Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Case Studies

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Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Larry Allain / USGS (WARC)

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, in northeastern Ohio, devotes considerable resources to fighting invasive species, including black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), a species native to southern Ohio and nearby southwestern Pennsylvania, as well as states further south. However, the park is now rethinking its approach in recognition of ongoing trends and projections of warming temperatures and increasing precipitation. Whereas until recently this new arrival was categorized as an “invasive” (undesirable) species and its establishment strenuously resisted, black locust is now viewed as a regionally native species simply shifting its range northward “naturally” as it tracks climate change, and distinguished from “problem” species not native to North America. In this view, accepting the black locust represents not only a money-saver but also an articulation that ecosystem stewardship and conservation in an era of sustained, directional climate change increasingly means working with climate change-driven native biodiversity redistribution.

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Glacier National Park

USGS

In Glacier National Park, warming waters due to climate change-driven loss of glaciers and rising air temperatures—in combination with competition with invasive lake trout—threaten native bull trout populations. Without action, managers feared, bull trout within an important park drainage (Logging Creek) faced the prospect of extirpation. Park staff made the decision several years ago to move bull trout upstream above an impassable waterfall into Grace Lake, to conserve the species in cooler waters to which it is adapted without competition from lake trout. This action seeks to direct the ecological trajectory of the population (via managed relocation to newly suitable habitat) and also directs change in the ecology of upper Logging Creek, an area previously altered by human activity and the introduction of Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The park continues to supplement this action by rearing and introducing additional bull trout into upper Logging Creek and monitoring the introduced population. For more information click here.

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Indiana Dunes National Park

Gregor Schuurman/Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Historically, Indiana Dunes National Park (INDU) was home to one of the largest populations of the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly (KBB). This area in northern Indiana is the warmest part of the historical KBB range, and has warmed considerably since the mid-20th century. KBB subpopulations in a constellation of sites in and near the park experienced a broadly synchronous decline starting in the early 2000’s, until an extreme heat wave in the summer of 2012 extirpated the remnants (with the last two individuals seen in 2014). In the preceding years, the park and partners attempted to resist the loss of the KBB through population augmentation via captive rearing and release, but these attempts were unsuccessful in halting the declines or forestalling extirpation. Park managers have now accepted the loss of the KBB and manage formerly KBB-occupied habitat for other savanna specialists.

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Rocky Mountain National Park

Koren Nydick / NPS

Rocky Mountain National Park’s management actions span the range of the Resist-Accept-Direct framework. Riparian areas in the park are declining due to stressors including increased ungulate herbivory. The resulting biome shift to a grassland state not only provides fewer ecosystem services but will be less able to naturally resist climate change as impacts increase in the future. In the Kawuneeche Valley, actions are being proposed to resist the biome shift by restoring streams and wetlands within the valley to retain healthy willow-beaver riparian wetlands. In intensely burned wilderness areas within the park, managers are accepting that changing fire regimes may drive burned forest and wetland ecosystems into an entirely different ecosystem post-fire. Lastly, the park is acting to direct change in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) in lodgepole pine forests by thinning and burning forest fuels to promote the expansion of aspen forests rather than lodgepole pine predominant forests. For more information click here.

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Capitol Reef National Park

NPS

Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah uses each part of the Resist-Accept-Direct framework to navigate the changing climate and landscape in the park’s Upper South Desert area. In retired grazing allotments with healthy populations of native species, robust soil crusts, and minimal invasive vegetation, park managers accept whatever limited change in natural conditions is taking place while continuing to monitor the system. In degraded areas overwhelmed by invasives, the park chooses to accept change until restoration is feasible. For imperiled species, like the Last Chance Townsend-daisy and Wright fishhook cactus, the park resists their extirpation by controlling invasive species. In actively transitioning zones, park stewards direct change towards a preferred feasible outcome, following federal guidance (USGS RestoreNet) and using innovative methods like digging water-retaining pits to foster both native and nonnative vegetation growth. By resisting, accepting, and directing change, depending on the circumstance, Capitol Reef National Park exemplifies proactive adaptation that focuses limited resources where they can do the most good in terms of preserving our natural heritage amidst the challenges of climate change. For more information, click here.