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Ecological responses to contemporary climate change within species, communities, and ecosystems. Introduction.

Changes in contemporary climate are profoundly influencing most, if not all, aspects of ecology and human society (e.g., Randolph 2001; Brook 2008; McClean et al. 2008; Williamson et al. 2009). Recent shifts in species ranges and phenologies, and changes in hydrology, fire regimes, and the distribution of pests and pathogens are just a few of the now well-documented changes that have been linked to recent climatic changes (Parmesan 2006; Westerling et al. 2006; IPCC 2007). Projected future climate-driven changes in the Earth’s physical and biological processes will likely result in dramatic changes in ecological systems and the provision of ecosystem services (IPCC 2007). To address climate change, conservation biologists and practitioners will need a diverse array of information including estimates of its present and projected ecological effects. The increasing demand for information that will help conservation scientists and natural resource managers better respond to these new challenges stimulated a special symposium on rapid climate change at the 14th Annual Conference of The Wildlife Society. The papers in this special section resulted from that symposium. These papers provide a foundation for interpreting and understanding key aspects of climate (Serreze 2010 [this issue]); consider future responses at species, community, and ecosystem levels (Previtali et al. 2010 [this issue]; Cole et al. 2010 [this issue]); explore the issues of scale when translating climate-change projections into conservation action (Wiens & Bachelet 2010 [this issue]); and evaluate the adequacy of current conservation approaches (Hannah et al. 2010 [this issue]).