Potential Impacts of Climate and Land Use Change on Ecosystem Processes in the Great Northern and Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

Ecosystem processes are the physical, chemical, and biological actions or events that link organisms and their environment. These processes include water and nutrient cycling, plant growth and decomposition, and regulation of community dynamics (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003). The ecological characteristics of many parks and protected areas are dependent on the ecosystem functions that result from interactions between ecosystem processes, characteristics, and structures. Ecosystem functions, such as the regulation of water flows, soil retention and formation, and the provisioning of habitat and maintenance of biological diversity, in turn, provide the foundation for the ecosystem services supported by parks and protected areas (Hansen and DeFries 2007). As such, the preservation of ecosystem processes can be an important conservation target that complements conservation goals for species and habitats. Defining these targets is the first step in the Climate-Smart Conservation framework (Glick, Stein, and Edelson 2011; Stein et al. 2014).