Adaptive Management Practices Research Articles

Co-Producing Narratives and Indicators as Catalysts for Adaptive Governance of a Common-Pool Resource within a Protected Area

The theory and practice of adaptive management and adaptive governance have been widely studied in the complex social contexts that mediate how humans interact with ecosystems. Adaptive governance is thought to enable adaptive management in such contexts. In this study, we examine four often-used principles of adaptive governance (polycentric institutions, collaboration, social learning and complexity thinking) to develop a framework for reflecting on adaptive governance of a social-ecological system—the Knysna Estuary in South Africa. This estuary is a priority for biodiversity conservation, as well as a common-pool resource central to livelihoods. We used the framework to structure dialogue on the extent to which the four principles of adaptive governance were being applied in the management of the Knysna Estuary. The dialogue included diverse stakeholders, from those who have the power to influence adaptive management to those most dependent on the resource for their livelihoods. Based on a combination of theory and current reality we then identified eight indicators that could be used to guide a transition towards improved adaptive governance of the estuary. These indicators were assessed and supported by most stakeholders. The main contributions of our research are (a) a process for combining theory and stakeholder dialogue to reflect on adaptive governance of a social-ecological system; (b) a set of indicators or conditions that emerged from our participatory process that can be used for reflexive monitoring and adaptation of adaptive governance of Knysna Estuary; and (c) a real-world example of seeking complementary links between adaptive governance and adaptive management to promote effective management of complex social-ecological systems.

Taking a Rhetorical Perspective on Emerging Communication Practice: Pedagogy as Theory-Building Scholarship

Despite management theorists’ decades-long attention to the robust sustainability of complex organizations, adaptive management practices remain undertheorized. Management is evolving from a hierarchically organized effort in pursuit of strategically determined goals into a facilitation of layered, distributed, autonomous agents able to learn from their errors and ensure the entire system’s long-term survivability. A rhetorical perspective on pedagogy allows us to better prepare our students for success in the 21st century’s adaptive organization as well as contribute to theoretical scholarship of effective organizations.

The Impact of Climate Change on Animal Health and Disease Patterns

Purpose: The aim of the study is to examine the impact of climate change on animal health and disease patterns
 Methodology: This study adopted a desktop methodology. This study used secondary data from which include review of existing literature from already published studies and reports that was easily accessed through online journals and libraries
 Findings: The study revealed that climate change has had a significant impact on animal health and disease patterns, with various negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystems. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns influence the distribution and abundance of disease vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks and alter their geographic ranges. This can result in the spread of diseases like malaria, dengue fever, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus to new areas. Additionally, climate change enhance the replication and survival rates of pathogens, potentially leading to more frequent and severe disease outbreaks.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was anchored on One Health theory and Stressor-response theory. The study recommends Incorporation of climate change considerations into wildlife conservation and management strategies. This involves protecting and restoring habitats, creating wildlife corridors to facilitate species movement, and implementing adaptive management practices that consider the potential impacts of climate change on disease dynamics. Conservation efforts should prioritize the preservation of genetic diversity and the enhancement of resilience in animal populations.

Restoring Nature's Song: How Habitat Restoration Benefits Avifauna

Habitat restoration has proved to be a vital strategy in combating the widespread biodiversity loss caused by habitat degradation across the globe. The key roles played by avian species in critical ecosystem functions such as pollination, seed dispersal, and decomposition have made them an integral part of ecosystems, making them vital to the restoration process. Their detectability and cost-effective survey methods have positioned avifauna as focal species in ecological restoration research. This article delves into the effects of habitat restoration on avifaunal distribution, revealing a tapestry of positive outcomes. Restored habitats witness increased avian community diversity and evenness, heightened habitat heterogeneity, and greater densities of avian and migratory species. Avifauna's presence also facilitates breeding success, reduces nest parasitism, and fosters additional foraging and breeding grounds. Furthermore, habitat restoration has shown remarkable successes in reviving songbird populations in fragmented forests and rescuing endangered species like red-crowned cranes. In light of the transformative impact of avian restoration, understanding the effects of restoration on avifauna is pivotal in guiding management activities of restored sites. Implementing strategic management approaches such as predator control, maintaining habitat heterogeneity, controlling nest parasites, reintroducing natural disturbance regimes, and selecting appropriate plant species ensures a nurturing environment for avian survival. Additionally, promoting a heterogeneous environment in aquatic systems has proved crucial in enhancing bird diversity. Improving ongoing research and adaptive management practices further empowers restoration efforts, allowing us to compose a symphony of avian abundance, resilience, and harmonious coexistence with the natural world.

A Revised Adaptive Decision-Making Framework for Rangeland Management

Rangelands across the world are facing rapid and unprecedented social and ecological change. In the US West, sustaining the ecological and economic integrity of rangelands across both public and private lands depends largely on ranchers who make adaptive decisions in the face of variability and uncertainty. In this study, we build on previous conceptualizations of adaptive decision making that situate individual-level decisions within complex rangeland social-ecological systems. We surveyed 450 (36% response rate) Montana ranchers to gain insight into how key factors influenced adaptive decision making, specifically in the context of ongoing drought and climate-related change affecting rangeland ecology and productivity. We predicted that ranchers’ management goals, their use of information sources, and their use of monitoring would significantly influence the use of adaptive practices, with monitoring mediating the relationship between the explanatory and response variables. We tested these predictions using a path model analysis and found that management goals related to both stewardship and profit/production, the number of information sources used, and monitoring were all significantly and positively related to ranchers’ use of adaptive management practices. Interestingly, we found that these factors were hierarchical with monitoring and the use of information was the strongest predictor while management goals were secondary. The significant, mediating effect of monitoring on the use of adaptive practices suggests that monitoring may be an important means for providing ranchers with useful and timely information about rangeland condition that is needed to adjust their actions, meet their management goals, and adapt to drought and climate-related change. We argue there is a need to better understand the efficacy of monitoring designs—of what, by whom, and how—for adaptive decision making, and we discuss other considerations related to the provision of useful drought and climate information for adaptive decision making based on our findings.

Anxiety Communication Notes—A Tool to Facilitate Anxiety Management and Improve the Nurse–Patient Relationship in Mental Health Nursing

Mental health care tends to be dominated by a biomedical perspective at the expense of a more recovery-oriented approach. Research on nurse-led interventions intended to strengthen the patient’s ability to manage anxiety is sparse in this context. The aim of this study was to describe nurses’ experiences of the use of anxiety communication notes in nursing patients experiencing anxiety in mental health inpatient care. Data were collected by interviewing twelve nurses working in two mental health inpatient care wards in southwestern Sweden. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings showed that the use of anxiety communication notes was perceived to provide a nursing structure to foster the development and practice of adaptive anxiety management through a visual representation for mutual understanding of the patient’s anxiety pattern. The nurses could also use the anxiety communication notes to support nurse-patient communication and facilitate increased participation and empowerment in the patients’ anxiety management.

Closing the gap between science and management of cold-water refuges in rivers and streams.

Human activities and climate change threaten coldwater organisms in freshwater ecosystems by causing rivers and streams to warm, increasing the intensity and frequency of warm temperature events, and reducing thermal heterogeneity. Cold-water refuges are discrete patches of relatively cool water that are used by coldwater organisms for thermal relief and short-term survival. Globally, cohesive management approaches are needed that consider interlinked physical, biological, and social factors of cold-water refuges. We review current understanding of cold-water refuges, identify gaps between science and management, and evaluate policies aimed at protecting thermally sensitive species. Existing policies include designating cold-water habitats, restricting fishing during warm periods, and implementing threshold temperature standards or guidelines. However, these policies are rare and uncoordinated across spatial scales and often do not consider input from Indigenous peoples. We propose that cold-water refuges be managed as distinct operational landscape units, which provide a social and ecological context that is relevant at the watershed scale. These operational landscape units provide the foundation for an integrated framework that links science and management by (1) mapping and characterizing cold-water refuges to prioritize management and conservation actions, (2) leveraging existing and new policies, (3) improving coordination across jurisdictions, and (4) implementing adaptive management practices across scales. Our findings show that while there are many opportunities for scientific advancement, the current state of the sciences is sufficient to inform policy and management. Our proposed framework provides a path forward for managing and protecting cold-water refuges using existing and new policies to protect coldwater organisms in the face of global change.

Contributions and Resistances to Vulnerability of Rural Human Settlements System in Agricultural Areas of Chinese Loess Plateau since 1980

The vulnerability evolution of human settlements system on the micro-scale is a direct indicator of the local impact of global environmental change. Traditional agricultural areas are most vulnerable to climate and market changes. Due to the lack of historical statistics, micro-scale quantitative studies on the historical evolution of vulnerability are extremely scarce. From the perspective of the socio-ecological system, this study conducted field investigations along with quantitative assessment and an ethnographic approach to explore the vulnerability change of rural human settlements system since 1980 in Jia County, an agro-pastoral interlocking area. The study found that the vulnerability of natural, dwelling and social systems has continued to decrease, while human system vulnerability increased. At present, the RHSS is characterized by the poor quality of the river, a depressed rural population and a large gap between the rich and poor as weaknesses, and is characterized by sandstorm disaster reduction, more robust rural roads, adequate water for domestic use and high social security as strengths. Results revealed that ecological projects, increased precipitation, market changes, urbanization siphoning and farmer behaviors are key drivers to the vulnerability change since 1980. The study findings can be directly applied to rural revitalization strategies, vulnerability mitigation and adaptive management practices in China. In addition, the vulnerability evolution under multiple perturbations can provide guidance for settlement planning and construction in traditional agricultural areas among developing countries under global changes.

Upland prairie adaptive management staged‐scale restoration practices for native plant and endangered butterfly reintroduction

Abstract The present practice insight derives from land manager requests to document current on‐site activity and provides a management planning reference for restoration on Violet Prairie. Start‐up restoration initiates from trial‐and‐error adaptive management practices in the Puget Sound region of western Washington, USA. Treatments used focus on the implementation of staged‐scale restoration. Preparation intends to meet reintroduction goals of establishing a native plant community that could potentially support the threatened endemic Castilleja levisecta (golden paintbrush). Reintroduction of the associated native plant community provides habitat for endangered Euphydryas editha taylori (Taylor's checkerspot butterfly). Known conventional agricultural use coupled to fire suppression since the 1800s altered regional prairie lands to an unfavourable state for native plant species. Local native prairie soil types were favoured for growing conventional grasses and exotic forb species common to grazing pastures. Land abandonment and degradation has lengthened the time of disturbance and complicated restoring to a generalized reference point prior to settlement. Persistent exotic species, encroaching housing development, coniferous forest and recent wildfire complicate converting back to native prairie. Threatened and endangered species and their habitat are targeted in a trial‐and‐error process of staged‐scale adaptive management within the goal of whole ecosystem and connectivity restoration. Land managers focus on exotics removal and intensive native reseeding while restoring the use of prescribed burning as a maintenance tool. Embedded monitoring and observation advises where future practices need to be adapted by focusing on treatments and outcomes. Past land use practices replaced native soil seed banks with exotic seed banks that further distort reference proxies. Unknowns interrupt the current implementation additionally to soil conversion issues, while short‐term adaptive management methods initiate conversion back to native prairie. Species reintroduction choices to develop community structure are complicated by the fact that historical reference point species may be missing altogether from existing native communities. An unanswered outcome of the restoration process is determining which set of treatments best prepares soil for the desired native plant community.

The Use of Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UASs) for Quantifying Shallow Coral Reef Restoration Success in Belize

There is a growing need for improved techniques to monitor coral reef restoration as these ecosystems and the goods and services they provide continue to decline under threats of anthropogenic activity and climate change. Given the difficulty of fine-scale requirements to monitor the survival and spread of outplanted branching coral fragments, Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UASs) provide an ideal platform to spatially document and quantitatively track growth patterns on shallow reef systems. We present findings from monitoring coral reef restoration combining UAS data with object-oriented segmentation techniques and open-source GIS analysis to quantify the areal extent of species-specific coverage across ~one hectare of shallow fringing reef over a one-year period (2019–2020) in Laughing Bird Caye National Park, southern Belize. The results demonstrate the detection of coral cover changes for three species (Acropora cervicornis, Acropora palmata, and Acropora prolifera) outplanted around the caye since 2006, with overall target coral species cover changing from 2142.58 to 2400.64 square meters from 2019 to 2020. Local ecological knowledge gathered from restoration practitioners was used to validate classified taxa of interest within the imagery collected. Our methods offer a monitoring approach that provides insight into coral growth patterns at a fine scale to better inform adaptive management practices for future restoration actions both within the park and at other reef replenishment target sites.

Integrated modeling framework for sustainable agricultural intensification

Agricultural scientists are pursuing sustainable intensification strategies to increase global food availability, but integration from research to impact at the local-level requires knowledge of demographic and human-environment to enhance the adaptive capacity of farmers cultivating <10 ha. Enhancing close collaboration among transdisciplinary teams and these smallholders is critical to co-elaborate policy solutions to ongoing food security crises that are likely to be attuned with local conditions. Human and socio-cultural aspects need to be considered to facilitate both adoption and dissemination of adapted management practices. Despite this well-known need to co-produce knowledge in human systems, we demonstrate the inequality of current agricultural research in smallholder farming systems with heavy focus on a few domains of the sustainable intensification agricultural framework (SIAF), ultimately reducing the overall impact of interventions due to the lack compatibility with prevailing social contexts. Here we propose to integrate agriculture and agronomic models with social and demographic modeling approaches to increase agricultural productivity and food system resilience, while addressing persistent issues in food security. Researchers should consider the scale of interventions, ensure attention is paid to equality and political processes, explore local change interactions, and improve connection of agriculture with nutrition and health outcomes, via nutrition-sensitive agricultural investments.

Assessing the sustainability of yellow anaconda (Eunectes notaeus) harvest.

Sustainable wildlife management is necessary to guarantee the viability of source populations; but it is rarely practiced in the tropics. The yellow anaconda (Eunectes notaeus) has long been harvested for its leather. Since 2002 its harvest has operated under a management program in northeastern Argentina, which relies on adaptive management practices, that limit the minimum body length permitted for harvesting, the number of active hunters and the length of hunting seasons. Here we investigated the effects of yellow anaconda harvest on its demography based on 2002-2019 data and show that exploitation levels are sustainable. The gradual reduction in annual hunting effort, due to a decrease in the number of hunters and hunting season duration, reduced the total number of anacondas harvested. Conversely, captures per unit effort increased across the study period. The body size of anacondas was not influenced by the harvesting, and more females than males were caught. We also found that a decrease in mean temperature positively influenced anaconda harvest and the capture of giant individuals. Because sustainable use is a powerful tool for conservation, and anacondas are widespread in South America, these discoveries are highly applicable to other species and regions.

The Future of Work: Adapting Management Practices to the Gig Economy and Freelancer Culture

The Future of Work: Adapting Management Practices to the Gig Economy and Freelancer Culture

Recent and projected climate change–induced expansion of Atlantic halibut in the Northwest Atlantic

With the influence of climate change on marine systems expanding, climate adaptation will be fundamental for the future of fisheries management. An exponential increase in Atlantic halibut Hippoglossus hippoglossus landings over the past decade has coincided with warming ocean temperatures. Here, we explore how historical changes in abundance have been linked to changing thermal habitat conditions and project trends with a warming climate under different emissions scenarios. From 1990 to 2018, available thermal habitat increased by 11.6 ± 7.35% and growing degree days have increased by 13.5 ± 7.86 °C·days across the region. With warming, the probability of occurrence is projected to increase up to 20.5% in Canada by 2085 under RCP 8.5 for Atlantic halibut. Our results suggest that shifting patterns of halibut distribution and abundance are linked to thermal conditions and that continued warming will likely continue to enhance habitat conditions, leading to increased abundance in the Canadian range. Collectively, these results illustrate the influence of shifting environmental conditions on population dynamics and emphasize the importance of adaptive management practices in a dynamic future climate.

Towards a Modeling of the Impacts of Road Verge Management on the Pollination Service Using System Dynamics: A Case Study in France

Several research studies have proven that eliciting and predicting the impact of human activity on ecosystem services will be crucial to support stakeholders’ awareness and to decide how to interact with the environment in a more sustainable manner. In this sense, the ecosystems known as road verges are particularly important because of their length and surface at an international scale, and their role in mitigating the damage done by roads. Plant pollination by insects is one of the most important ecosystem services. Because of its nature and the fact that they extend across a variety of landscapes, roadside can contribute to the maintenance of healthy ecosystems, under the condition of adapted management practices. This research is the first attempt to develop a System Dynamics-based aiming to estimate the ecological and economic impact of maintenance on the road verge pollination service in France. Maintenance strategies of road verges are simulated to compare their performance. The results show that there are ways to improve current maintenance strategies in terms of pollination value, but also that the model needs to consider other ecosystem services and synergistic effects that could further affect pollination to obtain more accurate estimations.

Bridging conservation across the ex situ-in situ spectrum: Insights into the reproductive ecology of the threatened narrow-headed gartersnake (Thamnophis rufipunctatus).

Zoo-based (ex situ) conservation breeding programs provide invaluable opportunities to uncover enigmatic behaviors and traits of focal species under managed care, which can support research and conservation management efforts. A suite of factors and a limited range have yielded population declines in the threatened narrow-headed gartersnake (Thamnophis rufipunctatus). Better understanding its cryptic ecology and life history (e.g., reproductive ecology) offers conservation benefits. We analyzed data on courtship behavior, parity and litter size, offspring size, and neonatal growth from an ex situ T. rufipunctatus population at the Phoenix Zoo from 2009 to 2018. Courtship behavior and parturition phenology are likely linked with the North American monsoon season, yet the courtship window may be wider than realized. We document the first instances of interannual iteroparity and multigenerational rearing of successful breeders at the ex situ level. Litter sizes varied but were relative to maternal body mass, suggesting that fecundity may be driven by intrinsic condition (e.g., age and size) of breeding females. Mean offspring body masses were equivalent between sexes, and neonate growth trends were quadratic during their first 9 months. Sexual dimorphism became apparent around 4-5 months age. Much of these data are novel for T. rufipunctatus and provide insight into their reproductive ecology. Phenology of reproductive ecology and body size metrics can guide field surveillance, age estimations, and population ecology monitoring, as well as inform ex situ adaptive management practices. Strategies spanning the ex situ-in situ spectrum are applicable to other imperiled taxa to better inform conservation management decisions.

A call for ‘management authorship’ in community forestry

Community forestry is becoming an increasingly popular forest management model worldwide. Community structure, property rights, and institutional perspectives of community forestry have been discussed so far. Yet, the question of how to integrate scientific knowledge into indigenous practices has not been sufficiently articulated, and this is the most significant issue in uncertain yet complex socio-ecological systems. Examining the current policy struggle of scientific vs indigenous practices in a pioneering country of community forestry―Nepal, we propose a framework of ‘management authorship’ in community forestry. As opposed to the classical approach of ‘biosphere people’ influencing ‘ecosystem people’ by injecting science into the community, this perspective paper would be instrumental in integrating science into indigenous practices without compromising capacity, confidence, and stewardship of local actors over the resulting adaptive management practices.

Explaining shifts in adaptive water management using a gendered multi-level perspective (MLP): a case study from the Nile Delta of Egypt

ABSTRACT Understanding the logic behind farmers' choice of adaptive water management practice is important to appreciate the opportunities and challenges they face and to scale targeted solutions effectively. This paper aims to understand the main drivers of change that induce adaptation in water management. The Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework that juxtaposed the within and across micro-, meso-, and macro-level drivers was applied to a case study of the Nile Delta to identify key drivers of change and farmers' adaptive responses. The framework helped in contextualizing key gender, temporal, and spatial dimensions of the drivers, and to identify their individual and interactive effects on farmers' adaptation decisions. We find that farmers' gender-differential water management choices are influenced not only by the individual changes in the three spheres of influence but also their interactions. The study highlights the benefits of using MLP to identify challenges that should often be tackled simultaneously to improve agricultural water delivery and use. We demonstrated that adaptation choices in water management are more sustainable when farmers' decisions are supported by enabling environments, including local regulations, norms, national institutional frameworks, and policies. They are also informed by and responsive to global trends such as climate change and markets.

Distributions of two native ungulates at the third pole are highly sensitive to global warming

The conservation of native species through the establishment and management of nature reserves needs to take into account the effects of anticipated climate change. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) can be used to obtain key information on the spatiotemporal dynamics of species distributions, which is crucial for management strategies. For two ungulates native to Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata) and Kiang (Equus kiang), we developed a novel two-step SDM framework with an intermediate step that quantifies the suitability of grassland habitats as essential food availability in the Three River Sources Region (TRSR). We then applied the multi-model inference and bootstrapping techniques to improve accuracy and to estimate uncertainty. We found the best models of grassland suitability included growth degree days, aridity, and topographical roughness as predictors; while common predictors of ungulate distributions included grassland suitability, coldest month temperature, and topographical roughness. The potential ranges of both ungulates will gradually move westward, northward, and upward in the TRSR under two climate change scenarios (SSR245 and SSR585). Within current local reserve boundaries in the TRSR, two focal ungulates would nearly go local extinction in the end of this century in SSR585. However, the northwest corner of the TRSR would become a new distribution center in SSR245 and deserves a higher priority for conservation. In addition to a greenhouse gas reduction agenda to curb the warming trend, our findings advocate adaptive management practices regarding spatiotemporal dynamics of wildlife distributions to prevent the extinction of native species and to increase resilience to climate change.

Automated mapping of Portulacaria afra canopies for restoration monitoring with convolutional neural networks and heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle imagery.

Ecosystem restoration and reforestation often operate at large scales, whereas monitoring practices are usually limited to spatially restricted field measurements that are (i) time- and labour-intensive, and (ii) unable to accurately quantify restoration success over hundreds to thousands of hectares. Recent advances in remote sensing technologies paired with deep learning algorithms provide an unprecedented opportunity for monitoring changes in vegetation cover at spatial and temporal scales. Such data can feed directly into adaptive management practices and provide insights into restoration and regeneration dynamics. Here, we demonstrate that convolutional neural network (CNN) segmentation algorithms can accurately classify the canopy cover of Portulacaria afra Jacq. in imagery acquired using different models of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) and under variable light intensities. Portulacaria afra is the target species for the restoration of Albany Subtropical Thicket vegetation, endemic to South Africa, where canopy cover is challenging to measure due to the dense, tangled structure of this vegetation. The automated classification strategy presented here is widely transferable to restoration monitoring as its application does not require any knowledge of the CNN model or specialist training, and can be applied to imagery generated by a range of UAV models. This will reduce the sampling effort required to track restoration trajectories in space and time, contributing to more effective management of restoration sites, and promoting collaboration between scientists, practitioners and landowners.