Symposium
Chris Nadeau
Climate Change Adaptation Scientist
Schoodic Institute, United States
Abraham Miller-Rushing
Science Coordinator
National Park Service, Acadia National Park, United States
Nicholas Fisichelli
President and CEO
Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park, United States
The biological impacts of climate change are already challenging the efficacy of conventional conservation and restoration strategies, and the impacts of climate change have only just begun. As climate change accelerates, so too will the impacts, including the potential extinction of nearly 1 million species. It is therefore imperative that we adapt biodiversity conservation and restoration strategies to climate change to ensure that investments we make in conservation today continue to provide benefits in an uncertain future.
Dozens of strategies have been proposed to adapt current management practices to climate change and many of these strategies are already being implemented around the world. However, there is little empirical evidence to support most climate change adaptation efforts. Moreover, some strategies risk causing more harm than good. It is therefore imperative that we implement rigorous, on-the-ground tests of commonly recommended climate change adaptation strategies to provide the evidence-base for future action. Such tests will require diverse practitioner-scientist partnerships to ensure that they address pressing conservation issues with scientific rigor.
In this symposium, we will highlight the lack of empirical support for most climate change adaptation strategies, discuss methods for rapid learning in the field of climate change adaptation, and highlight case studies that are leading the way in on-the-ground climate change adaptation. We will call on the diverse membership of the Ecological Society of America to form practitioner-scientist partnerships that are necessary to develop large-scale climate change adaptation experiments and we will provide examples of such partnerships. Then, we will discuss methods for overcoming traditional barriers to scientist-practitioner partnerships and next steps for wide-scale action. The session is intended to inspire the action necessary to transform the field of climate change adaptation from a descriptive field, to a rigorous experimental field that involves all ecologists.
Presenting Author: Kathryn Braddock – EcoAdapt
Co-Author: Lara Hansen – EcoAdapt
Co-author: Deb Rudnick – EcoAdapt
Presenting Author: Chris Nadeau – Schoodic Institute
Co-author: Randall R. Hughes, PhD – Northeastern University
Co-author: Abraham J. Miller-Rushing – National Park Service, Acadia National Park
Co-author: Nicholas Fisichelli – Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park
Co-author: Phil Colarusso – Environmental Protection Agency
Co-author: Eric Schneider – Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
Presenting Author: Marcella Windmuller Campione – University of Minnesota
Presenting Author: Olivia LeDee – USGS Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center