Human-induced climate change is emerging as one of the gravest threats to biodiversity in history, and while a vast amount of literature on the ecological impact of climate change exists, very little has been dedicated to the management of wildlife populations and communities in the wake of unprecedented habitat changes. Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate is an essential resource, bringing together leaders in the fields of climate change ecology, wildlife population dynamics, and environmental policy to examine the impacts of climate change on populations of terrestrial vertebrates. Chapters assess the details of climate change ecology, including demographic implications for individual populations, evolutionary responses, impacts on movement patterns, alterations of species interactions, and predicting impacts across regions. The contributors also present a number of strategies by which conservationists and wildlife managers can counter or mitigate the impacts of climate change as well as increase the resilience of wildlife populations to such changes.
A seminal contribution to the fields of ecology and conservation biology, Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate will serve as the spark that ignites a new direction of discussions about and action on the ecology and conservation of wildlife in a changing climate.
Jedediah F. Brodie is assistant professor of conservation ecology at the University of British Columbia. Eric S. Post is professor of biology at the Pennsylvania State University. Daniel F. Doak is professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Wildlife Conservation in a Changing Climate provides an important, cutting-edge, and forward-looking contribution toward our understanding of climate effects on wildlife species. Much of our current understanding in this field is largely a sketch of macroecological patterns and inferences. This book takes us a long step forward by filling in the sketchy understanding with detailed and nuanced biological information, not only about species-habitat associations, but also about species’ potential to adapt or migrate and the consequences for whole ecosystem structure and functioning. The book’s strength is that it is a compendium of work by both academic scientists and front-line conservation practitioners who are wrestling with ideas and practical ways to conserve wildlife in the face of changing climate. These essays set the standard for providing scientific insights for the practice of wildlife conservation in an era of changing climate.”
- Oswald Schmitz, Yale University