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Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

In a rapidly changing climate, conservation practitioners could better use geodiversity in a broad range of conservation decisions. We explored selected avenues through which this integration might improve decision making and organized them within the adaptive management cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring. Geodiversity is seldom referenced in predominant environmental law and policy. With most natural resource agencies mandated to conserve certain categories of species, agency personnel are challenged to find ways to practically implement new directives aimed at coping with climate change while retaining their species-centered mandate. Ecoregions and ecological classifications provide clear mechanisms to consider geodiversity in plans or decisions, the inclusion of which will help foster the resilience of conservation to climate change. Methods for biodiversity assessment, such as gap analysis, climate change vulnerability analysis, and ecological process modeling, can readily accommodate inclusion of a geophysical component. We adapted others' approaches for characterizing landscapes along a continuum of climate change vulnerability for the biota they support from resistant, to resilient, to susceptible, and to sensitive and then summarized options for integrating geodiversity into planning in each landscape type. In landscapes that are relatively resistant to climate change, options exist to fully represent geodiversity while ensuring that dynamic ecological processes can change over time. In more susceptible landscapes, strategies aiming to maintain or restore ecosystem resilience and connectivity are paramount. Implementing actions on the ground requires understanding of geophysical constraints on species and an increasingly nimble approach to establishing management and restoration goals. Because decisions that are implemented today will be revisited and amended into the future, increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and adaptation will be required to ensure that conservation efforts fully consider the value of geodiversity for supporting biodiversity in the face of a changing climate., (© 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Geodiversity--the variability of Earth's surface materials, forms, and physical processes-is an integral part of nature and crucial for sustaining ecosystems and their services. It provides the substrates, landform mosaics, and dynamic physical processes for habitat development and maintenance. By determining the heterogeneity of the physical environment in conjunction with climate interactions, geodiversity has a crucial influence on biodiversity across a wide range of scales. From a literature review, we identified the diverse values of geodiversity; examined examples of the dependencies of biodiversity on geodiversity at a site-specific scale (for geosites <1 km(2) in area); and evaluated various human-induced threats to geosites and geodiversity. We found that geosites are important to biodiversity because they often support rare or unique biota adapted to distinctive environmental conditions or create a diversity of microenvironments that enhance species richness. Conservation of geodiversity in the face of a range of threats is critical both for effective management of nature's stage and for its own particular values. This requires approaches to nature conservation that integrate climate, biodiversity, and geodiversity at all spatial scales., (© 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Climate change will require novel conservation strategies. One such tactic is a coarse-filter approach that focuses on conserving nature's stage (CNS) rather than the actors (individual species). However, there is a temporal mismatch between the long-term goals of conservation and the short-term nature of most ecological studies, which leaves many assumptions untested. Paleoecology provides a valuable perspective on coarse-filter strategies by marshaling the natural experiments of the past to contextualize extinction risk due to the emerging impacts of climate change and anthropogenic threats. We reviewed examples from the paleoecological record that highlight the strengths, opportunities, and caveats of a CNS approach. We focused on the near-time geological past of the Quaternary, during which species were subjected to widespread changes in climate and concomitant changes in the physical environment in general. Species experienced a range of individualistic responses to these changes, including community turnover and novel associations, extinction and speciation, range shifts, changes in local richness and evenness, and both equilibrium and disequilibrium responses. Due to the dynamic nature of species responses to Quaternary climate change, a coarse-filter strategy may be appropriate for many taxa because it can accommodate dynamic processes. However, conservationists should also consider that the persistence of landforms varies across space and time, which could have potential long-term consequences for geodiversity and thus biodiversity., (© 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.)

A divergence of values has become apparent in recent debates between conservationists who focus on ecosystem services that can improve human well-being and those who focus on avoiding the extinction of species. These divergent points of view fall along a continuum from anthropocentric to biocentric values, but most conservationists are relatively closer to each other than to the ends of the spectrum. We have some concerns with both positions but emphasize that conservation for both people and all other species will be most effective if conservationists focus on articulating the values they all share, being respectful of divergent values, and collaborating on common interests. The conservation arena is large enough to accommodate many people and organizations whose diverse values lead them to different niches that can, with good will and foresight, be far more complementary than competitive., (© 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Does logging affect the fire proneness of forests? This question often arises after major wildfires, but data suggest that answers differ substantially among different types of forest. Logging can alter key attributes of forests by changing microclimates, stand structure and species composition, fuel characteristics, the prevalence of ignition points, and patterns of landscape cover. These changes may make some kinds of forests more prone to increased probability of ignition and increased fire severity. Such forests include tropical rainforests where fire was previously extremely rare or absent and other moist forests where natural fire regimes tend toward low frequency, stand replacing events. Relationships between logging and fire regimes are contingent on forest practices, the kind of forest under consideration, and the natural fire regime characteristic of that forest. Such relationships will influence both the threat of fire to human life and infrastructure and biodiversity conservation. We therefore argue that conservation scientists must engage in debates about fire and logging to provide an environmental context to guide considered actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While much has been written describing biodiversity, its global decline, and the need for action, the scientific underpinnings guiding conservation practice have received little attention. We surveyed 10 large-scale forest management plans in the U.S. to establish which ecological concepts are commonly used to guide forest biodiversity conservation and evaluate the relative importance of these concepts in processes related to forest stewardship. We then reviewed the scientific literature to assess the degree to which these concepts are founded in antecedent ecological theory, the extent to which they have been tested, and the limits of those tests. We found that the concepts of filters (fine, meso, and coarse), reserves, matrix management, hotspots, emulating natural disturbances, diversity begets diversity, patchworks, networks, and gradients are extensively employed in the forest planning efforts we surveyed. While most of these concepts received high utility scores, coarse filter was most commonly used, closely followed by matrix management and fine filter. A survey of the literature review suggests that all concepts have both direct and indirect relationships with foundational ecological theories, such as niches, natural selection, and island biogeography. All concepts also have some empirical support based on field tests and most have received some testing in an experimental framework. Yet, experimental tests of the concepts are far from comprehensive as, among other reasons: (1) many species are yet unknown, (2) many species are difficult to measure, (3) the occurrence of taxa that are often measured do not correspond well with the occurrence of those less frequently measured, and (4) although site conditions may be replicated, the historical and landscape contexts of each test are unique. Although we document wide use of these concepts, significant constraints hinder further incorporation into forest stewardship. Predominant among these is a lack of empirical support at the spatial and temporal scales over which forest management is implemented. Practical ways to advance conservation concepts include implementing effective, efficient monitoring protocols and establishing experimental tests in an operational context. Constructive bridges must be built between science and practitioner communities to realize these goals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Setting aside entire ecosystems in reserves is an efficient way to maintain biodiversity because large numbers of species are protected, but ecosystem conservation constitutes a coarse filter that does not address some species. A complementary, fine-filter approach is also required to provide tailored management for some species (e.g., those subject to direct exploitation). Mesofilter conservation is another complementary approach that focuses on conserving critical elements of ecosystems that are important to many species, especially those likely to be overlooked by fine-filter approaches, such as invertebrates, fungi, and nonvascular plants. Critical elements include structures such as logs, snags, pools, springs, streams, reefs, and hedgerows, and processes such as fires and floods. Mesofilter conservation is particularly appropriate for seminatural ecosystems that are managed for both biodiversity and commodity production (e.g., forests managed for timber, grasslands managed for livestock forage, and aquatic ecosystems managed for fisheries) and is relevant to managing some agricultural and urban environments for biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides a substantial refinement of the normative concepts in conservation. Effort to bridge between the goals of compositionalists and functionalists; Maintenance of biodiversity or biotic integrity for reserves; Management of ecosystem processes outside of reserves.