Conservation strategies for the climate crisis: An update on three decades of biodiversity management recommendations from science

Over the past three decades, climate change adaptation has become a central focus in conservation. To inform these efforts, the scientific community has provided a growing body of recommendations on biodiversity management with climate change. A previously published study reviewed the first wave of such recommendations in the peer-reviewed literature as they occurred between 1985 and 2007. Here we build on that work, reviewing the literature from the subsequent time period, 2007-2017. We report on the development of the field between the two time periods, and review in depth three highly ranked, climate change-specific conservation strategies from the more recent time period. Overall, recommended strategies for ecological management have remained remarkably consistent over the last three decades, and the field continues to draw mainly on conventional, longstanding conservation approaches. However, the actionability and specificity of recommendations have increased, and certain novel, climate change-specific strategies have become more prominent, pointing the way toward increasing options for practitioner response.

Automated summary

Climate change adaptation has become a central focus in conservation over the past three decades, and the scientific community has provided a growing body of recommendations on biodiversity management. This study found that recommended strategies for ecological management have remained consistent, relying mainly on conventional conservation approaches. However, the actionability and specificity of recommendations have increased, leading to the emergence of novel climate change-specific strategies.