Maintaining historic disturbance regimes increases species’ resilience to catastrophic hurricanes

As habitat loss and fragmentation, urbanization, and global climate change accelerate, conservation of rare ecosystems increasingly relies on human intervention. However, any conservation strategy is vulnerable to unpredictable, catastrophic events. Whether active management increases or decreases a system’s resilience to these events remains unknown. Following Hurricane Irma’s landfall in our habitat restoration study sites, we found that rare ecosystems with active, human-imposed management suffered less damage in a hurricane’s path than unmanaged systems. At the center of Is landfall, we found Croton linearis’ (a locally rare plant that is the sole host for two endangered butterfly species) survival and population growth rates in the year of the hurricane were higher in previously managed plots than in un-managed controls. In the periphery of Irma’s circulation, the effect of prior management was stronger than that of the hurricane. Maintaining the historical disturbance regime thus ...

随着栖息地丧失与破碎化、城市化进程以及全球气候变化的加速推进，珍稀生态系统的保护愈发依赖人工干预。然而，任何保护策略均易受到不可预见的灾难性事件的冲击。目前，人工主动管理究竟会提升还是降低生态系统应对这类事件的恢复力，仍未有定论。在飓风艾尔玛（Hurricane Irma）登陆我们的栖息地修复研究样地后，我们观测到：受人工主动管控的珍稀生态系统，在飓风过境区域内所遭受的破坏程度低于未受管理的系统。在其登陆中心区域，细叶巴豆（Croton linearis，一种当地珍稀植物，同时为两种濒危蝴蝶的唯一寄主植物）在飓风发生当年的存活率与种群增长率，在前期实施过管理的样地中均高于未管理的对照组样地。在艾尔玛飓风环流的外围区域，前期管理的影响强度甚至超过了飓风本身的作用。因此，维持历史干扰制度（disturbance regime）……