Assessing impacts of climate change on selected foundation species and ecosystem services in the South-Central USA

Abstract

Climate change, interacting with and exacerbating anthropogenic modifications to the landscape, is altering ecosystem structure and function, biodiversity, and species distributions. Among the most visible short-term impacts are the altered ecological roles of foundation species—those species, native or non-native—that create locally stable environmental conditions and strongly influence ecosystem services. Understanding the future of these species is crucial for projecting impacts on ecosystem services at both local and regional scales. Here we present foundation species by ecoregion study cases across the US South-Central Region (Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas), including C4 grasses, mesquite, and northern bobwhite in the Southern Great Plains, mangroves and nutria in coastal Louisiana wetlands, tiger salamanders and sandhill cranes in wetlands of the Southern Great Plains, and post and blackjack oaks and eastern redcedar in the Cross Timbers ecoregion. These case studies explore the impacts of climate change on foundation species and the consequences for ecosystem services, the outlook for climate adaptation efforts, and the sustainability of restoration in these systems. We underscore risks and vulnerabilities that stakeholders should consider when managing or restoring natural resources and conserving ecosystem services in an increasingly extreme and variable climate. We show that past management, through a lack of understanding or implementation of actions, has exacerbated shifts in invasive species, resulting in significant changes in ecosystem structure and function. These changes, interacting with landscape fragmentation and shifting land use and exacerbated by climate change, can result in critical losses of biodiversity. Unfortunately, lack of public understanding may hinder political support for restoration efforts and climate adaptation strategies crucial for the continued supply of traditional ecosystem services. Furthermore, the resulting invaded systems may provide opportunities for income via new ecosystem services valued by society that may reduce support for restoration to historical baselines, thus further shifting management priorities. These priorities should be informed by an understanding of past and ongoing ecological trends in region-specific situations, such as those we present, to highlight the immediacy of climate change impacts on the environment and society and provide evidence for the critical nature of informed management decisions.