Ecosystem resilience presentation for bd project managers meeting october 11 2010

1. MANAGING ECOSYSTEMS TO IMPROVE RESILIENCE Adriana Dinu, Regional Practice Leader Environment and Energy October 12th, 2010 Putoransky, Taimyr © 2010 UNDP. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Proprietary and Confidential. Not For Distribution Without Prior Written Permission.

3. Tipping points

5. Grasslands

6. ForestsNalichevo Park, Kamchatka

7. What is Resilience? Materials science: property of returning to the original shape after deformation that does not exceed the elastic limit Psychology: the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe Ecology: capacity of an ecosystem to persist in the face of disturbance cope with disturbances (storms, fire) without shifting into a qualitatively different state withstand external pressures and reorganize, so as to still retain the same function, structure, identity and feed-backs A resilient ecosystem is able to maintain its ‘identity’ in terms of taxonomic composition, structure, ecological functions, and process rates

8. Why is Resilience Important? Without resilience, ecosystems become vulnerable to the effects of disturbancethat previously could be absorbedClimate change, interacting with other land use pressures, might overcome the resilience of even some large areas of primary ecosystems, pushing them into a permanently changed state. Past an ecological ‘tipping point’, ecosystems could be transformed into a different type, and, in extreme cases, a new ecosystem state. The new state may be biologically and economically impoverished, and irreversible.

9. Drivers of biodiversity loss

10. Current Impacts of CC on Biodiversity Ecosystems are approaching tipping points Shift to a new state Changes in ecosystem structure and function: Aquatic freshwater habitats, wetlands, Arctic and alpine ecosystems; Bogs, mires and fens - most vulnerable - 50 % affected (concern as they are important carbon stores); Snow, ice and frozen ground: increased number of glacial lakes; increased ground instability in permafrost; Approx. 10% of species at high risk of extinction for every 1°C rise in global mean temperature; Amphibians - 45 % of species negatively affected Difficult to predict - Approach may be accompanied by slow, subtle changes, vs. the rapid, drastic changes that occur when a tipping point is reached -

11. Climate Tipping Points and Thresholds

12. Climate Change and Other Pressures: Driving BD to Tipping Points Source: GBO-3

13. Example : Grasslands exposed to over-grazing Original state High biodiversity Native grass Grass dominated system High economic value Altered state Low biodiversity Invasive species – weeds Shrub dominate system Low economic value Even when grazing pressure is relaxed, there may be little change in composition, because of the advantage of woody vegetation over grass when the woody is dominant

14. Example : Coral reefs exposed to nutrient pollution Original state High biodiversity Coral-dominated NPP Medium productivity High economic value Altered state Low biodiversity Algae-dominated NPP High primary productivity Low economic value Biggs et al (in prep) Sourcebook in Theoretical Ecology

15. Example : Lakes exposed to nutrient pollution Natural causes: in aging lakes – building-up concentration of plant nutrients Slow process – over centuries. Anthropogenic: nutrients input from agriculture, sewage… Oligotrophic Low primary productivity Low nutrient content High Drinking water quality High biodiversity High economic value Eutrophic High primary productivity High nutrient content – algal bloom Poor Drinking water quality Low biodiversity Low economic value Can be reversible – controlled by P input; irreversible shifts between stability domains

16. Key points in understanding resilience Climate patterns of the past will not be the same in the very near future and will continue to fluctuate. Reversibility and irreversibility of ecological states, and likelihood of regime shifts. Landscape scale is critical for maintaining resilience across different ecosystems Management actions and land use decisions may increase or decrease resilience.

17. Planning at a landscape level to maintain large scale resilience of ecosystems Biodiversity conservation is essential as insurance to maintain resilient ecosystems and ensure a sustainable flow of ecosystem goods and services to society. Existing PAs are unlikely to incorporate the long-term and large-scale dynamics of ecosystems. Conservation strategies have to incorporate land managed for human use. Present static PAs should be complemented with dynamic reserves, such as ecological fallows and dynamic successional reserves, that are part of ecosystem management mimicking natural disturbance regimes at the landscape level.

19. composed of: species, interactions and structures that make ecosystem reorganization possible, and its components may be found within disturbed patches as well in the surrounding landscape.External memory - Sources for colonization- Internal memory - Biological legacies – sources for regeneration Dispersal filters Acting in patch Between site Within site

21. builds knowledge and understanding of ecosystem dynamics, including resilience;

22. develops management practices that measure and respond to feedback loops, including ecological thresholds; and

23. supports flexible institutions and social networks in multi-level governance systems.

25. 10 principles for maintaining landscape-scale resilience Maintain key species interactions and functional diversity by identifying keystone species and key seed dispersal agents Apply appropriate disturbance regimes (e.g., fire regimes, hydrological flow regimes) Control aggressive, over-abundant invasive species Minimize threatening ecosystem-specific processes Maintain species of particular concern (e.g., highly threatened/rare species) Source: Fischer, J., et al., 2006.

26. Forest resilience Resilience of a forest ecosystem is determined by the: diversity of species genetic variability within species regional pool of species and ecosystems size of forest ecosystems - the larger and less fragmented, the better condition and character of the surrounding landscape Primary forests are more resilient than modified natural forests or plantations Some degraded forests, especially those with IAS may be stable and resilient They can become serious management challenges if attempts are made to re-establish the natural ecosystem to recover original goods and services Some Forest s with naturally low species diversity have a high resilience Boreal pine forests : are highly adapted to severe disturbances, and their dominant tree species have a broad genetic variability that allows tolerance to a wide range of environmental conditions

27. Managing Forest ecosystems for resilience Maintain genetic diversity in forests: by avoiding practices that select only certain trees for harvesting based on site, growth rate, or form Maintain stand and landscape structural complexity: using natural forests and processes as models Maintain connectivity across forest landscapes by reducing fragmentation, expanding protected area networks, and establishing ecological corridors. Maintain functional diversity and eliminate the conversion of diverse natural forests to monotypic or reduced-species plantations. Reduce non-natural competition by controlling invasive species and reduce reliance on non-native tree crop species for plantation, afforestation, or reforestation Maintain biodiversity at all scales and components Ensure national and regional networks of scientifically designed, comprehensive, adequate, and representative protected areas.

28. Managing Grasslands/Steppes for resilience Work at the Landscape level Include all grassland types across environmental gradients in protected areas:as we do not know precisely which grassland types will be most sensitive to CC Protect relict and native-dominated communities: as models for habitat restoration and help in understanding how grasslands altered vs. unaltered are affected by CC. Minimize fragmentation by land use changes and roads: protect core grassland habitats distant from roads and human disturbances; time road maintenance to avoid spread of invasives; monitor roadside vegetation. Improved Connectivity: to facilitate the migration of species in response to CC - where it is critical for maintaining gene flow among populations of rare species Low-intensity, sustainable grazing practices: where native species are adapted to it; Reduce/remove grazing from sites where the predominant native species lack a long evolutionary history of grazing by large hooved herbivores; Maintain heterogeneity of management at the landscape and mimic grazing patterns of native herbivores;

29. Managing Grasslands/Steppes for resilience (contd) Prevent and control the spread of invasive species: focus on the causes of invasion Restoration and reintroductions of native species: IAS control, inoculations with soil biota for native plant vigor, nutrient cycling ; restoration of native disturbance regimes Maintenance of natural fire regimes: influences health and heterogeneity Provide buffer zones: for shifting of populations to lands bordering reserves as conditions inside reserves become unsuitable; act as barriers to the spread of new invaders away from roads. Identify and protect functional groups and keystone species: increased tolerance to environmental extremes and recovery potential as native species richness increases. Protect climatic refugia at multiple scales: so they can again function as refugia during present and future CC

30. Designing conservation strategies for resilience Landscape Approaches Working at all institutional scales – international, national, local; private, public Maintain or restore ecological function Allow redundancy and inefficiency in the system Pay attention to disturbance – don’t exclude them; keep them from propagating Implement adaptive management strategies Explicit goals; provisional hypotheses; data gathering; evidence-based decisions; Monitor key ‘slow variables’ intervene in dynamics only where unacceptable and irreversible change is otherwise unavoidable

31. Take home messages Resilience is not good or bad; it depends on your objective We are currently generally unable to precisely predict the position of thresholds leading to regime shifts, but we know they occur We do know some generalised attributes of systems that promote or erode resilience High efficiency and high connectivity reduce resilience to external shocks Functional diversity and redundancy increase resilence

32. THANK YOU!!!