Climate Change: Anticipating and Adapting to the Impacts on Terrestrial Species

Helping land-dwelling species cope with climate change is a challenge with several moving parts. To support them, researchers first need to understand how climates are expected to shift, how plants and animals are likely to respond, and what range of actions might genuinely help species and ecosystems adapt.

The good news is that scientists are learning more all the time. A rapidly growing body of research shows how species may respond to a changing climate: through shifts in seasonal timing, such as when plants bloom or birds migrate; through changes in where species live; and through ripple effects on populations, relationships between species, and the spread of disease.

On the action side, a number of management strategies have been proposed. Some are broad principles, like building resilience into ecosystems, practicing adaptive management that adjusts as conditions change, and thinking about conservation at larger scales. Others are more specific, such as improving landscape connectivity so species can move across habitats, and expanding networks of protected reserves.

With better knowledge of how species will respond and a wider toolkit of strategies, people can take meaningful steps to help the natural world adapt to a changing climate.

Abstract

Addressing the impacts of climate change on terrestrial species requires knowledge of how climates will change, how species will respond, and what is the scope of actions that can be taken to help species and systems adapt. There is a rapidly growing understanding of how species will respond to projected climatic changes with changes in their phenologies, distributions, population dynamics, interspecific interactions, and disease dynamics. Many management strategies have been proposed for addressing these changes, including general principles such as fostering resilience, practicing adaptive management, and expanding the scale of management as well as more specific recommendations such as increasing landscape connectivity and increasing the extent of reserve networks.