Project teams used Climate Wizard (or other climate analysis tools) to explore potential changes in temperature and precipitation

for their project PF-3084014 cost areas (Girvetz et al. 2009). They then drew on local expertise and experience to predict specific ecological impacts that are likely to follow from climate change. Teams were asked to narrow their initial ideas to no more than eight impacts and to prioritize those they believed would have the most significant implications for their conservation project to ensure that adaptation strategies focused on what was most critical. Research on climate change and likely impacts was completed over a period of 7 months. Following this initial 7-month

research period, we brought all 20 teams together for an in-person workshop (September 2009) to develop adaptation strategies. At the workshop, project teams used a step-by-step approach to evaluate potential climate Selleckchem HDAC inhibitor impacts and to determine whether and how their original project strategies should be modified (Table 2). The strategy development process was based on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (CMP 2007), and required an assessment of ecosystems and species of conservation concern, project goals, threats, strategies to reduce threats, and indicators and measures of progress. However, at the workshop, the process was applied with explicit HSP990 chemical structure attention to potential climate impacts and using a 50-year time horizon. These same methods were applied to all 20 projects at all spatial scales (Table 1). This overall process is now TNC’s working methodology for adapting a conservation project to climate change (TNC 2009). Table 2 Methodology for incorporating potential

climate impacts into conservation strategies for conservation projects at any scale (TNC 2009) Step Explanation Example: Moses Coulee project 1. Understand the potential impacts of climate change Consider how changing climatic conditions will affect essential ecosystem Galeterone features or their components, including representative habitats, select species and ecological processes. Climate models predict that the shrub-steppe habitat in Eastern Washington, USA will experience increases in temperature and altered precipitation patterns. 2. Formulate specific ecological “hypotheses of change” Explore how climate change will specifically impact the selected ecosystem features by developing statements that detail the system’s ecological vulnerability.