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Alpine and subalpine plant species are of special interest in ecology and ecophysiology because they represent life at the climate limit and changes in their relative abundances can be a bellwether for climate-change impacts. Perennial life forms dominate alpine plant communities, and their form and function reflect various avoidance, tolerance, or resistance strategies to interactions of cold temperature, radiation, wind, and desiccation stresses that prevail in the short growing seasons common (but not ubiquitous) in alpine areas. Plant microclimate is typically uncoupled from the harsh climate of the alpine, often leading to substantially warmer plant temperatures than air temperatures recorded by weather stations....
In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Conservation Objectives Team (COT) identified wildfire and the associated conversion of low- to mid-elevation sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) habitats to invasive annual grass-dominated vegetation communities as the two primary threats to the sustainability of Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter GRSG) in the western portion of the species range (USFWS 2013). To facilitate the examination and evaluation of the role fire and invasive plants play in the conservation of GRSG, the USFWS solicited the assistance of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) to conduct a collaborative assessment of the conservation challenges...
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The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes (UMGL) and the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie & Big Rivers (ETP) Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) are convening State Wildlife Action Plan Coordinators in the Midwest states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin to work across state boundaries to conserve species of greatest conservation need and their habitats. The partnership members have agreed to focus on three conservation priorities that are common among their State Wildlife Action Plans: freshwater mussels, pollinators, and large grassland complexes with their associated species of greatest conservation need. Work under this partnership addresses implementation of these priorities...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2017, Conservation Plan/Design/Framework, Conservation Planning, EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > LANDSCAPE, Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative, All tags...
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This multi-LCC project is designed to evaluate delivery of existing courses offered through the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) as “pilots” to enhance expertise needed within the regional context of LCC and Climate Science Center (CSC) communities. Feedback from these offsite training sessions and other strategic discussion will help identify and prioritize which tools to include in future training for staff and partners. A pre-workshop and in-person exercise was conducted by reviewing SIAS metrics and other LCC activities for products required of the LCCs, determining the process/skills/tools needed to deliver this training, and listing training opportunities that are available or needed to develop...
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Despite growing interest in ecosystem services and multi-functional landscapes, there are still relatively few examples of projects that assess the delivery of multiple goods and services and evaluate how multi-objective conservation strategies can improve outcomes relative to single-objective or species-centric approaches (Boody et al. 2005). Quantifying the impact of conservation on the delivery of multiple ecosystem services and habitat values requires specialized expertise and extensive data collection. Even with robust biophysical and habitat models, relating these models to impacts on individuals and communities is challenging and requires interdisciplinary approaches. In addition to modeling and data hurdles,...
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Estimates of nutrient loading to the Gulf of Mexico indicate that nine states within the Mississippi River Basin are responsible for approximately 75% of all nitrogen and phosphorus delivered to the Gulf. The Mississippi Basin supports a rich assemblage of fish species; at least 25% of all species in the conterminous United States are found in the Basin. These assemblages reflect their habitats, human landscape disturbances, and fragmentation of the river network by dams. Climate also has close associations with aquatic habitat conditions and ultimately fish community composition. Climate change is anticipated to lead to additional changes in stream habitats, including changing thermal properties and flow regimes....
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Report from a workshop is to share experiences, technical knowledge, and successful approaches to urban conservation – a true networking opportunity with other officials from cities and towns, NGOs, and researchers committed to urban conservation. This will increase the capacity for organizations, the public and decision makers to engage in responsible, creative, collective-impact-focused solutions and build upon already existing urban conservation efforts. At the workshop the afternoon session on April 30th was dedicated to brainstorming how a group of professionals within urban conservation can work towards creating a network where we can make more of an impact based on the five elements of Collective Impact....
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Reports from a project to determine biodiversity impacts of land restoration associated with clean and renewable energy development; specifically, natural gas production through an aerobic digestion of hog manure and native plant material, as being forwarded by Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) and Smithfield Foods. RAE has the stated goal of scaling up to restore30 million acres across the Midwestern U.S., but quantitative data in support of their claims of beneficial impacts on biodiversity are currently lacking. This research seeks to fill this gap. This specific project will be conducted on Smithfield Food’s Ruckman Farm located near Albany, Missouri. Ruckman Farm is now covered in exotic cool‐season grasses,...
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Sediment and nutrient runoff contributes to loss of agricultural productivity, degradation of local streams, and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The North Fork Maquoketa Basin has been identified as a major contributor of sediment and nutrients. Agricultural best management practices are now being implemented in the upper basin through the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resource Conservation Service in conjunction with local watershed groups. Best management practices in target watersheds are designed to optimize use of nitrogen and phosphorus within fields and reduce downstream nutrient loading by trapping nutrient and sediment runoff, simultaneously...
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The emerging multi-LCC Ecological Places in Cities Network integrates the ecological and urban communities to guide and promote conservation practices, such as those across the monarch flyway. The ETPBR LCC is working with a number of other Service programs and external partners to build capacity for the development and implementation of a framework that can be tailored to individual cities of various sizes to evaluate their unique situations and design an urban monarch conservation strategy that optimizes the potential contributions of their urban area. Specifically, this project will continue to lay the groundwork for design principles to guide the development, testing and deployment of future urban conservation...
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The Monarch’s View of a City project will lay the groundwork for design principles to guide the development, testing and deployment of future urban conservation for the Monarch butterfly across the Eastern half of the country. This strategy will need to reflect an integrated and interdisciplinary approach, one that includes ecological and social dimensions specific to an urban landscape. Pilot design projects at various scales in at least two cities will advance the state of science for developing landscape conservation design (LCD) guidelines for monarch butterfly conservation in urban areas as described below. While the ETPBR LCC, working through US Fish & Wildlife Service staff, will select cities and manage...
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Monarch butterfly and other pollinators are in trouble. Monarch butterfly habitat— including milkweed host plants and nectar food sources—has declined drastically throughout most of the United States. Observed overwinter population levels have also exhibited a long-term downward trend, suggesting a strong relationship between habitat loss and monarch population declines. Preliminary research results from a U.S. Geological Survey led effort indicate that we need a comprehensive conservation strategy that includes all land types in order to stabilize monarch populations at levels necessary to adequately minimize extinction risk—urban areas will likely play a critical role. A Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) tool...
There is widespread evidence that multiple drivers of global change, such as habitat degradation, invasive species, and climate change, are influencing wildlife. Understanding how these drivers interact with and affect species may be difficult because outcomes depend on the magnitude and duration of environmental change and the life history of the organism. In addition, various environmental drivers may be evaluated and managed at different spatial scales. We used a historical dataset from 1991 to 1994 and current information from 2010 to 2012 to examine whether occupancy patterns of wintering raptors were consistent with regional changes in distribution or habitat conditions within a local management unit, the...
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This project will refine the hierarchical prioritization within and across the Texas Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs) for integration into the comprehensive revisions of the Texas Conservation Action Plan in 2025. Research products (SDMs and hierarchical prioritization of NFCAs) will guide efforts that result in long-term focus for management and make the most efficient use of limited conservation resources for maintaining or improving conditions for Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) fishes. Research products can subsequently be used to support efforts such as: updating Species Status Assessments used to inform revisions of the SGCN and State Threatened and Endangered species lists, refining the...
This document presents tasks and milestones for phase 1 of Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design. Phase 1 is anticipated to be completed by April 2016.
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The Southern Rockies LCC is home to narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia), common at elevations above 1800 m, and Fremont cottonwood [a common name regionally attached to the ecologically very similar Populus fremontii subsp. fremontii S. Watson and P. deltoides subsp. wislizenii (S. Watson) Eckenwalder, as well as their intergrades], which is typically found at elevations below 1800 m. This geographical information system (GIS) contains the data sets used in an assessment of the amount and character of native Fremont cottonwood forest remaining on the mainstem floodplains in 26 subbasins in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), published in 2007 (Andersen, D.C., D.J. Cooper, and K. Northcott. 2007. Dams,...
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This dataset depicts riparian vegetation in the valley bottoms at 10-meter resolution for the Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design (GRB LCD) project area covering portions of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. Values are continuous and represent the portion of each 10-meter pixel comprised by woody riparian vegetation.
map background search result map search result map Upper Colorado River Basin River Sub-basins Data for Gulf Hypoxia Blueprint Assessing effects of Agricultural BMPs on Stream and River Health Status Update A Monarch’s View of Urban Landscapes: Pilot City Design Report Urban Monarch Kansas City Tools FishTail Future Conditions narrative Midwest Urban Conservation Workshop April 2014 Executive Summary Midwest Regional State Wildlife Action Plan Coordination Monarch View of the City: The Next Iteration NCTC LCC Toolbox Workshops - Project Report Pigs & Prairies: Evaluating Biodiversity Impacts for Biogas Production interim reports Value-added Conservation: Optimizing Landscapes - Report & Presentation Riparian vegetation within valley bottoms of the Green River Basin Derived from 2014 to 2015 NAIP Imagery Species Distribution Modeling and Native Fish Conservation Area Prioritization to Guide Landscape-Level Conservation Urban Monarch Kansas City Tools Pigs & Prairies: Evaluating Biodiversity Impacts for Biogas Production interim reports Assessing effects of Agricultural BMPs on Stream and River Health Status Update Upper Colorado River Basin River Sub-basins Riparian vegetation within valley bottoms of the Green River Basin Derived from 2014 to 2015 NAIP Imagery Species Distribution Modeling and Native Fish Conservation Area Prioritization to Guide Landscape-Level Conservation A Monarch’s View of Urban Landscapes: Pilot City Design Report Monarch View of the City: The Next Iteration Midwest Regional State Wildlife Action Plan Coordination Midwest Urban Conservation Workshop April 2014 Executive Summary Data for Gulf Hypoxia Blueprint FishTail Future Conditions narrative NCTC LCC Toolbox Workshops - Project Report