general and spatial resilience to disturbance with information on resources, habitats, or species, provides the foundation for resilience-based management. We provide a case study from the sagebrush biome that illustrates the use of geospatial information on ecological and spatial resilience for prioritizing management actions and determine effective strategies.

Highlights

Ecosystems are changing at an unprecedented rate largely due to human impacts, including land development and use, pollutants, invasive species, altered disturbance regimes, increasing CO2, and climate change
Integration of resilience concepts with landscape concepts provides the basis for understanding how ecosystem attributes and processes interact with landscape structure to influence the responses of ecosystems to disturbances and stressors and their capacity to support resources, habitats, and species over time
Operationalizing the concepts of general, ecological, and spatial resilience provides the ability to address the effects of ecosystem and anthropogenic disturbances at scales relevant to managers

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Ecosystems are changing at an unprecedented rate largely due to human impacts, including land development and use, pollutants, invasive species, altered disturbance regimes, increasing CO2, and climate change. In a wide variety of systems, general and ecological resilience vary over environmental gradients at small landscape scales where aspect, slope, and topographic position affect solar radiation, erosion processes, effective precipitation, and soil development and, the composition, structure, and productivity of communities These environmental gradients influence land uses, such as livestock grazing (Bestelmeyer et al, 2011), disturbance patterns, such as the occurrence and severity of wildfires (Hessburg et al, 2016), ecosystem responses to those land uses and disturbances (e.g., Condon et al, 2011; Davies et al, 2012; Spasojevic et al, 2016), and restoration potential (Holl and Aide, 2011; de Souza Leite et al, 2013). Higher resolution categories can be developed for assessments conducted at ecoregional or sage-grouse Management Zone scales and detailed soils data are available for project area assessments

Spatial Resilience and GRSG Populations

Management Prioritization and Strategies

Findings

CONCLUSION