FutureNature

Accelerating climate change is pushing ecosystems rapidly beyond their historical boundaries. Traditional conservation approaches aimed at maintaining the status quo are no longer effective. Instead of resisting change, we need to guide the transformation of ecosystems towards preferred ecological outcomes. Assisted migration, which involves the deliberate translocation of species to simulate range expansion under climate change, is a widely proposed adaptive management strategy. However, it remains controversial as it challenges long-established views on biological conservation. The focus on risks, while neglecting the potential benefits, has hindered scientific research on assisted migration and stalled necessary conservation innovation. The costs of inaction are too high, and time is running out. In the ERC-funded FUTURENATURE, we will take an innovative functional approach to the assisted migration of plant species. Our focus will shift from minimizing the impact of translocated species to maximizing their contribution to the functioning of novel communities. We aim to advance our understanding of how assisted migration can preserve functioning ecosystems by leveraging extensive observational databases, state-of-the-art joint species distribution models, and a pioneering climate change experiment.

Researchers: Koenraad Van Meerbeek, Marijke Geuskens, Senne Spreij, Willem Goossens

Funding: ERC Starting Grant