Modeling climate change, urbanization, and fire effects on Pinus palustris ecosystems of the southeastern U.S. Jennifer K. Costanza a, * , Adam J. Terando b, c , Alexa J. McKerrow d , Jaime A. Collazo e a North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA b Southeast Climate Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Campus Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA c Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA d Core Science Analytics and Synthesis, U.S. Geological Survey, Campus Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA e U.S. Geological Survey, North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA article info Article history: Received 28 April 2014 Received in revised form 11 December 2014 Accepted 14 December 2014 Available online Keywords: Climate-resilient Conservation Open-canopy longleaf State-and-transition simulation model Urban growth abstract Managing ecosystems for resilience and sustainability requires understanding how they will respond to future anthropogenic drivers such as climate change and urbanization. In fire-dependent ecosystems, predicting this response requires a focus on how these drivers will impact fire regimes. Here, we use scenarios of climate change, urbanization and management to simulate the future dynamics of the critically endangered and fire-dependent longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem. We investigated how climate change and urbanization will affect the ecosystem, and whether the two conservation goals of a 135% increase in total longleaf area and a doubling of fire-maintained open-canopy habitat can be achieved in the face of these drivers. Our results show that while climatic warming had little effect on the wildfire regime, and thus on longleaf pine dynamics, urban growth led to an 8% reduction in annual wildfire area. The management scenarios we tested increase the ecosystem's total extent by up to 62% and result in expansion of open-canopy longleaf by as much as 216%, meeting one of the two conser- vation goals for the ecosystem. We find that both conservation goals for this ecosystem, which is climate- resilient but vulnerable to urbanization, are only attainable if a greater focus is placed on restoration of non-longleaf areas as opposed to maintaining existing longleaf stands. Our approach demonstrates the importance of accounting for multiple relevant anthropogenic threats in an ecosystem-specific context in order to facilitate more effective management actions. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Understanding how ecosystems will respond to future anthro- pogenic drivers such as climate change is critical to management for resilience and sustainability (Millar and Woolfenden, 1999; Stein et al., 2013). In ecosystems in which wildfire is a funda- mental process, knowing how climate change could alter future wildfire regimes is key to developing conservation and manage- ment strategies that promote persistence over time and space (Stephens et al., 2013). Recent studies suggest that future changes in climate could have substantial impacts on wildfire regimes, resulting in major ecosystem impacts (Overpeck et al., 1990; Dale et al., 2001; IPCC, 2007). Climate change is already affecting wild- fires in some cases. For example, in the western U.S., earlier snowmelt due to recent increases in spring and summer temper- atures have led to higher wildfire activity, and this trend is expected to become more pronounced in the future (Westerling et al., 2006; Litschert et al., 2012). However in other regions, climate change is likely to lead to a decrease in wildfire activity (Moritz et al., 2012). This uncertainty in the magnitude and direction of wildfire re- sponses to climate change limits any generalized predictions across ecosystems that could be used to inform management strategies. In addition to affecting ecosystems, climate change acts in concert with other drivers, including land use conversion (Staudt et al., 2013). In particular, conversion to urban and suburban land * Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Forestry and Environ- mental Resources, North Carolina State University, 3041 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA. E-mail address: jennifer_costanza@ncsu.edu (J.K. Costanza). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.12.032 0301-4797/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Environmental Management 151 (2015) 186e199