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Accelerating disturbance activity under a warming climate increases the potential for multiple disturbances to overlap and produce compound effects that erode ecosystem resilience — the capacity to experience disturbance without transitioning to an alternative state. A key concern is the potential for amplifying or attenuating feedbacks via interactions among successive, linked disturbance events. Following severe wildfires, fuel limitation is a negative feedback that may reduce the likelihood of subsequent fire. However, the duration of, and pre-fire vegetation effects on fuel limitation remain uncertain. To address this knowledge gap, we characterized fuel profiles over a 35-year post-fire chronosequence in California...
This study employs the hedonic pricing method and a rich spatial and temporal dataset from two counties in Washington, USA to determine the effect of the 2009 Nisqually Restoration project (NRP) on housing prices in adjacent communities. The NRP restored 308 hectares of wetlands via dike removal in the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge (NNWR), leading to improvements in salmon and bird abundance and recreational opportunities. We find that the ecological improvements made by the NRP increased the value of homes within 0.5 mile of the refuge by $37,631; homes 0.5 to 1 mile by $10,489; and homes 1 to 1.5 miles by $31,186. Our findings are consistent with previous wetland hedonic price analyses and...
Resilience-based management strategies are gaining attention as tools to improve coral survival and recovery under increasingly stressful conditions. Prioritizing locations to implement these strategies depends on knowing where corals already show potential signs of resilience and how environmental conditions may shift with climate change. We synthesized environmental conditions and coral cover trends in Guam and American Samoa using present-day climate conditions and 2 future climate scenarios: Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5. We examined the spatial overlap between favorable and unfavorable environmental conditions and locations where coral reefs have maintained or increased coral cover over...
Assessments of the potential responses of animal species to climate change often rely on correlations between long-term average temperature or precipitation and species' occurrence or abundance. Such assessments do not account for the potential predictive capacity of either climate extremes and variability or the indirect effects of climate as mediated by plant phenology. By contrast, we projected responses of wildlife in desert grasslands of the southwestern United States to future climate means, extremes, and variability and changes in the timing and magnitude of primary productivity. We used historical climate data and remotely sensed phenology metrics to develop predictive models of climate-phenology relations...
Since January 2011, the EROS team studying cheatgrass in the Great Basin has made significant strides developing datasets that identify cheatgrass extents and abundances and cheatgrass dieoff in and around the Winnemucca, Nevada area. Additionally, the team, in partnership with the BLM, received money from the USGS’ Northwest Climate Science Center to expand our cheatgrass dieoff study area to most of the northern Great Basin. In the Winnemucca area, we developed a regression-tree model, trained on Peterson’s cheatgrass maps, that generated a time series (2000 – 2010) of cheatgrass extents and abundances and then analyzed the relationships between this cheatgrass time series and spatially explicit site-specific...
The Emergency Recovery Plan for freshwater biodiversity recognizes that addressing nonnative species is one of six principal actions needed to bend the curve in freshwater biodiversity loss. This is because introduction rates of nonnative species continue to accelerate globally and where these species develop invasive populations, they can have severe impacts on freshwater biodiversity. The most effective management measure to protect freshwater biodiversity is to prevent introductions of nonnative species. Should a nonnative species be introduced, however, then its early detection and the implementation of rapid reaction measures can avoid it establishing and dispersing. If these measures are unsuccessful and the...
Cheatgrass began invading the Great Basin about 100 years ago, changing large parts of the landscape from a rich, diverse ecosystem to one where a single invasive species dominates. Cheatgrass is highly flammable; consequently, cheatgrass-dominated areas experience more fires that burn more land than in native ecosystems, resulting in economic and resource losses. Therefore, the reduced production, or absence, of cheatgrass in previously invaded areas during years of adequate precipitation could be seen as a windfall. However, this cheatgrass dieoff phenomenon creates other problems for land managers such as accelerated soil erosion, loss of early spring food supply for livestock and wildlife, and unknown recovery...
Tribal nations are at the forefront of adaptation to climate change in the United States, because of their reliance upon the natural environment to sustain traditional ways of life yet the current lack of training and resources to respond to climate change impacts remains a challenge. Working with the South Central Climate Science Center (SC CSC), our team of climate scientists and anthropologists worked with tribal professionals in Louisiana and New Mexico to increase their basic knowledge of climate science, connect them with tools to assess their communities’ vulnerabilities, and helped them build their skills to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies. Our team held biweekly conference calls in consultation...
This study sought to advance our understanding of the responses of large migratory whales and other marine wildlife to climate change by examining species-specific shifts in timing of migration and habitat use. We used long-term historical datasets to measure changes in timing of seasonal habitat use in the Gulf of Maine (GOM) ecosystem by North Atlantic right (Eubalaena glacialis), fin (Balaenoptera physalus), humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae), and minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). Occupancy modeling, spatial analyses, and synthetic approaches evaluated changes in the seasonal habitat use by large migratory whales, changes in risk of whale interactions with human activities such as shipping and fishing...
Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem services that the biotic components of indigenous freshwater biodiversity provide to people, organized into three categories: material (food; health and genetic resources; material goods), non-material (culture; education and science; recreation), and regulating (catchment integrity; climate regulation; water purification and nutrient cycling). If freshwater biodiversity is...
Freshwater biodiversity loss is accelerating globally, but humanity can change this trajectory through actions that enable recovery. To be successful, these actions require coordination and planning at a global scale. The Emergency Recovery Plan for global freshwater biodiversity aims to reduce the risk for freshwater biodiversity loss through six priority actions: (1) accelerate implementation of environmental flows; (2) improve water quality to sustain aquatic life; (3) protect and restore critical habitats; (4) manage exploitation of freshwater species and riverine aggregates; (5) prevent and control nonnative species invasions in freshwater habitats; and (6) safeguard and restore freshwater connectivity. These...