Climate-ready conservation objectives: a scoping study

AbstractAnticipated future climate change is very likely to have a wide range of different types of ecological impact on biodiversity across the whole of Australia. There is a high degree of confidence that these changes will be significant, affecting almost all species, ecosystems and landscapes. However, because of the complexity of ecological systems and the multiple ways climate change will affect them, the details of the future change are less certain for any given species or location. The nature of the changes means that the multiple ways biodiversity is experienced, used and valued by society will be affected in different ways. The likely changes present a significant challenge to any societal aspiration to preserve biodiversity in its current state, for example, to maintain a species in its current abundance and distribution. Preserving biodiversity ‘as is’ may have been feasible in a stationary climate (one that is variable but not changing), but this will not be possible with the widespread, pervasive and large ecological changes anticipated under significant levels of climate change. This makes the impacts of climate change quite unlike other threats to biodiversity, and they challenge, fundamentally, what it actually means to conserve biodiversity under climate change: what should the objectives of biodiversity conservation be under climate change? And what are the barriers to recalibrating conservation objectives?Based on key insights from the scientific literature on climate change and biodiversity, the project developed three adaptation propositions about managing biodiversity:Conservation strategies accommodate large amounts of ecological change and the likelihood of significant climate change–induced loss in biodiversity. Strategies remain relevant and feasible under a range of possible future trajectories of ecological change.Strategies seek to conserve the multiple different dimensions of biodiversity that are experienced and valued by society. Together these propositions summarise the challenge of future climate change for biodiversity conservation, and define a new way of framing conservation we called the ‘climate ready’ approach. In the near term, conservation strategies may be able to include some consideration of these propositions. However, under significant levels of climate change many of the current approaches to conservation will become increasingly difficult and ineffective (e.g. maintaining community types in their current locations). This challenge is fundamentally different from that posed by other threats to biodiversity, and the climate-ready approach is akin to a paradigm shift in conservation.The project used a review of 26 conservation strategy documents (spanning scales from international to local) and four case studies with conservation agencies to test and refine the climate-ready approach. The project found the approach to be robust and highly relevant; in the majority of situations, if adopted, it would lead to significant changes in the objectives and priorities of conservation. There were also many ‘green shoots’ of elements of the new approach in existing conservation practice. However, the project found there are currently substantial barriers to fully adopting a climate-ready approach. These include the need for: further development of ecological characterisation of ecosystem health and human activities in landscapesmuch better understanding of how society values different aspects of biodiversity, including ecosystems and landscapesdevelopment of policy tools to codify and implement new ecologically robust and socially endorsed objectives.  Anticipated future climate change is very likely to have a wide range of different types of ecological impact on biodiversity across the whole of Australia. There is a high degree of confidence that these changes will be significant, affecting almost all species, ecosystems and landscapes. However, because of the complexity of ecological systems and the multiple ways climate change will affect them, the details of the future change are less certain for any given species or location. The nature of the changes means that the multiple ways biodiversity is experienced, used and valued by society will be affected in different ways. The likely changes present a significant challenge to any societal aspiration to preserve biodiversity in its current state, for example, to maintain a species in its current abundance and distribution. Preserving biodiversity ‘as is’ may have been feasible in a stationary climate (one that is variable but not changing), but this will not be possible with the widespread, pervasive and large ecological changes anticipated under significant levels of climate change. This makes the impacts of climate change quite unlike other threats to biodiversity, and they challenge, fundamentally, what it actually means to conserve biodiversity under climate change: what should the objectives of biodiversity conservation be under climate change? And what are the barriers to recalibrating conservation objectives?Based on key insights from the scientific literature on climate change and biodiversity, the project developed three adaptation propositions about managing biodiversity:Conservation strategies accommodate large amounts of ecological change and the likelihood of significant climate change–induced loss in biodiversity. Strategies remain relevant and feasible under a range of possible future trajectories of ecological change.Strategies seek to conserve the multiple different dimensions of biodiversity that are experienced and valued by society. Together these propositions summarise the challenge of future climate change for biodiversity conservation, and define a new way of framing conservation we called the ‘climate ready’ approach. In the near term, conservation strategies may be able to include some consideration of these propositions. However, under significant levels of climate change many of the current approaches to conservation will become increasingly difficult and ineffective (e.g. maintaining community types in their current locations). This challenge is fundamentally different from that posed by other threats to biodiversity, and the climate-ready approach is akin to a paradigm shift in conservation.The project used a review of 26 conservation strategy documents (spanning scales from international to local) and four case studies with conservation agencies to test and refine the climate-ready approach. The project found the approach to be robust and highly relevant; in the majority of situations, if adopted, it would lead to significant changes in the objectives and priorities of conservation. There were also many ‘green shoots’ of elements of the new approach in existing conservation practice. However, the project found there are currently substantial barriers to fully adopting a climate-ready approach. These include the need for: further development of ecological characterisation of ecosystem health and human activities in landscapesmuch better understanding of how society values different aspects of biodiversity, including ecosystems and landscapesdevelopment of policy tools to codify and implement new ecologically robust and socially endorsed objectives. Please cite this report as: Dunlop M, Parris, H, Ryan, P, Kroon, F 2013 Climate-ready conservation objectives: a scoping study, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 102

The Synergy between Psychology and Business: A Case Study on Interdisciplinary Faculty Collaboration

Interdisciplinary faculty collaboration is an effective technique for preparing college students for the demands of working in contemporary organizations. Higher education institutions should encourage and support faculty from different academic disciplines to educate students from interdisciplinary perspectives. When faculty from multiple academic disciplines collaborates, they are not only teaching students from new viewpoints, but they are also modeling the importance of communication, teamwork, diversity, and how to critically think from a holistic approach. This case study explored the synergy that exists between the academic disciplines of psychology and business. Twenty-five senior psychology students were introduced to a self-reflection assessment and an interactive discussion on motivation in the workplace from a business perspective. This was accomplished by illustrating the complementary motivational theories relating to Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy and Alderfer’s ERG Theory. Students’ receptivity to these different, yet harmonizing, theories further demonstrated that various perspectives can still share several commonalities. Contemporary organizations increasingly value employees with diverse skill sets. Superseding a single discipline in favor of a multiple discipline approach highlights the value that interdisciplinary collaboration can provide to organizations as they achieve their goals and fulfill their respective mission and longer-term vision statements

Regulatory activity revealed by dynamic correlations in gene expression noise

Gene regulatory interactions are context dependent, active in some cellular states but not in others. Stochastic fluctuations, or 'noise', in gene expression propagate through active, but not inactive, regulatory links^(1,2). Thus, correlations in gene expression noise could provide a noninvasive means to probe the activity states of regulatory links. However, global, 'extrinsic', noise sources generate correlations even without direct regulatory links. Here we show that single-cell time-lapse microscopy, by revealing time lags due to regulation, can discriminate between active regulatory connections and extrinsic noise. We demonstrate this principle mathematically, using stochastic modeling, and experimentally, using simple synthetic gene circuits. We then use this approach to analyze dynamic noise correlations in the galactose metabolism genes of Escherichia coli. We find that the CRP-GalS-GalE feed-forward loop is inactive in standard conditions but can become active in a GalR mutant. These results show how noise can help analyze the context dependence of regulatory interactions in endogenous gene circuits