Source data for the Prober et al manuscript: Shifting the conservation paradigm - a synthesis of options for renovating nature under climate change

Brief description

This data collection is the source data for the manuscript "Shifting the conservation paradigm - a synthesis of options for renovating nature under climate change" by Suzanne M. Prober, Veronica A. J. Doerr, Linda M. Broadhurst, Kristen J. Williams, Fiona Dickson and published in the peer-reviewed journal "Ecological Monographs" in 2018. The data are provided as an excel spreadsheet with three sheets. The results are provided in "SourceData_Prober_etal_EcolMono" including the cited references (peer-reviewed journal articles). The full citation of each reference is given in Appendix S1 of the manuscript (and on tab 3).

Lineage

The data is based on a literature survey of studies that proposed, implemented or tested on-ground options for facilitating persistence or adaptation of species or ecosystems under climate change (hereafter ‘options’). We searched Web of Science (to 31 December 2016) under the topics of ecology, environmental sciences, environmental studies, forestry and biodiversity conservation for publications that included at least one term from each of the following three groups: (1) ecolog*, ecosystem, biodiversity, forest, woodland, rangeland, grassland, shrubland, heathland, rainforest, wetland, mangrove, saltmarsh, shore, tidal, dune, river, stream, freshwater, riparian, desert, dryland, species, nature; (2) adapt*, interven*, restor*, engineer*, revegetation, conserv* and (3) climate change, warming, CO2, aridif*, changing climate. Additional studies known to authors were also included, noting we do not expect to have fully captured specialized literature on some topics (e.g. assisted colonization). Our search resulted in 16,753 publications, which reduced on screening of titles and abstracts to 640, then on full text to 473 papers reviewed and scored for this analysis (Appendix S1). Criteria for inclusion included (1) an emphasis on biodiversity or nature conservation (rather than livelihoods); (2) an interest in active on–ground management response rather than solely climate change impacts, policy or social aspects; but including selection of areas for conservation protection or action; (3) a terrestrial focus (including land-based aquatic but not marine). We systematically scored each of the 473 papers for publication date, ecosystems or organisms studied, geographic regions of study and types of inference used (field observations or experiments, reports of implementation, ecological reasoning, conceptual frameworks, modelling and reviews). ‘Ecological reasoning’ included commentaries or reasoning based on impact assessments, stakeholder workshops and surveys, ecological theory and/or earlier literature. Modelling studies involved simulation of outcomes of applying adaptation interventions, and reviews focused on assessment of evidence from past literature for outcomes of interventions. An individual study could be scored more than once in any classification. Based on this literature we created a typology of intervention options. We derived our typology using an iterative approach. We began by randomly selecting publications from our literature search, extracting information on the interventions they discussed or tested, and trialing organization of the information using insights drawn from overview and synthesis literature. This dual bottom-up and top-down approach allowed us to establish a preliminary, tractable set of ‘intervention option types’ (hereafter option types), and to organize these into preliminary higher level groupings (see results). Whilst recognizing there would be many potential ways to classify the information, we aimed for a simple classification that captured some key concepts relevant to underpinning ecological mechanisms and to practical concerns. We continued to build the set of preliminary option types until adjustments and new categories became infrequent, leading to a preliminary typology after 70 publications. Beginning with this preliminary typology, a single operator then systematically scored intervention options proposed, tested or described in each of the 473 papers, including re-scoring of the initial 70 publications. Refinements were made to the typology where new ideas were encountered, with rescoring of earlier papers if refinements could have affected their scores (e.g. splitting or reconceptualisation of a preliminary category). In total, this process led to 1304 instances of option types scored from the 473 papers.