Species relocation under climate change - a hot topic!

A flurry of recent publications indicate to me that the idea of assisted colonization is a hot topic.  Another contribution in this area is from a CSIRO collaboration with UQ and Melbourne Uni, in the new journal 'Nature Climate Change':

Optimal timing for managed relocation of species faced with climate change
Eve McDonald-Madden, Michael C. Runge, Hugh P. Possingham and Tara G. Martin (2011) Nature Climate Change 1 261–265

 This new journal is likely to be highly influential and perhaps also this paper.  It provides a decision framework to enable relocation of species in a timely and proactive fashion under the threat of climate change (or perhaps more likely, human population pressure).  The approach is largely based on theoretical carrying capacities for the source and new region and projections on how they will change over time, with relocation aiming to optimise population size.  The authors try to incorporate uncertainty into their decisions, making the observation that ' There are two key components of climate change that are particularly challenging: management in the face of system changes; and management in the face of uncertainty surrounding these changes.'  It is a very 'theoretical' paper - I would like to see the approach they advocate applied to a practical example.  Maybe that will be a follow-up publication!

  Figure 1: Carrying capacities in the source (K_S) and destination (K_D) are shown with thick solid and dashed lines respectively; the population size, N, is shown with a thin solid line. The population size represents the state of the system by which decisions are specified. Note, N can decline with K_S or increase towards K_S, depending on the starting population size. The premise of managed relocation is that the suitability of the source habitat will decline with climate change and a destination habitat will become suitable. c_S and c_D represent the times at which half the suitable habitat in the source and destination populations are expected to be lost. The demographic cost of moving a population is expressed as the relocation survival rate, ϕ. The thin dashed line represents population change after relocation based on ϕ.

Assisted colonization

Our latest review for F1000!  It is perhaps my last, as I am soon to take up a post at CSIRO in Brisbane, so I won't be able to work closely with Mark Lonsdale on this anymore, but we shall see.  It has been very interesting searching the literature each month for worthy papers to review for F1000.  Now I am in the habitat I will certainly continue writing this blog!

Assisted colonization: integrating conservation strategies in the face of climate change.

Loss SR, Terwilliger LA, Peterson AC 2011 Biol Conservation 144: 92-100  

DOI 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.11.016

Reviewed at Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/10103966

As global change accelerates and with it species extinctions, it seems that new measures may be needed in conservation practice. One such measure -- a controversial one -- is that of ‘assisted colonization’. Loss et al. review the potential means to implement such an approach. They feel that there may be some scope for careful use of assisted colonization in conjunction with other landscape-scale conservation measures.

Climate change - so what?

An interesting collection of papers has recently been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A (London) answering the questions of will the world get over 4 degrees C warmer and so what if it does... 

Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications

It is based around papers given at a conference in 2009 that asked '(i) how probable a warming of four degrees or higher might be, (ii) what the consequences of such a warming might be for ecosystems and society, (iii) how to adapt to such large changes, and (iv) how to keep the risk of high-end climate change as low as possible.'

Here are some views from a group of Aussie climate scientists!

Science at the Shine Dome

A couple of weeks ago I was really honored to be nominated for sponsorship to attend Science at the Shine Dome, as an Early Career Researcher.  Science at the Shine Dome is the annual meeting of the Australian Academy of Sciences (the Australian equivalent of the Royal Academy in the UK).  Hearing fellows of the academy and awardees give fantastic talks about their research was very inspiring and their enthusiasm for science was infectious.

Here is a photo of me (in a very obvious green jumper!) - Firstly with the other 'travel awardees' and then with all the Early Career researchers in front of the Shine Dome.  Photo credit and copyright to Mark Graham photography. 

The symposium on Population Challenges to Sustainability was a very interesting one, as there are of course many angles on that complex debate.  The programme for the day was really well thought out and was not all ‘doom’ at all, although there were quite a few sobering statistics.  There was a thought provoking talk on urban design for higher density living as a viable way to cope with increasing populations in Australia and to make our cities more ‘efficient’, although this would obviously imply a lifestyle change for many Australians.    There were also many suggestions on how we might measure impacts and manage population increase in Australia, including Tim Flannery’s suggestion to set up an advisory board to evaluate potential impacts against various criteria to set population ‘limits’.  A number of talks also questioned the emphasis on justifying population increase to increase total GDP, when GDP per capita and other indices may be a better measure of ‘wealth’ – and there appears to be little influence of population increase on GDP per capita.  The question was also raised as to whether economists can’t begin to think about how a contracting economy may be viable rather than always focusing on increasing GDP.    Issues of health and education were also covered, including a talk by Marie Stopes charity which appears to have been successful in some developing countries to reduce population increase through giving women greater access to contraceptives and thus freedom of choice.

CSIRO was well represented at the symposium with talks on population pressure on water resources and agriculture (food security), highlighting the challenges of climate change as well as increasing populations.  I was also pleased to meet Professor Michael Barber at the dinner, who is a fellow of the academy and former CSIRO executive. 

Here I am (on the right) dressed up for the wonderful black-tie dinner at the Museum of Australia (photo copyright: Mark Graham Photography). The speaker at the dinner was Professor Robert, Lord May of Oxford, who was very entertaining but also made some profound comments in relation to the theme of sustainability and population increase. 

May review for F1000

At last, a paper about cane toads!  Well, not quite, but this study on amphibians is an interesting one, as the literature on establishment success is somewhat swamped by plant studies.  Therefore, this study, which uses a meta-analysis of amphibian populations across the globe to examine Darwin's Naturalization hypothesis, is interesting and refreshing.

Establishment success of introduced amphibians increases in the presence of congeneric species.

R Tingley, BL Phillips, R Shine Am Nat 2011 Mar 177 3:382-8 DOI 10.1086/658342

Our Review: Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/10431957

When it comes to testing ecological theories of invasion processes, plants have often been the organism of choice. So, to see amphibians being used to test Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis, as in this paper, is exciting. 

A popular review

I was really pleased to be told by F1000 that our April review has proved very popular on their site, it was in the top 5% in terms of user accesses for 2 weeks following its publication.  This highlights the importance to the scientific community of the research question 'What are the determinants of success in invasive species?'

Mapping threatened ecosystems in Australia

This is an interesting map, recently published as part of the Bioscience article 'The Spatial Distribution of Threats to Species in Australia', Evans et al., BioScience, 61(4):281-289. 2011.

Figure 3: The distribution of the predominant threats to biodiversity across Australia. The “predominant threat” is the threat affecting the greatest number of species in each subcatchment. Where two or more threats affect an equivalent number of species, we consider there to be no predominant threat occurring in these subcatchments, displayed here in shades of gray.
Darker colors indicate a larger overall number of threats occurring in the subcatchment. White indicates areas where no threatened species occur.

 This is quite a novel way to highlight the range of threats to Australian ecosystems, putting them in a spatial context.  The article argues that the use of such a spatial and visual analysis will aid mitigation efforts and help identify location-specific threats.