A climate‐adapted refugia framework for enhancing ecosystem resilience: Actionable science for forest management in southern California

Abstract Coniferous forests across the southwestern United States are under threat from extreme wildfire, climate change, and other stressors. Addressing these interacting threats to forest resilience through intentional management is critical to prevent further forest loss. We employed the climate change refugia conservation cycle to co‐produce a decision framework for climate‐informed management of southern California's montane forests through strategic identification of treatments. The framework integrates climate‐adapted refugia, areas buffered from the impacts of multiple stressors due to their inherent landscape characteristics, with vulnerabilities that can be reduced and priority assets to protect. The resulting map identified that 45% of the study area had low refugial capacity and low vulnerability, with monitoring identified as the most prudent strategy. An almost equal portion (44%) of the landscape had high refugial capacity, indicating that the strategies of resisting change by maintaining low vulnerability and accommodating change by reducing vulnerabilities where they are high could support forest persistence. The remaining 12% of the landscape had low refugial capacity and high vulnerability, suggesting a transform strategy where managers may opt to facilitate a state shift to maintain ecosystem function. Here we describe how this framework is being applied to inform planning and management with integration of climate‐adapted approaches.