Fitting the lens of climate change on bird conservation in the twenty-first century
Understanding and predicting future ecological impacts of climate change, and then developing a conservation strategy to minimize the negative impacts on biodiversity, remains one of the greatest environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. We lack a robust understanding of how climate variability (e.g., temperature, precipitation) itself influences the biology of organisms and, when evidence points to a species being vulnerable to the effects of climate change, there is a lack of specific and timely recommendations for managers to reduce that vulnerability. This chapter reviews how we assess which species are most impacted by climate change and then provides a framework and examples of common strategies and tactics managers can use to incorporate climate change adaptation into bird conservation. In doing so, we present a suite of strategies designed to translate broad conservation concepts into targeted and prescriptive actions for birds.