Skip to main content
Advanced Search

Filters: Tags: {"scheme":"https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/NCCWSC/WildlifeandPlants"} (X)

1,135 results (17ms)   

Filters
View Results as: JSON ATOM CSV
thumbnail
Natural resource managers consistently identify invasive species as one of the biggest challenges for ecological adaptation to climate change. Yet climate change is often not considered during their management decision making. Given the many ways that invasive species and climate change will interact, such as changing fire regimes and facilitating the migration of high priority species, it is more critical than ever to integrate climate adaptation science and natural resource management. The coupling of climate adaptation and invasive species management remains limited by a lack of information, personnel, and funding. Those working on ecological adaptation to climate change have reported that information is not...
thumbnail
Invasive species establish outside of their native range, spread, and negatively impact ecosystems and economies. As temperatures rise, many invasive plants can spread into regions that were previously too cold for their survival. For example, kudzu, ‘the vine that ate the south’, was previously limited to mid-Atlantic states, but has recently started spreading in New Jersey and is expected to become invasive farther north. While scientists know of many of the invasive species expanding into the northeastern U.S., they do not know where those species are likely to become abundant and how they will impact vulnerable native ecosystems due to climate change. There are also currently no strategies to manage emerging...
thumbnail
The Southeastern U.S. spans broad ranges of physiographic settings and contains a wide variety of aquatic systems that provide habitat for hundreds of endemic aquatic species that pose interesting challenges and opportunities for managers of aquatic resources, particularly in the face of climate change. For example, the Southeast contains the southernmost populations of the eastern brook trout and other cold-water dependent species. Climate change is predicted to increase temperatures in the South and is likely to have a substantial effect on extant populations of cold-water biota. Thus, aquatic managers are tasked with developing strategies for preserving cold-water dependent biota, such as eastern brook trout,...
thumbnail
Throughout its native range in the Eastern U.S., the brook trout is a culturally and economically important species that is sensitive to warming stream temperatures and habitat degradation. The purpose of this assessment was to determine the impacts that projected future land use and climate changes might have on the condition of stream habitat to support self-sustaining brook trout populations. The study region encompassed the historic native range of brook trout, which includes the northeastern states and follows the Appalachian Mountains south to Georgia, where the distribution is limited to higher elevation streams with suitable water temperatures. Relationships between recent observations of brook trout and...
thumbnail
Recreational angling in the U.S. represents a large group of people that catch and harvest fish for a variety of reasons, including for relaxation, adventure, social motivations, and consumption. Collectively, recreational anglers can exert pressures on both economies and fishery resources. Fish removals by anglers represent an important source of mortality data when trying to understand fish populations, and this information is even more important when the fishery is dominated by recreational and subsistence fishing. Currently, the magnitude of recreational angling is measured at local scales (for example, at a specific lake or stream) and the process to collect information from anglers varies widely by state...
thumbnail
Climate change influences apex predators in complex ways, due to their important trophic position, capacity for resource plasticity, and sensitivity to numerous anthropogenic stressors. Bald eagles, an ecologically and culturally significant apex predator, congregate seasonally in high densities on salmon spawning rivers across the Pacific Northwest. One of the largest eagle concentrations is in the Skagit River watershed, which connects the montane wilderness of North Cascades National Park to the Puget Sound. Using multiple long-term datasets, we evaluated the relationship between local bald eagle abundance, chum and coho salmon availability and phenology, and the number and timing of flood events in the Skagit...
thumbnail
There are approximately 2,000 species of migratory birds worldwide, and over 300 of those can be found in North America. Changing climate conditions pose challenges for many migratory birds and their responses to these challenges can depend on their biology. To illustrate these impacts, a board game, called Migration Mismatch, was developed to help elementary school students understand these challenges. Migration Mismatch can help students build their understanding of biological processes and how species, birds in this case, interact with their environment. The game provides an interactive element to learning about adaptations of different bird species to environmental changes and provides a link to birds they may...
thumbnail
Covering 120 million acres across 14 western states and 3 Canadian provinces, sagebrush provides critical habitat for species such as pronghorn, mule deer, and sage-grouse – a species of conservation concern. The future of these and other species is closely tied to the future of sagebrush. Yet this important ecosystem has already been affected by fire, invasive species, land use conversion, and now, climate change. In the western U.S., temperatures are rising and precipitation patterns are changing. However, there is currently a limited ability to anticipate the impacts of climate change on sagebrush. Current methods suffer from a range of weakness that limits the reliability of results. In fact, the current uncertainty...
thumbnail
Inland fishes provide important ecosystem services to communities worldwide and are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Fish respond to climate change in diverse and nuanced ways, which creates challenges for practitioners of fish conservation, climate change adaptation, and management. Although climate change is known to affect fish globally, a comprehensive online, public database of how climate change has impacted inland fishes worldwide and adaptation or management practices that may address these impacts does not exist. We conducted an extensive, systematic primary literature review to identify peer-reviewed journal publications describing projected and documented examples of climate change...
thumbnail
The USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC), as part of the work of the Interagency Land Management Adaptation Group (ILMAG), initiated a project in 2013 to develop plans for a searchable, public registry on climate change vulnerability assessments. Member agencies from the USGCRP Adaptation Science Work Group, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), and several NGO’s also contributed. Vulnerability assessments are important for identifying resources that are most likely to be affected by climate change and providing insights on why certain resources are vulnerable. Consequently, they provide valuable information for informing climate change adaptation planning. CRAVe allows...
Abstract (from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088948): Reproduction in rare plants may be influenced and limited by a complex combination of factors. External threats such as invasive species and landscape characteristics such as isolation may impinge on both pollination and seed predation dynamics, which in turn can strongly affect reproduction. I assessed how patterns in floral visitation, seed predation, invasive ant presence, and plant isolation influenced one another and ultimately affected viable seed production in Haleakalā silverswords (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum) of Hawai’i. Floral visitation was dominated by endemic Hylaeus bees, and patterns of visitation...
A new study published in Climate Change Responses by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers shows how shifting atmospheric circulation patterns that may be caused by climate change are threatening populations of the iconic silversword on Haleakalā. The native plant is found nowhere else in the world. Paul Krushelnycky of the UH Mānoa Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences and his co-authors researched the effects of changes in temperature, precipitation and solar radiation on populations of silverswords, using 80 years of data records. The team found that Haleakalā silversword numbers have declined about 60 percent since 1990 and that this decline coincides with lower rainfall in the area,...
Abstract: We report on net ecosystem production (NEP) and key environmental controls on net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) between a mangrove forest and the atmosphere in the coastal Florida Everglades. An eddy covariance system deployed above the canopy was used to determine NEE during January 2004 through August 2005. Maximum daytime NEE ranged from −20 to −25 μ mol (CO 2 ) m −2 s −1 between March and May. Respiration (R d ) was highly variable (2.81 ± 2.41 μ mol (CO 2 ) m −2 s −1 ), reaching peak values during the summer wet season. During the winter dry season, forest CO 2 assimilation increased with the proportion of diffuse solar irradiance in response to greater radiative transfer...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jawr.12179/abstract): Freshwater mussels (order Unionida) are a highly imperiled group of organisms that are at risk from rising stream temperatures ( T ). There is a need to understand the potential effects of land use (LU) and climate change (CC) on stream T and have a measure of uncertainty. We used available downscaled climate projections and LU change simulations to simulate the potential effects on average daily stream T from 2020 to 2060. Monte Carlo simulations were run, and a novel technique to analyze results was used to assess changes in hydrologic and stream T response. Simulations of daily mean T were used as input to our stochastic...
Abstract (from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2015/10/09/SP408.11.abstract): We present a hierarchical series of spatially decreasing and temporally increasing models to evaluate the uncertainty in the atmosphere – ocean global climate model (AOGCM) and the regional climate model (RCM) relative to the uncertainty in the somatic growth of the endangered pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus). For effects on fish populations of riverine ecosystems, climate output simulated by coarse-resolution AOGCMs and RCMs must be downscaled to basins to river hydrology to population response. One needs to transfer the information from these climate simulations down to the individual scale in a way that minimizes extrapolation...
The Hawaiian Islands' largest atoll, French Frigate Shoals, is key to understanding how seabird nesting habitat will change with predicted rising sea levels.
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.1853/full): Predicting species responses to perturbations is a fundamental challenge in ecology. Decision makers must often identify management perturbations that are the most likely to deliver a desirable management outcome despite incomplete information on the pattern and strength of food web links. Motivated by a current fishery decline in inland lakes of the Midwestern United States, we evaluate consistency of the responses of a target species (walleye (Sander vitreus)) to press perturbations. We represented food web uncertainty with 196 plausible topological models and applied four perturbations to each one. Frequently the direction of the focal...
Board Game, Species Information Cards, and Spinner Template for "Migration Mismatch" board game.
map background search result map search result map USGS-USFS Partnership to Help Managers Evaluate Conservation Strategies for Aquatic Ecosystems Based on Future Climate Projections Projected Vulnerability of Brook Trout to Climate and Land Use Changes in the Eastern U.S. (Regional Assessment) Development of the Climate Registry for the Assessment of Vulnerability (CRAVe): A Searchable, Public Online Tool for Understanding Species and Habitat Vulnerability Forecasting Future Changes in Sagebrush Distribution and Abundance Fish and Climate Change (FiCli) Database: Informing Climate Change Adaptation and Management Actions for Freshwater Fishes Migration Mismatch: Bird Migration and Phenological Mismatching Trophic Implications of a Phenological Paradigm Shift: Bald Eagles and Salmon in a Changing Climate One from Many: Combining State Creel Data to Estimate Regional Harvest Creating a North Central Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (NC RISCC) Management Network Identifying Vulnerable Ecosystems and Supporting Climate-Smart Strategies to Address Invasive Species Under Climate Change Forecasting Future Changes in Sagebrush Distribution and Abundance Projected Vulnerability of Brook Trout to Climate and Land Use Changes in the Eastern U.S. (Regional Assessment) One from Many: Combining State Creel Data to Estimate Regional Harvest USGS-USFS Partnership to Help Managers Evaluate Conservation Strategies for Aquatic Ecosystems Based on Future Climate Projections Identifying Vulnerable Ecosystems and Supporting Climate-Smart Strategies to Address Invasive Species Under Climate Change Creating a North Central Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (NC RISCC) Management Network Migration Mismatch: Bird Migration and Phenological Mismatching Development of the Climate Registry for the Assessment of Vulnerability (CRAVe): A Searchable, Public Online Tool for Understanding Species and Habitat Vulnerability Fish and Climate Change (FiCli) Database: Informing Climate Change Adaptation and Management Actions for Freshwater Fishes