[Vision2020] Nature Journal: "Confronting the Biodiversity Crisis"

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1005/full/climate.2010.38.html

Nature Reports Climate Change
Published online: 5 May 2010 | doi:10.1038/climate.2010.38

Confronting the biodiversity crisis

 *In 2002, the world's governments agreed to significantly slow the rate of
biodiversity loss by 2010. Time is almost up, and by most accounts they've
failed. Now that climate change is emerging as one of biodiversity's
greatest threats, scientists are proposing new ways to tackle the crisis.
Hannah Hoag reports.*
Barcoding life

In July 2009, for the fourth year in a row, a swarm of biologists fanned out
across the tundra near Churchill, Manitoba, in northern Canada. They plucked
fragments of plants and animals -- feathers and fur, mayflies and moths --
from land, lakes, rivers and ocean. At the lab, the specimens were ground up
and identified using short stretches of DNA -- a unique barcode for every
species. So far, the team -- led by Paul Hebert, an evolutionary biologist at
the University of Guelph in Canada, who invented DNA barcoding (Proc. R.
Soc. B 270, 313-321; 2003) to speed up the process of taxonomy -- has
identified more than 4,000 species from its northern expeditions, including
parasitic wasps that have been observed across North America but were
previously overlooked in the Canadian Arctic.

"The first business of conservation is telling species apart," says Hebert.
Before barcoding, biological specimens were identified on the basis of
morphology, behaviour and genetics. The technique will offer a "quantum
jump" in the rate that species are registered, says Hebert. What once took
months can now take a few hours. It also gives biodiversity a boost:
barcoding has repeatedly shown that one species is, in fact, three, or
ten (Evol.
Biol. 7, 121; 2007).

Dan Janzen, a tropical ecologist and conservation biologist who splits his
time between the University of Pennsylvania in Philadephia and the Area de
Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica, sees the value in DNA
barcoding. He is charged with identifying the estimated 12,500 species of
caterpillar in the ACG -- an area the size of New York City and its suburbs.
In his years of studying this conservation area, he has witnessed changes in
biodiversity. For one, the species he studies are moving up the mountains.

In the 1990s and earlier, the common caterpillar *Copaxa rufinans* could be
found at elevations between 400 and 1,200 metres in the rainforests of ACG.
Its more localized relative, *Copaxa curvilinea*, lived at lower elevations
-- between 100 and 500 metres in ACG. In the past decade, caterpillars of *C.
rufinans* almost disappeared from the 400- to 700-metre zone in ACG, whereas
*C. curvilinea* became common in the 500- to 700-metre zone. At the same
time, says Janzen, the temperature in the rainforests increased and the dry
season lengthened and intensified. "*C. rufinans* has largely dropped out at
the lower end of its distribution in ACG and *C. curvilinea* has expanded
its lowland distribution upwards by at least 200 metres in these last ten
years," says Janzen.

In general, species worldwide are expected to try to move to higher
elevations as temperatures rise. As DNA barcoding technology matures, one
can envisage scientists using handheld DNA decoders to document such changes
in a region's biodiversity or to rapidly identify regions that contain
species of interest. "If we are engaged in a game of triage, we might like
to preserve those that are genetically distinct," says Hebert.
Backing up biodiversity

In 2008, scientists began stacking the shelves of the Svalbard Global Seed
Vault in Norway with dark grey boxes from around the world. Wheat from
Sweden, rice from the Philippines and maize from Mexico -- more than 522,000
seed samples from around the world are stored at -18 °C within the
subterranean facility, like safety-deposit boxes in a bank.

Managed by a three-way agreement among the Norwegian government and two
conservation organizations -- the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic
Genetic Resource Center -- the vault aims to safeguard crop genetic
diversity, which will provide resources to help agriculture adapt to climate
change. Although seed banks exist globally, the vault at Svalbard is an
insurance policy against the loss of seeds held elsewhere.

Most of today's crops have been carefully bred for traits that fit the
present climate. According to modelling studies, climate change will start
to negatively affect crop production by 2050. In southern Africa, for
example, maize yields are predicted to fall by as much as 30 per cent if
temperatures rise 1 °C (Science 319, 607-610;
2008<http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1152339>).
And with a 2 °C temperature rise, more than 80 per cent of the land area
over most African nations would be climatically unsuitable for the crops now
growing there (Glob. Environ. Change 19, 317-325; 2009). "That would be a
food crisis," says Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop
Diversity Trust. Fowler says it's likely that farmers will have to adapt
their agricultural practices by using analogous crops from other locations
in the future. But if today's varieties do not adapt to tomorrow's climates,
new varieties containing traits for drought tolerance or pest resistance,
for example, could be bred using seeds from global seed banks, or from the
Svalbard vault, as a last resort.

Domesticated crops aren't the only ones at risk: as many as 16 to 22 per
cent of the wild relatives of cowpea, peanut and potato could go extinct by
2055, according to one study (Agric. Ecosys. Environ. 126, 13-23; 2008).
Experts such as Kenneth Street, a genetic resource scientist at the
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, in Aleppo,
Syria, are tracking down these wild relatives, which could be used to boost
a crop's genetic diversity and resilience to climate change. Using
electronic maps that show soil type and climate, these modern-day seed
hunters identify environments with conditions that favour genetic diversity.
"Usually, we travel to high lands or marginal lands where modern varieties
couldn't grow, where farmers are eking out an existence with marginal crops
or still using traditional varieties," says Street. "We concentrate on areas
that are likely to have drier, or hotter, or more salty conditions." A
recent expedition to Tajikistan led Street to a remote village where farmers
handed him a collection of wheat seeds, one of which offered resistance to
Sunn pest, an insect that favours warmth and destroys cereal crops in warm
dry areas. "We are continually on the hunt for novel sources of resistance,"
he says.

"To some, agriculture is the enemy in the climate change debate -- it is the
source of a lot of greenhouse gases," says Fowler. "But we have to make sure
that agriculture adapts. If it doesn't, all our other efforts on climate
change are down the drain."
Putting a price on nature

Nine watersheds tumble into Cauca Valley, a region in the southwest of
Colombia sandwiched between two of the Colombia Andean mountain chains. For
centuries, its richness has attracted humans, who exploited the valley's
resources first for agriculture and stockbreeding, and later for
hydroelectric power generation. Today, sugar cane production dominates the
valley's industry.

"There are many stresses from water use. The sugar cane sector is thirsty,
but the people who live there also need it for daily activities and for
drinking water," says Alejandro Calvache, a water fund specialist at The
Nature Conservancy, based in Cartagena, Columbia. TNC, in collaboration with
the sugar cane growers' association, the regional environmental authority
and several grassroots organizations, is building a water fund that will
oversee a massive program of reforestation, water protection, soil
improvements, education and training. By investing in the region's ecosystem
services, the project, which is called 'Agua Por La Vida y la Sostenibilidad
' -- meaning 'Water for Life and sustainability' -- aims to lessen climate
change impacts and threats to biodiversity.

Water funds exist globally to conserve watersheds, but this is one of the
first to include climate change modelling to help direct investments. The
International Center for Tropical Agriculture, a research institute in
Columbia, is modelling scenarios to determine the effects of climate change
on local water resources. These scenarios are then fed into a computer-based
decision-making tool called InVEST, which has been developed by the Natural
Capital Project, a partnership between TNC, Stanford University and the
World Wildlife Fund. InVEST identifies the areas where climate change is
unlikely to threaten activities the water fund has been invested in -- such
as promoting the reforestation of a hillside or teaching eco-friendly
cattle-ranching practices -- and their returns. "Traditionally, conservation
has pulled on people's heart-strings," says Heather Tallis, lead scientist
at Natural Capital. "We try to appeal to people's lifeblood, like drinking
water."

Some researchers caution, however, that accurate regional climate change
forecasts are still fraught with uncertainty (Nature 463, 284-287; 2010), so
care is warranted in relying on them to direct investment decisions. But
Calvache says one of the strengths of the climate-influenced approach is its
flexibility. "You can invest money, see what happens and see if those were
the best returns in terms of conservation goals," he says. "There are many
uncertainties in climate change ... being flexible is extremely important."
Shifting species

In the 1970s, the purple finch was a frequent visitor to American bird
feeders. The reddish-coloured bird would breed in Canada in the summer, and
winter in the central and southern United States. Forty years later, its
flight patterns have changed. As temperatures have increased, its southern
migrations have shortened by about 700 kilometres.

Some species have shifted their ranges in response to climate change, but
not all will be able to keep pace. That realization radicalized Camille
Parmesan, an integrative biologist at the University of Texas at Austin. She
figured out that some threatened species could be rescued by deliberately
removing them from dead-end locations and relocating them to more
appropriate climes, an intervention dubbed 'assisted migration', 'assisted
colonization' or 'managed relocation' (Science 321, 345-346;
2008<http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1157897>
).

There have been few incidences of assisted relocation thus far, and Parmesan
hasn't had a hand in any of them. But that may soon change. Parmesan is
suggesting the US Fish and Wildlife Service use managed relocation to save
the Laguna mountain skipper, a small, black-and-white endangered butterfly
found on only two or three mountaintops in southern California. "There are
mountains nearby, further north, some of which have higher elevations and
have the host plants. It could easily be moved without a lot of
consequences," says Parmesan.

But others aren't convinced of the merits of assisted migration. "It's
ecological gambling," says Anthony Ricciardi, an invasive-species biologist
at McGill University in Montreal. "We do not have a sufficient understanding
of the impact to engage safely in assisted colonization on a frequent
basis." The risks aren't empty. Whether the species in question is an
American pica or a torreya pine, its intentional introduction could transfer
disease into new host species, or it could become invasive and wipe out the
destination's native fauna.

"You might have really good intentions, but in many cases it will come with
a large risk," says Jessica Hellmann, a conservation biologist at the
University of Notre Dame in Indiana who recently proposed a decision-making
framework for 'managed relocation' that can help characterize uncertainty
and establish priorities (Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 9721-9724; 2009).
Ricciardi points out that unless you address the root causes of climate
change, assisted migration "will temporarily save a species at best, until
you have to move it again". Still, says Parmesan, "This tiny amount of
warming is already causing conservation problems. You've got to be willing
to do something that's a little more risky. There is no no-risk option."
A moveable park

Over the year, the endangered loggerhead turtle meanders through the ocean,
foraging on jellyfish and crustaceans along sea surface temperature fronts.
The position and intensity of these thermal gradients, which are set up by
ocean circulation, are expected to shift with climate change, altering the
turtles' preferred locations. But where and when they'll move is uncertain.
The loggerhead's dynamic range means that stationary marine protected areas
may not adequately protect the turtle. But a mobile protective area that
moves in space and time, following sea surface temperature fronts, just
might do the job (Conserv. Biol. 24, 70-77; 2010).

Traditional conservation approaches assumed species ranges would always stay
in the same place: if you protected the geographic region, the species
within it would be protected forever. But species don't stay put when
temperatures move outside their comfort range. This realization has changed
the way people think about conservation strategies, says Lee Hannah, a
senior scientist in climate change biology at Conservation International's
Center for Applied Biodiversity Science in Santa Barbara, California.

Most fishing vessels are equipped with global positioning systems, which
make moving, irregular take and no-take zones possible. "It's a high-tech
concept whose time has come," says Hannah. "If you could set that up then
you don't have to have a perfect crystal ball. Your protection evolves as it
needs to."

The concept could be applied more broadly to other marine species, such as
sharks or whales, and to land-based animals. A whole population of animals
threatened by climate change could be tagged with microscopic trackers and
followed through space and time, allowing the protected space to be modified
as the animals move seasonally to feed and breed.
An IPCC for biodiversity

Come June, biologists and policymakers will gather in South Korea to discuss
the future of a proposed scientific panel to monitor biodiversity and offer
advice on its protection. Although the idea for the panel, which would
compare in scope and size with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), was first discussed publicly at a 2005 international conference on
biodiversity in Paris (Nature 442, 245-246;
2006<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/442245a>),
it has recently gained momentum. At the launch of the International Year of
Biodiversity in Berlin in January, German Premier Angela Merkel championed
its creation.

Says Neville Ash, the head of ecosystem management at the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature, in Geneva, "When you think about
climate change, the IPCC is the standard authoritative reference on the
state of the science. That is entirely missing on the state of biodiversity
and ecosystem services. If you're a policymaker at the international level,
there isn't a single consolidated and robust source of science on
biodiversity and ecosystem services to turn to."

Like the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (IPBES) would improve the links between science and policy, and
ensure decisions are based on the best available science (Curr. Opin.
Environ. Sustain.10.1016/j.cosust.2010.02.006<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2010.02.006>;
in the press). It would oversee global and regional biodiversity
assessments, identify and analyse trends, and explore future changes. It
would also invest in training. "Scientific capacity around the globe is not
equal," says Harold Mooney, an environmental biologist at Stanford
University and the chair of Diversitas, an international programme of
biodiversity science. "Capacity building is one of the pillars of the
programme."

Though scientists are generally supportive of the idea, some are concerned
that the IPBES will consume the lion's share of their research time and that
its impact is unsure. "Basic research on climate systems gets shunted aside
in order to get the 'products' out that have been promised to policymakers
in each IPCC report," says Parmesan. "What has to be considered is whether
the trade-off [of] good policies gained by such an assessment would be worth
the good science lost."

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