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Our ability to effectively manage natural resources is founded in an understanding of how our actions and the environment influence populations, communities, and ecosystems. Current practices use monitoring data from the past to determine key ecological relationships and make predictions about the future with the assumption that those relationships will remain constant. However, many natural systems are undergoing rapid changes due to external factors including climate change, urbanization, and energy development, leading to a situation in which our observations of the past are poor predictors of the future. Ignoring such changes could lead to management decisions that are sub-optimal at best or detrimental at worst....
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Drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems have increased globally in the 21st century, and droughts are expected to become more frequent, extreme, and spatially extensive in the future. Historical site-based observations are inadequate to predict how future extreme water deficits will affect the global terrestrial surface, because future droughts and their impacts may be more extreme than they have been historically and reach well beyond a single ecosystem. This USGS Powell Center working group will conduct the first comprehensive synthesis of ecosystem impacts across a coordinated, globally distributed drought experiment network of over 100 sites that have imposed an extreme multi-year drought. Knowledge about...
Groundwater plays a critical role in the water balance, however the groundwater component of the hydrologic cycle is frequently overlooked at basin scales because it is difficult to observe and quantify. We address this problem through a novel framework that combines existing hydrological models and data sets with groundwater flux estimates across Earth's largest system of lakes; the Laurentian Great Lakes. Aside from serving as a template for combining surface and ground water data and models, the Laurentian Great Lakes recently transitioned from a period characterized by water scarcity (water levels on the lakes were persistently below average from 1998 through 2013) to extreme water abundance (all-time high...
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Water is a key resource in Alaska: Although it comprises 17 percent of the country’s land area, Alaska contains more than 40 percent of the United States’ surface water. Climate changes are anticipated to greatly impact water processes (hydrology), including water temperature and seasonal precipitation patterns and amounts. Understanding the likely impacts of climate change on hydrology is an important first step toward understanding consequent impacts on natural and human communities. The purpose of this project was to assist with the development of a coordinated state-wide approach for monitoring temperature in streams and lakes. This process was guided by the recommendations of a workshop involving hydrologists,...
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HawaiĘ»i is home to a rich diversity of native plants, about 90 percent of which are found nowhere else in the world. However, changing climate conditions may reduce the amount of suitable habitat for native plants and contribute to the spread of invasive plant species. The goal of this project was to better understand how Hawaiian native and invasive plants will respond to climate change. Scientists focused on 10 important native and five important invasive plant species, using over 35 years of data from thousands of locations in Hawai‘i to assess the plants’ preferred climate conditions and model their likely best future habitat based on climate change projections. The resulting maps and findings provide an initial...
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The Republic of Palau, a Freely Associated State of the U.S. and a global leader in ocean conservation, recently implemented the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, which closed 80% of its ocean to fishing. As offshore fish become scarcer in the domestic market, managers have begun to worry about increased harvesting pressure on already overfished nearshore environments. This pressure, in addition to stressors from land-use change, sea-level rise, and warming oceans, could threaten the food and economic security of many Palauans. However, adaptively managing stressors in an integrated way can mitigate declines and even promote recovery, while still being cost-effective, resulting in direct benefits to coastal communities....
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Maple syrup is produced from the sap of sugar maple trees collected in the late winter and early spring. Native American tribes have collected and boiled down sap for centuries, and the tapping of maple trees is a cultural touchstone for many people in the Northeast and Midwest. Overall demand for maple syrup has been rapidly rising as more people appreciate this natural sweetener. Yet because the tapping season is dependent on weather conditions, there is concern about the sustainability of maple sugaring as the region’s climate changes. The distribution of sugar maple could move north into Canada and the sap flow season may become shorter in the future. Not only could these changes affect producers and consumers...
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This study set out to answer the question: “What data and modeling frameworks are needed to provide scientists reliable, climate-informed, water temperature estimates for freshwater ecosystems that can assist watershed management decision making?” To accomplish this, the study gathered existing stream temperature data, identified data gaps, deployed stream temperature monitoring devices, and developed and tested a stream temperature model that could be regionalized across the Northeast domain. We partnered with another funded project team, led by Jana Stewart at WI USGS to collect data from over 10,000 locations across the climate science center domain. This collection effort aided in identifying data gaps where...
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The scaled quail is an important species that indicates the overall health of the habitats they occupy in the arid Southwest. Some populations are declining, which may be linked to the long-term trend in warmer, drier conditions and reduced monsoonal rainfall across their range. It’s believed that temperature and humidity levels have been too high, reducing the survival of eggs and chicks. Climate models project decreasing rainfall and warming temperatures to continue for the region, so understanding this linkage is becoming increasingly critical. To address this need, researchers sought to measure the success of scaled quail nests at locations across their range, to determine if nest success is related to temperature,...
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Snowshoe hares are the primary food source of the federally threatened Canada lynx. In western Montana for example, snowshoe hare make up 96% of lynx diet. In fact, hares are critical players in forest ecosystems because most carnivores prey on them. The main way that snowshoe hares escape predation is through camouflage. In response to changes in day length, snowshoe hares molt seasonally, changing color from brown to white in the winter to blend in with the snowfall and hide from predators. However, due to shorter snow seasons caused by recent changes in climate, snowshoe hares are turning white before it snows, making them more visible to predators. Because 21 other species around the world also undergo these...
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Fisheries and aquatic habitats throughout the United States are in dire need of protection or restoration because human activities have resulted in severe degradation of those habitats. Further, future climatic changes will continue to affect human land-use, temperature, and water flows. Natural resource managers need to identify and prioritize habitats so that limited time and funding can be focused on habitats that are in most need of protection both now and in the future, based on projected climate changes. This project was comprised of a team of scientists from the US Geological Survey, Kansas State University, Michigan State University, Penn State University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University...
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Climate change has emerged as a key environmental concern of the 21st century and a major challenge for land and wildlife managers. Although scientists have made tremendous progress in predicting the impact of climate change on a regional and global scale, drilling down such projections to a locally applicable form has been difficult. A major project of the US Geological Survey's (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC), funded by the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC), drew on the work of an interdisciplinary team of scientists to help close the gap between theory and practical application in the arid southwestern U.S. Climate change in this region is predicted to be extreme,...
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In collaboration with the University of Missouri and Iowa State University, this project advanced efforts to understand and accommodate uncertainty by applying to Missouri River sturgeon population dynamics the tools of multi-scale climate models and hierarchical Bayesian modeling frameworks, linking models for system components together by formal rules of probability. While a complete climate prediction may be intractable at this time -- for instance, the climate projections may not incorporate land use changes and solar fluctuations into the boundary conditions -- we proposed a framework to quantify known uncertainty that is also flexible enough to adapt to advances in climate predictions. A key advantage of the...
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The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is a familiar species across the southeastern Coastal Plain, but its population has declined significantly over the decades. One reason is that much of its primary habitat, sparse stands of mature pine, has been replaced by development or agriculture. Another is that periodic ground fires, which are important for providing needed forage for the tortoise, have been largely suppressed on the landscape. The gopher tortoise is a “keystone” species, meaning that its disappearance from the landscape would jeopardize the existence of many other species that make use of its underground burrows. Besides tortoise habitat, the uplands of the Coastal Plain contain isolated seasonal...
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Grasslands are plant communities that have few or no trees, or have open canopies that allow for the development of a grassy groundcover. Grasslands in the southeastern U.S. support rare plant and animal species and in some cases qualify as global or regional hotspots of biodiversity. Yet the Southeast’s grasslands have been reduced by approximately 90% since European settlement, as the result of agriculture, urbanization, and fire suppression. Today, climate change represents an additional stressor that may pose direct and indirect threats to grassland-related biodiversity. Additional knowledge is urgently needed to evaluate conservation options for species of conservation concern in southeastern U.S. grasslands,...
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We routinely encounter uncertainty when we make decisions – from picking a new morning coffee to choosing where to live. Even decisions that are supported by science contain some level of remaining uncertainty. In the context of conservation and wildlife management, the potential for uncertainty to influence decisions is perhaps most obvious when we think about predicting how actions (or non-actions) will have lasting impacts into the future. Our abilities to precisely predict future climatic and ecological conditions and determine the exact consequences of our actions are, and will remain, limited. Conservation practitioners and land and wildlife managers must navigate these challenges to make science-informed...
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USGS researchers assessed how climate change can affect land cover and flow in river systems, examining a variety of resolutions for detecting and projecting the conditions of aquatic habitats and species.
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The USGS and South Atlantic LCC worked with stakeholders and managers across the Southeast to identify and assess landscape-level strategies for conserving multiple species. These strategies incorporated predictions from downscaled climate models, sea level rise, and changes to aquatic and terrestrial habitats.
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The Southeastern United States spans a broad range of physiographic settings and maintains exceptionally high levels of faunal diversity. Unfortunately, many of these ecosystems are increasingly under threat due to rapid human development, and management agencies are increasingly aware of the potential effects that climate change will have on these ecosystems. Natural resource managers and conservation planners can be effective at preserving ecosystems in the face of these stressors only if they can adapt current conservation efforts to increase the overall resilience of the system. Climate change, in particular, challenges many of the basic assumptions used by conservation planners and managers. Previous conservation...
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There is growing interest in the facilitated movement of plants as a means of conserving or restoring species and habitats, as climate conditions and management goals change. For example, plants might be relocated to support pollinator conservation or the restoration of prairies. Some land managers, in an effort to be proactive in the face of changing environmental conditions, are also considering relocating plants to sites that are considered more similar to anticipated future conditions. However, moving plants can be ecologically and economically risky. It’s possible that pests, pathogens, or contaminant weeds can be inadvertently moved along with the target plant material. In 2016, the noxious weed Palmer amaranth...
map background search result map search result map Can Camouflage Keep up with Climate Change? Connecting Climate Projections to Adaptation for the Snowshoe Hare Projecting Future Impacts to River Systems and Large River Fish: Missouri River Sturgeon Example Forecasting Climate Impacts on Wildlife of the Arid Southwest at Regional and Local Scales Using Downscaled Climate Models Science to Inform Future Management of the Nation's Fisheries and Aquatic Habitat Bringing People, Data, and Models Together – Addressing Impacts of Climate Change on Stream Temperature Modeling Climate-Driven Changes to Vegetation in the Hawaiian Islands Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation The Effects of Climate on Scaled Quail Reproduction and Survival SERAP: The Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Species and Habitat in the Southeast SERAP: Decision Support for Stakeholders and Managers Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): Assessing Global Change Impacts on Natural and Human Systems in the Southeast Climate Effects on the Culture and Ecology of Sugar Maple Monitoring Alaska Stream and Lake Temperatures to Understand Future Conditions Relocating Plants for Conservation and Restoration: Developing a Risk Assessment Framework Clarifying Science Needs for Southeastern Grasslands Examining How Ridge-to-Reef Governance in Palau Can Enhance Coastal Food Security in a Changing Climate Examining How Ridge-to-Reef Governance in Palau Can Enhance Coastal Food Security in a Changing Climate Can Camouflage Keep up with Climate Change? Connecting Climate Projections to Adaptation for the Snowshoe Hare SERAP: The Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Species and Habitat in the Southeast Modeling Climate-Driven Changes to Vegetation in the Hawaiian Islands SERAP: Decision Support for Stakeholders and Managers Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation Relocating Plants for Conservation and Restoration: Developing a Risk Assessment Framework The Effects of Climate on Scaled Quail Reproduction and Survival Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): Assessing Global Change Impacts on Natural and Human Systems in the Southeast Projecting Future Impacts to River Systems and Large River Fish: Missouri River Sturgeon Example Bringing People, Data, and Models Together – Addressing Impacts of Climate Change on Stream Temperature Climate Effects on the Culture and Ecology of Sugar Maple Forecasting Climate Impacts on Wildlife of the Arid Southwest at Regional and Local Scales Using Downscaled Climate Models Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Science to Inform Future Management of the Nation's Fisheries and Aquatic Habitat Monitoring Alaska Stream and Lake Temperatures to Understand Future Conditions Clarifying Science Needs for Southeastern Grasslands