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Vulnerability assessments combine quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of species or natural communities to current and future threats. When combined with the economic, ecological or evolutionary value of the species, vulnerability assessments quantify the relative risk to regional species and natural communities and can enable informed prioritization of conservation efforts. Vulnerability assessments are common practice in conservation biology, including the potential impacts of future climate scenarios. However, geographic variation in scenarios and vulnerabilities is rarely quantified. This gap is particularly limiting for informing ecosystem management...
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Sky Island Alliance (SIA) is a non-governmental organizational that works to protect and restore the rich natural heritage of native species and habitats in the Sky Island Region. We work with volunteers, scientists, land-owners, public officials, and government agencies to establish protected areas, restore healthy landscapes, and promote public appreciation of the region’s unique biological diversity. Because of our long-standing collaborative relationships with land managers and our large corps of skilled volunteers, we were in a unique position to spearhead this project.SIA initiated this springs inventory, assessment and management planning project to develop baseline information on springs in the Sky Island...
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: ArcGIS REST Map Service, Citation, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2011, AZ-02, AZ-03, Arizona, Conservation NGOs, All tags...
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The Western Gulf Coast provides important habitat for migratory and resident waterfowl. The mottled duck(Anas fulvigula) relies on this region for all of its life-cycle events. Its relatively small population, limited worldwide range, and generally declining population trajectory has earned it a “Red” status on the Audubon WatchList and is a species of concern among state and federal agencies. The Western Gulf Coast (WGC) mottled duck population decline is believed to be primarily caused by the historical conversion and degradation of coastal wetlands and native prairie, and recent declines in cultivated rice. There is general agreement among experts that negative impacts to nesting and brood-rearing habitat are...
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Identifying the climatic drivers of an ecological system is a key step in assessing its vulnerability to climate change. Theclimatic dimensions to which a species or system is most sensitive – such as means or extremes – can guide methodologicaldecisions for projections of ecological impacts and vulnerabilities. However, scientific workflows for combining climateprojections with ecological models have received little explicit attention. We review Global Climate Model (GCM)performance along different dimensions of change and compare frameworks for integrating GCM output into ecologicalmodels. In systems sensitive to climatological means, it is straightforward to base ecological impact assessments onmean projected...
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Oil development in the Bakken shale region has increased rapidly as a result of new technologies and strongdemand for fossil fuel. This region also supports a particularly high density and diversity of grassland bird species,which are declining across North America. We examined grassland bird response to unconventional oilextraction sites (i.e. developed with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques) and associatedroads in North Dakota. Our goal was to quantify the amount of habitat that was indirectly degraded by oil development,as evidenced by patterns of avoidance by birds. Grassland birds avoided areas within 150 m of roads(95% CI: 87–214 m), 267 m of single-bore well pads (95% CI: 157–378 m),...
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Many waterbird species utilize a diversity of aquatic habitats; however, with increasing anthropogenic needs tomanage water regimes there is global concern over impacts to waterbird populations. The federally threatened pipingplover (Charadrius melodus; hereafter plovers) is a shorebird that breeds in three habitat types in the Prairie PotholeRegion of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Canada: riverine sandbars; reservoir shorelines; and prairie wetlands. Watersurface areas of these habitats fluctuate in response to wet–dry periods; decreasing water surface areas exposeshorelines that plovers utilize for nesting. Climate varies across the region so when other habitats are unavailable forplover nesting because of flooding,...
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Global environmental change has influenced lake surface temperatures, a key driver of ecosystem structureand function. Recent studies have suggested significant warming of water temperatures in individual lakesacross many different regions around the world. However, the spatial and temporal coherence associatedwith the magnitude of these trends remains unclear. Thus, a global data set of water temperature isrequired to understand and synthesize global, long-term trends in surface water temperatures of inlandbodies of water. We assembled a database of summer lake surface temperatures for 291 lakes collectedin situ and/or by satellites for the period 1985–2009. In addition, corresponding climatic drivers (airtemperatures,...
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How local geomorphic and hydrologic features mediate the sensitivity of stream thermal regimesto variation in climatic conditions remains a critical uncertainty in understanding aquatic ecosystem responsesto climate change.We used stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen to estimate contributions of snow and rainfallto 80 boreal streams and show that differences in snow contribution are controlled by watershed topography.Time series analysis of streamthermal regimes revealed that streams in rain-dominated, low-elevation watershedswere 5–8 times more sensitive to variation in summer air temperature compared to streams draining steepertopography whose flows were dominated by snowmelt. This effect wasmore pronounced...
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Within interior North America, erratic weather patterns and heterogeneous wetland complexes cause wide spatio-temporal variation in the resources available to migrating shorebirds. Identifying the pattern-generating components of landscape-level resources and the scales at which shorebirds respond to these patterns will better facilitate conservation efforts for these species. We constructed descriptive models that identified weather variables associated with creating the spatio-temporal patterns of shorebird habitat in ten landscapes in north-central Oklahoma. We developed a metric capable of measuring the dynamic composition and configuration of shorebird habitat in the region and used field data to empirically...
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The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 requires federal agencies to provide a meaningful role for rural subsistence harvesters in management of fish and wildlife in Alaska. We constructed an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Stakeholders' perceptions of their roles and motivations to participate in collaborative management are linked to unseen and often ignored cultural features and differing worldviews that influence outcomes of collaboration. Agencies need to better understand Yup'ik preferences for working together and change their formats and methods of public engagement. More frequent and higher quality interactions among stakeholders...
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The potential ecological and economic effects of climate change for tropical islands were studied using output from 12 statistically downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) taking Puerto Rico as a test case. Two model selection/model averaging strategies were used: the average of all available GCMs and the average of the models that are able to reproduce the observed large-scale dynamics that control precipitation over the Caribbean. Five island-wide and multidecadal averages of daily precipitation and temperature wereestimated by way of a climatology-informed interpolation of the site-specific downscaled climate model output. Annual cooling degree-days (CDD) were calculated as a proxy index for air-conditioning...
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Beaded streams are widespread in permafrost regionsand are considered a common thermokarst landform.However, little is known about their distribution, how andunder what conditions they form, and how their intriguingmorphology translates to ecosystem functions and habitat.Here we report on a circum-Arctic survey of beaded streamsand a watershed-scale analysis in northern Alaska using remotesensing and field studies.We mapped over 400 channelnetworks with beaded morphology throughout the continuouspermafrost zone of northern Alaska, Canada, and Russiaand found the highest abundance associated with mediumto high ground-ice content permafrost in moderately slopingterrain. In one Arctic coastal plain watershed, beaded...
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Stopover use by migrating shorebirds is affected by patch-level characteristics of habitat, but the relative influence of broadscale factors is poorly understood. We conducted surveys of ten 10-km-radius landscapes in north-central Oklahoma from 2007 through 2009 to examine the influence of the amount and composition of wetland habitats and surrounding land cover on shorebird use during migration. We used generalized linear modeling and an information-theoretic framework to identify factors that best explained species richness, total abundance, and abundance of four groups of shorebirds classified by breeding status and migration distance. Total abundance and richness both increased with the area of wetland...
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Holocene environmental change is poorly characterized throughout much of the High Plains. Playa wetlands are sites with appreciable potential for reconstructing environmental change because of their environmental sensitivity. Radiocarbon, litho- and magneto-stratigraphic, and stable carbon isotope (δ13C) data for four playas on the Kansas High Plains indicate significant change occurred throughout the Holocene, which had profound impacts on playa ecosystem functions (e.g. groundwater recharge, surface water storage, and habitat). Minimum δ13C values and buried soils observed during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition suggest sufficient moisture to support vegetative cover and promote pedogenesis. Low magnetic susceptibility,...
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The availability of output from climate model ensembles,such as phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project(CMIP3 and CMIP5), has greatly expanded information about future projections,but there is no accepted blueprint for how this data should be utilized.The multi-model average is themost commonly cited single estimate of future conditions,but higher-order moments representing thevariance and skewness of the distribution of projections provide important information about uncertainty. We have analyzed a set of statistically downscaled climate model projections from the CMIP3 archive to assess extreme weather events at a level aimed to be appropriate for decisionmakers. Our analysis uses the distribution...
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Executive Summary: We provide an analysis of Sonoran Desert water network connectivity to inform managers of current conditions for target wildlife and how the connectivity will change as the landscape becomes more water limited.Climate change is expected to lead to fragmentation of the network, increasing coalescence distance by 8% and reducing the persistence and overall number of waters on the landscape. Identification of key water sites, ranked by network connectivity metrics, are presented in Appendix B. Wetland number under our scenario of water limitation will decline by 43% reducing network resilience.Anurans and Caudates, although varying in ability to disperse, generally experienced reduced connectivity...
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ire-induced permafrost degradation is well documented in boreal forests, but the role of fires in initiating thermokarst development in Arctic tundra is less well understood. Here we show that Arctic tundra fires may induce widespread thaw subsidence of permafrost terrain in the first seven years following the disturbance. Quantitative analysis of airborne LiDAR data acquired two and seven years post-fire, detected permafrost thaw subsidence across 34% of the burned tundra area studied, compared to less than 1% in similar undisturbed, ice-rich tundra terrain units. The variability in thermokarst development appears to be influenced by the interaction of tundra fire burn severity and near-surface, ground-ice content....
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Throughout the Arctic most pregnant polar bears (Ursus maritimus) construct maternity dens in seasonal snowdrifts that form in wind-shadowed areas. We developed and verified a spatial snowdrift polar bearden habitat model (SnowDens-3D) that predicts snowdrift locations and depths along Alaska’s Beaufort Sea coast. SnowDens-3D integrated snow physics, weather data, and a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) to produce predictions of the timing, distribution, and growth of snowdrifts suitable for polar bear dens. SnowDens-3D assimilated 18 winters (1995 through 2012) of observed daily meteorological data and a 2.5 m grid-increment DEM covering 337.5 km2 of the Beaufort Sea coast, and described the snowdrift...
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The 25,000 km of shoreline in southeast Alaska was surveyed for waterbirds by fixed-wing aircraft in summer and winter during the period 1997 to 2002. A ground/boat survey double sampled 20% of the summer habitat and 5% of the winter habitat to adjust and enhance the air survey. The most abundant species during the summer surveys, with visibility correction factors applied, were gulls (Larus spp.; 306,200, CV = 0.004), scoters (Melanitta spp.; 185,700, CV = 0.004), and Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus; 34,640, CV = 0.03). The most abundant species observed during the winter surveys were goldeneyes (Bucephala islandica and B. clangula; 121,920, CV = 0.01), gulls (105,000, CV = 0.01), Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos;...
map background search result map search result map Broad-scale Relationships Between Shorebirds and Landscapes in the Southern Great Plains Report, Inventory and Assessment Protocols, Adaptation Plan, and Presentation for: Springs in the Sky Island Region: Inventory, Assessment, and Management Planning Project Quantitative and Predictive Analysis: Landscape Connectivity of Isolated Waters for Wildlife in the Sonoran Desert Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events Publication: Holocene records of environmental change in High Plains playa wetlands, Kansas, US Designing ecological climate change impact assessments to reflect key climatic drivers Distribution and biophysical processes of beaded streams in Arctic permafrost landscapes Modeling snowdrift habitat for polar bear dens Watershed geomorphology and snowmelt control stream thermal sensitivity to air temperature. A global database of lake surface temperatures collected by in situ and satellite methods from 1985–2009 What is a Meaningful Role? Accounting for Culture in Fish and Wildlife Management in Rural Alaska Land use and wetland drainage affect water levels and dynamics of remaining wetlands Avoidance of unconventional oil wells and roads exacerbates habitat loss for grassland birds in the North American great plains Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development Spatiotemporal scaling of North American continental interior wetlands: implications for shorebird conservation Climate Change Implications for Tropical Islands: Interpolating and Interpreting Statistically Downscaled GCM Projections for Management and Planning Publication: Decision support tool: Mottled duck habitat management and conservation in the Western Gulf Coast Publication: A multiscale natural community and species-level vulnerability assessment of the Gulf Coast, USA Distribution and abundance of waterbirds near shore in southeast Alaska 1997-2002 Utqiagvik Alaska Joint Circumpolar Studies publications Utqiagvik Alaska Joint Circumpolar Studies publications Climate Change Implications for Tropical Islands: Interpolating and Interpreting Statistically Downscaled GCM Projections for Management and Planning Distribution and biophysical processes of beaded streams in Arctic permafrost landscapes Report, Inventory and Assessment Protocols, Adaptation Plan, and Presentation for: Springs in the Sky Island Region: Inventory, Assessment, and Management Planning Project Avoidance of unconventional oil wells and roads exacerbates habitat loss for grassland birds in the North American great plains Modeling snowdrift habitat for polar bear dens Watershed geomorphology and snowmelt control stream thermal sensitivity to air temperature. A global database of lake surface temperatures collected by in situ and satellite methods from 1985–2009 What is a Meaningful Role? Accounting for Culture in Fish and Wildlife Management in Rural Alaska Publication: Holocene records of environmental change in High Plains playa wetlands, Kansas, US Quantitative and Predictive Analysis: Landscape Connectivity of Isolated Waters for Wildlife in the Sonoran Desert Broad-scale Relationships Between Shorebirds and Landscapes in the Southern Great Plains Publication: Decision support tool: Mottled duck habitat management and conservation in the Western Gulf Coast Distribution and abundance of waterbirds near shore in southeast Alaska 1997-2002 Spatiotemporal scaling of North American continental interior wetlands: implications for shorebird conservation Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development Publication: A multiscale natural community and species-level vulnerability assessment of the Gulf Coast, USA Designing ecological climate change impact assessments to reflect key climatic drivers Land use and wetland drainage affect water levels and dynamics of remaining wetlands Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events