Natural resource managers worldwide face a growing challenge: Global change increasingly propels ecosystems on strong trajectories toward ecological transformations. As once-familiar historical ecological conditions fade, managers need new approaches to guide decision-making. In a special section in BioScience, over three dozen authors, led by National Park Service (NPS) ecologist Gregor Schuurman and US Geological Survey social scientist Amanda Cravens, describe the Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD) framework, designed for and by managers. The collection of articles is focused on understanding and responding to the challenges of stewarding ecological systems in a time of intensifying global change.
According to the section authors, the RAD framework gives managers three general pathways for responding to change: They can take actions to resist the change, they can accept it, or they can try to direct the change to produce preferred outcomes. The NPS has honed the RAD framework with an expanding circle of parks and adaptation partners over the past half-dozen years, with federal natural resource management agencies collaborating to develop guidance for stewarding transforming ecosystems.
Articles in the special section include an independent Viewpoint piece (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab123) by John Williams, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that introduces and describes the collection, followed by an overview (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab067) of the framework from lead author Gregor Schuurman and colleagues. Dawn Magness, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and colleagues provide the next contribution (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab083), an accounting of foundational principles for implementation, including building a shared knowledge about plausible ecological trajectories, upstream engagement to define desired outcomes, pathways to communicate management options, and the creation of adaptation portfolios to "manage risk and account for multiple preferences and variable conditions across space and time."
From Abigail Lynch of USFWS and colleagues comes "RAD Adaptive Management for Transforming Ecosystems" (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab091), which is an exploration of integration with adaptive management aimed at helping reconcile the RAD framework with existing management regimes. Meanwhile, Katherine Clifford, with the US Geological Survey, and colleagues discuss (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab086) the social and institutional considerations for the application of the framework in their article, "Responding to Ecological Transformation: Mental Models, External Constraints and Manager Decision-making."
The special section closes with "A Science Agenda to Inform Natural Resource Management Decisions in an Era of Ecological Transformation," (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab102) from Shelley D. Crausbay, with Conservation Science Partners, and colleagues. The authors explain that the RAD framework calls for an ecological and social science agenda centered on the questions encountered in a RAD decision-making process. They go on to describe such an agenda for transformation science that aligns with the RAD framework.
More about the RAD framework can be found on web pages maintained by the NPS (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/resistacceptdirect.htm) and USGS (https://www.usgs.gov/ecosystems/climate-adaptation-science-centers/resist-accept-direct-framework?qt-science_support_page_related_con=3#qt-science_support_page_related_con).
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