Can Evolution Help Wildlife Adapt to Climate Change? Exploring Evolutionary Adaptive Capacity (EVAC) and Bridging the Gap between Science and Management Active
Assessing the vulnerability of wildlife species to a changing climate is critical for understanding what adaptation actions need to be taken to minimize negative impacts. The ability of species to adapt to the impacts of climate change (i.e., their adaptive capacity) is an important factor to consider when assessing vulnerability. For example, organisms can possess traits that allow them to move to areas of favorable habitat or change their phenotypes (observable characteristics) in response to changing environmental conditions. Additionally, an organism’s traits can adapt to a changing external environment over multiple generations through evolutionary processes.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that “evolutionary adaptive capacity” (the ability to adapt to changing environments via evolutionary processes; EVAC) can actually occur over shorter time periods than originally thought and the tools to measure and predict evolutionary changes are becoming increasingly available. However, accounting for EVAC in climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning is uncommon and resource managers often make decisions without considering the potential evolution of species.
The purpose of this project is to help bridge the gap between science and management communities by highlighting examples of EVAC that have resulted from changing climate conditions and providing insights on how relevant scientific information can be used in policy and planning activities. This work will foster a two-way communication between scientists and managers that focuses equally on what scientists can learn from managers and what managers can learn from scientists, increasing the likelihood of knowledge and science use by the decision-making community. The specific objectives are to 1) illustrate the importance of EVAC and its interaction with other forms of adaptive capacity for understanding vulnerability of wildlife, 2) identify common barriers that managers encounter with regards to assessing and making decisions related to EVAC, 3) provide knowledge that could serve as a solution for overcoming these barriers, and 4) identify knowledge gaps where future research is needed to inform key management questions.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 5702c2c1e4b0328dcb8178ac)
Assessing the vulnerability of wildlife species to a changing climate is critical for understanding what adaptation actions need to be taken to minimize negative impacts. The ability of species to adapt to the impacts of climate change (i.e., their adaptive capacity) is an important factor to consider when assessing vulnerability. For example, organisms can possess traits that allow them to move to areas of favorable habitat or change their phenotypes (observable characteristics) in response to changing environmental conditions. Additionally, an organism’s traits can adapt to a changing external environment over multiple generations through evolutionary processes.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that “evolutionary adaptive capacity” (the ability to adapt to changing environments via evolutionary processes; EVAC) can actually occur over shorter time periods than originally thought and the tools to measure and predict evolutionary changes are becoming increasingly available. However, accounting for EVAC in climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning is uncommon and resource managers often make decisions without considering the potential evolution of species.
The purpose of this project is to help bridge the gap between science and management communities by highlighting examples of EVAC that have resulted from changing climate conditions and providing insights on how relevant scientific information can be used in policy and planning activities. This work will foster a two-way communication between scientists and managers that focuses equally on what scientists can learn from managers and what managers can learn from scientists, increasing the likelihood of knowledge and science use by the decision-making community. The specific objectives are to 1) illustrate the importance of EVAC and its interaction with other forms of adaptive capacity for understanding vulnerability of wildlife, 2) identify common barriers that managers encounter with regards to assessing and making decisions related to EVAC, 3) provide knowledge that could serve as a solution for overcoming these barriers, and 4) identify knowledge gaps where future research is needed to inform key management questions.
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 5702c2c1e4b0328dcb8178ac)