Person

Michael C Runge

Research Ecologist

Eastern Ecological Science Center

Email: mrunge@usgs.gov
Office Phone: 301-497-5748
ORCID: 0000-0002-8081-536X

Location
PTX - Gabrielson Office
12100 Beech Forest Road
Laurel , MD 20708
US

Supervisor: Julien Martin

8 items:

Using value of information to prioritize research needs for migratory bird management under climate change: a case study using federal land acquisition in the United States Abstract (from Biological Reviews): In response to global habitat loss, many governmental and non‐governmental organizations have implemented land acquisition programs to protect critical habitats permanently for priority species. The ability of these protected areas to meet future management objectives may be compromised if the effects of climate change are not considered in acquisition decisions. Unfortunately, the effects of climate change on ecological systems are complex and plagued by uncertainty, making it difficult for organizations to prioritize research needs to improve decision‐making. Herein, we demonstrate the use of qualitative value of information analysis to identify and prioritize which sources... Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Final Report: Informing Management of Waterfowl Harvest in a Changing Climate Our ability to effectively manage wildlife in North America is founded in an understanding of how our actions and the environment influence wildlife populations. Current practices use population monitoring data from the past to determine key ecological relationships and make predictions about future population status. In most cases, including the regulation of waterfowl hunting in North America, these forecasts assume that the environmental conditions observed in the past will remain the same in the future. However, climate change is influencing wildlife populations in many dynamic and uncertain ways, leading to a situation in which our observations of the past are poor predictors of the future. If we continue to... Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Research Priorities for Migratory Birds Under Climate Change—A Qualitative Value of Information Assessment Executive Summary (from U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1472): The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Adaptation Science Center is to provide actionable, management-relevant research on climate change effects on ecosystems and wildlife to U.S. Department of the Interior bureaus. Providing this kind of useful scientific information requires understanding how natural-resource managers make decisions and identifying research priorities that support those decision-making processes. Migratory bird management and conservation of migratory bird habitat are central components of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s mission. In particular, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has an intensive, complex... Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Optimal Strategies for Managing Wildlife Harvest Under System Change Abstract (from The Journal of Wildlife Management): Wildlife populations are experiencing shifting dynamics due to climate and landscape change. Management policies that fail to account for non-stationary dynamics may fail to achieve management objectives. We establish a framework for understanding optimal strategies for managing a theoretical harvested population under non-stationarity. Building from harvest theory, we develop scenarios representing changes in population growth rate () or carrying capacity () and derive time-dependent optimal harvest policies using stochastic dynamic programming. We then evaluate the cost of falsely assuming stationarity by comparing the outcomes of forward projections in which... Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Data release—Decision-support framework for linking regional-scale management actions to continental-scale conservation of wide-ranging species This data release presents the data, JAGS models, and R code used to manipulate data and to produce results and figures presented in the USGS Open File Report, "Decision-Support Framework for Linking Regional-Scale Management Actions to Continental-Scale Conservation of Wide-Ranging Species, (https://doi.org/10.5066/P93YTR3X). The zip folder is provided so that other can reproduce results from the integrated population model, inspect model structure and posterior simulations, conduct analyses not present in the report, and use and modify the code. Raw source data can be sourced from the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, USFWS Surveys and Monitoring Branch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, and Ducks Unlimited... Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: Bird Banding Laboratory, Decision Science and Populations, Decision-Support for Wide-Ranging Species, Ducks, Ecology, All tags...

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