Moreton Bay, Queensland Australia
When I was 8 years old, my dad started taking me to the local city park to teach me how to play basketball. Despite my poor hand-eye coordination and preference for computer games, he persisted in explaining the basic rules, initiating practice one-on-one games, and drilling me on shooting and passing. One of the few tips he provided that I have retained is that when passing the ball, you can't just aim for where you teammate is at that moment. You have to see where they are headed and aim your throw towards their new position. Of course, predicting the trajectory of your teammate may not always be straightforward.
"When passing the ball, you can't just aim for where you teammate is at that moment. You have to see where they are headed and aim your throw towards their new position.
This guidance seems a fitting metaphor for the challenge of habitat conservation on a rapidly changing planet. Governmental & NGO efforts to conserve and restore natural areas take time, and in many regions, habitats are likely to shift in their geographic range by the time their old distribution is legally protected. This is especially true of coastal areas affected by accelerating sea level rise. Where passing decisions in basketball demand you read the body language of multiple players, "future-proofing" conservation requires assessing the interaction of complex natural and man-made processes.
A new study published in Biological Conservation provides a case study of how we can use ecological models to predict the efficacy of conservation efforts in protecting future coastal habitats. The study area was Moreton Bay in Queensland, AU, a large estuarine bay that is greatly threatened by sea level rise. The researchers inputted data on current distributions of seagrass beds, marshes, mangroves, coral reefs and other coastal habitats into the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM). This resulted in maps of predicted future habitat distributions in 2050 and 2100 under both high and moderate-emission climate change scenarios. They then combined these habitat maps with maps of 1) habitat connectivity, 2) opportunity costs of doing conservation work in a particular area, and 3) currently conserved areas to make an overarching model of conservation efficacy.
Figure 4 parts a & b from Mazor et al. 2021 higher selection frequency denotes greater likelihood of conservation concern under given scenario
The study found that areas of highest conservation concern differed between present day and future habitat scenarios. They also found that, were legally protected areas to remain the same, they would protect less habitat area under the future projection than they do currently (with 32% of current areas of conservation concern protected through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) or other conservation programs).
This study shows the importance of using all the predictive tools available to us to plan conservation efforts that will withstand future climate change. The authors also emphasize the importance of comparing these projections with currently protected areas to see where it will be most effective to enact future conservation efforts.
It just goes to show that even though climate change is a moving target, conservation science can keep the ball moving towards that target!