Adaptive management in the framework of Climate-Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra

Arctic ecosystems are transformed by ongoing climate change. The management of these moving targets to sustain ecosystem services requires iterative evaluations of management goals and practices. Adaptive ecosystem management aims for iterative decision-making processes that include stakeholders and a regularly updated knowledge base. Long-term ecological research initiatives are extremely well suited for providing the necessary framework and data for such updates. The case of the climate ecological observatory for arctic tundra (COAT, www.coat.no) in the Norwegian Arctic shows how a food web approach to designing a monitoring program allows to integrate management interventions in the long-term research. Indeed, humas often affect ecosystems by their impacts on food webs. COAT is implemented through food web monitoring modules and a climate monitoring network. Each module is based on a conceptual “climate impact path model” that outlines a set of monitoring targets in terms of climate sensitive key species or functional groups in the tundra food web and a priori hypotheses for their key process relations. COAT’s sensor systems and time series provide state variables in sampling designs that optimize the estimation of climate change-mediated effects on the tundra ecosystem. COATs modules collaborate with stakeholder groups, composed of relevant management agencies and other end-users of the produced knowledge. The long-term perspective facilitates productive collaboration, when common understanding and mutual trust are developed over time. According to the adaptive protocols of COAT, stakeholders are involved in the process at several stages, from setting the scope of new analyses to interpreting the information. I will illustrate COATs approach with cases ranging from adaptive management of hunted species to management of forest stands, where near-term forecasts models have a central role. However, stakeholders, management objectives and options differ substantially between the cases.