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Wetland ecosystems are vital for maintaining global biodiversity, as they provide important stopover sites for many species of migrating wetland-associated birds. However, because weather determines their hydrologic cycles, wetlands are highly vulnerable to effects of climate change. Although changes in temperature and precipitation resulting from climate change are expected to reduce inundation of wetlands, few efforts have been made to quantify how these changes will influence the availability of stopover sites for migratory wetland birds. Additionally, few studies have evaluated how climate change will influence interannual variability or the frequency of extremes in wetland availability. For spring and fall...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
The southern Great Plains (SGP) has recently experienced wildfires with unprecedented severity and frequency, which significantly threatened human life and property and altered terrestrial ecosystem functions. While it is expected that future climate change will affect wildfire danger levels by altering fire weather and fuel conditions, there remains a significant gap in understanding how these changes will manifest in the SGP. Therefore, our objectives were to (1) simulate the spatial and temporal dynamics of the Burning Index (BI), a widely used fire danger index in the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS), and high fire danger days based on CMIP5 climate simulations, comparing the 1986–2005 historical period...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
The green-up of vegetation in spring brings a pulse of food resources that many animals track during migration. However, green-up phenology is changing with climate change, posing an immense challenge for species that time their migrations to coincide with these resource pulses. We evaluated changes in green-up phenology from 2002 to 2021 in relation to the migrations of 150 Western-Hemisphere bird species using eBird citizen science data. We found that green-up phenology has changed within bird migration routes, and yet the migrations of most species align more closely with long-term averages of green-up than with current conditions. Changing green-up strongly influenced phenological mismatches, especially for...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Climate change impacts on ocean biogeochemistry are expected to alter calcium carbonate formation by organisms, necessitating accurate predictive models based on physiological mechanisms. The dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory offer a mechanistic and integrative framework to model organism metabolism under environmental stressors. In this work, we 1) review the physiological and energetic mechanisms of biogenic calcification, 2) propose a generalized approach for inclusion in DEB modelling based on stylized facts, and 3) formulate the effects of saturation state changes on the bioenergetics of calcification. While applicable to any species performing biogenic calcification (microalgae, shellfish, fish, corals),...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
The USDA Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) offers financial assistance to farmers and ranchers with grazed forage losses caused by fire or drought. Payments for drought losses are based on the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), which is designed to integrate meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, ecological, and socioeconomic droughts. Because soil moisture deficit is a more specific measure of agricultural drought, we hypothesized that basing LFP payments on soil moisture observations could better reduce producers’ risk. Therefore, our objectives were to 1) quantify relationships of forage yield with USDM-based LFP payment multipliers and with in situ soil moisture, 2) develop an alternative LFP payment multiplier...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Monthly resolved coral data from submerged fossil reefs provide improved constraints on the seasonality, interannual variability and mean changes in tropical ocean temperature under glacial to deglacial boundary conditions.
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Woody Plant Encroachment (WPE) is a key driver of grassland collapse in the Southern Great Plain (SGP), resulting in a series of adverse ecological and socioeconomic consequences. Climate change will interact with ongoing WPE as it will likely shift the potential ranges of WPE species. In this study, we employed an ensemble approach integrating results from multiple Species Distribution Models to project future distribution ranges of four major WPE species (Ashe juniper, honey mesquite, post oak, and eastern redcedar) in the SGP across the 21st century. The findings highlighted a noteworthy trend: under future climate conditions, the distribution ranges for these WPE species were projected to shift northward and...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
In the face of climate change and associated increases in disturbances, some areas, known as refugia, will remain or become newly habitable for species, while others will be lost. Planning and managing for refugia can support biodiversity and conservation. However, without explicit consideration of justice, planning and management for refugia risks unnecessarily limiting information about local conditions and traditional practices that may be contained in Indigenous knowledges, and causing maladaptive consequences such as exclusion of Indigenous communities from decision-making and from protected areas, with loss of use of traditional plants and animals. The article proposes a new concept, Indigenous refugia, that...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Abstract (from Wiley): Wetlands provide many ecosystem services and functions, including critical stopover habitat for numerous migratory bird species. Yet, loss and degradation of wetlands due to land use and land cover changes have greatly reduced wetland extent worldwide, leading to declines of many migratory shorebirds globally. In the Western Hemisphere, wetlands of the North American Great Plains provide important stopover habitat for shorebirds; however, much remains to be learned about shorebird habitat use during stopovers in this region, including species-specific associations with landscape-scale wetland availability and characteristics of individual wetlands. To improve understanding of shorebird habitat...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Abstract (from MDPI): Decision support tools are needed to ensure that appropriately timed and place-based adaptation is deployed in natural resource policy, planning, and management. Driven by accelerating climate change, analytical frameworks for adaptation are emerging to assist with these decisions. There is a natural relationship between climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation responses, where low to high relative climate change vulnerability suggests “resistance” to “transformation” strategies for adaptation. The NatureServe Habitat Climate Change Vulnerability Index (HCCVI) embodies a process for ecosystem assessment that integrates both climate and non-climate data and knowledge to document...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Precipitation amounts and frequencies are major regulators of soil heat-load profiles as the interval between rainfall events allows for increased heat storage during cloudless periods. The extreme drought of 2011 and the subsequent Flash Drought that occurred in summer, 2012, developed in part due to soil temperature dynamics across the landscape of the Southern High Plains. The negative impacts of highly variable soil temperatures on ecosystem process can be easily seen in family gardens. Most gardeners across the SHP realize that mulching has a beneficial impact on the success of any gardening effort as mulch reduces the heat storage of the soil thereby providing for a more stable temperature while also reducing...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Drought,
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather,
Fire,
South Central CASC,
drought development,
Abstract (from AMS): Harmful algae and cyanobacteria blooms are increasing in frequency and intensity in freshwater systems due to anthropogenic impacts such as nutrient loading in watersheds and engineered alterations of natural waterways. There are multiple physical factors that affect the conditions in a freshwater system that contribute to optimal habitats for harmful algae and toxin-producing cyanobacteria. A growing body of research shows that climate change stressors also are impacting water-body conditions that favor harmful algae and cyanobacteria species over other phytoplankton. The overgrowth of these organisms, or a “bloom,” increases the opportunity for exposure to toxins by humans, companion animals,...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
People who work on pollinator restoration need to make sure nectar is available to pollinators when they need it. They also must plan for shifts in the timing of flowering due to climate change. Time to Restore: Connecting People, Plants, and Pollinators aims to fill these needs. We seek to provide information about when plants will bloom and when seeds will be ready for harvest under future climate conditions. Over the past two years, we worked with representatives in the South Central region from federal agencies, tribes and Pueblos, conservation organizations, universities, native plant groups, and more. We asked them which nectar species are most important, what kind of information they need about flowering...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
A simple, non-negotiable truth of ensuring success in the restoration of ecological engineers (EE) and the functions they support is the need for the focal species to survive, grow and reproduce. Using mechanistic modeling, such as a dynamic energy budget (DEB), to map an EE's fundamental niche supports restoration and management predictive of EE resilience under current and future conditions. One EE, the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, provides critical estuarine habitat and supports a valuable fishery across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Recent declines in oyster populations in this region from anthropogenic activities and extreme events have led to significant efforts to restore wild, self-sustaining broodstock...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Projected changes to spring phenological indicators (such as first leaf and first bloom) are of importance to assessing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and species. The risk of false springs (when a killing freeze occurs after plants of interest bloom), which can cause ecological and economic damage, is also projected to change across much of the United States. Given the coarse nature of global climate models, downscaled climate projections have commonly been used to assess local changes in spring phenological indices. Few studies that examine the influence of the sources of uncertainty sources in the downscaling approach on projections of phenological changes. This study examines the influence of sources...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Time to Restore is a SC Climate Adaptation Science Center-funded project aimed at better understanding how the plants that pollinators depend on are responding to climate change. Project results will ultimately help shape species selection for restoration. For more information see www.usanpn.org/TimetoRestore. The phenology calendars depict annual patterns of phenological activity, including intensity peak curves, displayed in a chart at the site or regional level.
Snow and watershed models typically do not account for forest structure and shading; therefore, they display substantial uncertainty when attempting to account for forest change or when comparing hydrological response between forests with varying characteristics. This study collected snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements in a snow-dominated forest in Colorado, the United States, with variable canopy structure. The SWE measurements were integrated with 1 m Lidar derived canopy structure metrics and incoming solar radiation to create empirical SWE offset equations for four canopy structure groupings (forest gaps, south-facing forest edges, north-facing forest edges, and the interior forest) that varied in size...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana, redcedar) is a major woody species encroaching upon the native grasslands and forests of the southern Great Plains (SGP), representing a significant threat to regional ecosystem services. Future climate change is anticipated to influence redcedar habitat suitability, changing the probability of further encroachment and reshaping its spatial distribution. In this study, we trained seven Species Distribution Models (SDMs) with redcedar records from the USDA Forest Inventory Analysis database and used the ensemble of these SDMs to simulate redcedar distribution probability under current and future climate conditions in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Results reveal a distinct east-to-west...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Coastal wetland ecosystems are expected to migrate landward in response to accelerated sea-level rise. However, due to differences in topography and coastal urbanization extent, estuaries vary in their ability to accommodate wetland migration. The landward movement of wetlands requires suitable conditions, such as a gradual slope and land free of urban development. Urban barriers can constrain migration and result in wetland loss (coastal squeeze). For future-focused conservation planning purposes, there is a pressing need to quantify and compare the potential for wetland landward movement and coastal squeeze. For 41 estuaries in the northern Gulf of Mexico (i.e., the USA gulf coast), we quantified and compared...
Categories: Data;
Types: Citation,
Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Alabama,
Florida,
Gulf of Mexico,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
Groundwater systems play a pivotal role in ensuring food and water security while maintaining vital ecosystem functions. The depletion of numerous global aquifers, however, raises concerns regarding the sustainability of groundwater withdrawals and environmental flows. Despite efforts to mitigate this decline, there remains a striking gap in proving the effectiveness of these measures. Our research focuses on the karstic Edwards Aquifer system in Texas to assess how effectively current mitigation strategies are protecting groundwater levels and spring flows, which are essential for biodiversity and water security. Using counterfactual artificial intelligence, we address the critical question: ‘What would have happened...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
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