A 2.5‐million‐year perspective on coarse‐filter strategies for conserving nature's stage |
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Authors: | Jacquelyn L Gill Jessica L Blois Blas Benito Solomon Dobrowski Malcolm L Hunter Jr Jenny L McGuire |
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Institution: | 1. School of Biology & Ecology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, U.S.A.;2. Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME, U.S.A.;3. School of Natural Sciences, University of California‐Merced, Merced, CA, U.S.A.;4. Department of Bioscience, Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark;5. Department of Forest Management, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.;6. Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, U.S.A.;7. Department of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A. |
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Abstract: | Climate change will require novel conservation strategies. One such tactic is a coarse‐filter approach that focuses on conserving nature's stage (CNS) rather than the actors (individual species). However, there is a temporal mismatch between the long‐term goals of conservation and the short‐term nature of most ecological studies, which leaves many assumptions untested. Paleoecology provides a valuable perspective on coarse‐filter strategies by marshaling the natural experiments of the past to contextualize extinction risk due to the emerging impacts of climate change and anthropogenic threats. We reviewed examples from the paleoecological record that highlight the strengths, opportunities, and caveats of a CNS approach. We focused on the near‐time geological past of the Quaternary, during which species were subjected to widespread changes in climate and concomitant changes in the physical environment in general. Species experienced a range of individualistic responses to these changes, including community turnover and novel associations, extinction and speciation, range shifts, changes in local richness and evenness, and both equilibrium and disequilibrium responses. Due to the dynamic nature of species responses to Quaternary climate change, a coarse‐filter strategy may be appropriate for many taxa because it can accommodate dynamic processes. However, conservationists should also consider that the persistence of landforms varies across space and time, which could have potential long‐term consequences for geodiversity and thus biodiversity. |
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Keywords: | biodiversity climate change conserving nature's stage geodiversity geomorphology land facets paleoecology Quaternary biodiversidad cambio climá tico conservació n del estado de la naturaleza Cuaternario facetas del suelo geodiversidad geomorfologí a paleo‐ecologí a |
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