Assisted migration as a climate change adaptation strategy: lessons from restoration and plant reintroductions

Abstract

Climate change is thought to threaten between 25% and 50% of global plant biodiversity. In response to this looming crisis, the calls for the translocation, or assisted migration, of species to ensure the survival of this biodiversity have been increasing. The concept has its detractors, and is not without risk, but few studies have documented the success of the approach or veracity of the risk. Here we review both the ecological restoration literature and the plant reintroduction literature to discover insights into the promises and pitfalls of translocating species as an adaptation strategy in the face of our changing climate. Although habitat restoration and the assisted migration of rare plant species have different objectives and goals, they share the practice of translocating species from their site of origin to a new one. It is primarily the scale at which the movement of those species occurs that distinguishes the two.

Keywords:

• assisted migration
• assisted colonization
• managed relocation
• global biodiversity
• ecological restoration
• seed provenance

Acknowledgments

The staff, and especially the volunteers, at The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, USA, have been wonderful in their support and commitment. The staff and volunteers at Nachusa Grasslands have also provided assistance over many years, and the Grasslands themselves are an uplifting sight in the lingering days of summer's end.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF DBI-1461007). We wish to thank Stantec Consulting Services Inc. for funding to M. Curran in support of reintroduction efforts of Cypripedium arietinum at The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, USA. We also wish to thank The Friends of Nachusa for a grant to P. Vitt in support of work on Lespedeza leptostachya.