TY - JOUR

T1 - Applied winter biology: threats, conservation and management of biological resources during winter in cold climate regions

AU - Reeve, Connor

AU - Robichaud, Jessica A

AU - Fernandes, Timothy

AU - Bates, Amanda E

AU - Bramburger, Andrew J

AU - Brownscombe, Jacob W

AU - Davy, Christina M

AU - Henry, Hugh A.L.

AU - McMeans, Bailey

AU - Moise, Eric

AU - Sharma, Sapna

AU - Smith, Paul A

AU - Studd, Emily K

AU - O'Sullivan, Antoin M.

AU - Sutton, Alex

AU - Templer, Pamela H

AU - Cooke, Steven J.

N1 - © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for Experimental Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Winter at high latitudes is characterized by low temperatures, dampened light levels and short photoperiods which shape ecological and evolutionary outcomes from cells to populations to ecosystems. Advances in our understanding of winter biological processes (spanning physiology, behaviour and ecology) highlight that biodiversity threats (e.g. climate change driven shifts in reproductive windows) may interact with winter conditions, leading to greater ecological impacts. As such, conservation and management strategies that consider winter processes and their consequences on biological mechanisms may lead to greater resilience of high altitude and latitude ecosystems. Here, we use well-established threat and action taxonomies produced by the International Union of Conservation of Nature—Conservation Measures Partnership (IUCN-CMP) to synthesize current threats to biota that emerge during, or as the result of, winter processes then discuss targeted management approaches for winter-based conservation. We demonstrate the importance of considering winter when identifying threats to biodiversity and deciding on appropriate management strategies across species and ecosystems. We confirm our expectation that threats are prevalent during the winter and are especially important considering the physiologically challenging conditions that winter presents. Moreover, our findings emphasize that climate change and winter-related constraints on organisms will intersect with other stressors to potentially magnify threats and further complicate management. Though conservation and management practices are less commonly considered during the winter season, we identified several potential or already realized applications relevant to winter that could be beneficial. Many of the examples are quite recent, suggesting a potential turning point for applied winter biology. This growing body of literature is promising but we submit that more research is needed to identify and address threats to wintering biota for targeted and proactive conservation. We suggest that management decisions consider the importance of winter and incorporate winter specific strategies for holistic and mechanistic conservation and resource management.

AB - Winter at high latitudes is characterized by low temperatures, dampened light levels and short photoperiods which shape ecological and evolutionary outcomes from cells to populations to ecosystems. Advances in our understanding of winter biological processes (spanning physiology, behaviour and ecology) highlight that biodiversity threats (e.g. climate change driven shifts in reproductive windows) may interact with winter conditions, leading to greater ecological impacts. As such, conservation and management strategies that consider winter processes and their consequences on biological mechanisms may lead to greater resilience of high altitude and latitude ecosystems. Here, we use well-established threat and action taxonomies produced by the International Union of Conservation of Nature—Conservation Measures Partnership (IUCN-CMP) to synthesize current threats to biota that emerge during, or as the result of, winter processes then discuss targeted management approaches for winter-based conservation. We demonstrate the importance of considering winter when identifying threats to biodiversity and deciding on appropriate management strategies across species and ecosystems. We confirm our expectation that threats are prevalent during the winter and are especially important considering the physiologically challenging conditions that winter presents. Moreover, our findings emphasize that climate change and winter-related constraints on organisms will intersect with other stressors to potentially magnify threats and further complicate management. Though conservation and management practices are less commonly considered during the winter season, we identified several potential or already realized applications relevant to winter that could be beneficial. Many of the examples are quite recent, suggesting a potential turning point for applied winter biology. This growing body of literature is promising but we submit that more research is needed to identify and address threats to wintering biota for targeted and proactive conservation. We suggest that management decisions consider the importance of winter and incorporate winter specific strategies for holistic and mechanistic conservation and resource management.

U2 - 10.1093/conphys/coad027

DO - 10.1093/conphys/coad027

M3 - Article

C2 - 37179705

VL - 11

SP - coad027

JO - Conservation physiology

JF - Conservation physiology

SN - 2051-1434

IS - 1

M1 - coad027

ER -