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For management agencies, there is a growing need to understand (1) how climate change affects and will continue to affect wildlife populations of conservation concern, and (2) how the negative Upper Midwest Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative Request for Funding 2013 demographic effects of climate change can be mitigated through management strategies. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA) integrates available data and scientific understanding in a transparent process, details assumptions and uncertainties, and ultimately projects population-level responses of target species to future climate change. Climate change is already influencing distributions and abundances of species throughout North...
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Climate change is expected to alter the distributions and community composition of stream fishes in the Great Lakes region in the 21st century, in part as a result of altered hydrological systems (stream temperature, streamflow, and habitat). Resource managers need information and tools to understand where fish species and stream habitats are expected to change under future conditions. Fish sample collections and environmental variables from multiple sources across the United States Great Lakes Basin were integrated and used to develop empirical models to predict fish species occurrence under present-day climate conditions. Random Forests models were used to predict the probability of occurrence of 13 lotic fish...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Downloadable, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service, Shapefile; Tags: 2011, 2011, 2012, 2012, 2013, All tags...
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In the United States, many resources devoted to conservation are routed through states, but animal and plant populations do not conform to state boundaries. Consequently, neighboring states can enhance their collective conservation impact by coordinating natural resources management. In order to support managers as they review and revise state Wildlife Action Plans in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, this project identified regional conservation priorities for streams and grasslands of the Upper Midwest.Specifically, we (1) selected stream and grassland species of common conservation interest to partnering states, (2) modeled and mapped regional distributions of these species, and (3) used predicted species...
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Climate change is expected to alter the distributions and community composition of stream fishes in the Great Lakes region in the 21st century, in part as a result of altered hydrological systems (stream temperature, streamflow, and habitat). Resource managers need information and tools to understand where fish species and stream habitats are expected to change under future conditions. Fish sample collections and environmental variables from multiple sources across the United States Great Lakes Basin were integrated and used to develop empirical models to predict fish species occurrence under present-day climate conditions. Random Forests models were used to predict the probability of occurrence of 13 lotic fish...
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Capacity to prioritize barrier removals in the Great Lakes basin is currently limited by lack of data on the passability of road crossings and dams for both unwanted invasive species and desirable native migratory fishes. Building upon our initial barrier inventory, this project has two key elements. First, we are testing whether our landscape statistical models accurately predict the upstream limits of fish migrations along the Wisconsin coast of Lake Michigan. This involves intensive field work to determine the actual upstream limits of suckers, pike, and steelhead during the spring migration. Second, we are collecting systematic data on the size and condition of dams throughout the Lake Michigan basin. These...
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Brief:Under this project a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB) was developed to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings. SUMMARY:KBIC Natural Resources Department received funding through the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative to develop a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB), to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings (see Figure 1). This project stemmed from KBIC’s participation in the Partnering for Watershed Restoration Group (PWR),...
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Ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries is widely impaired, and many agencies and organizations are currently investing in restoring these connections to enhance target fish and wildlife populations. To assist in targeting these investments, we have been developing spatial data on the location and attributes of barriers (dams and road-stream crossings) and fish breeding habitat throughout the Great Lakes basin to analyze the optimum strategy for enhancing connectivity and restoring fish migrations. The proposed work will result in guidance for barrier restoration at scales from individual watersheds to the entire basin, refine methodologies for spatial analysis of barriers, and provide...
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Working within the constraints of the SWAP revision timeline, we propose to advance biodiversity conservation within the region by enhancing the regional effectiveness of SWAPs and the ability of the LCC to address regional biodiversity priorities. We propose to accomplish these outcomes through engagement of SWAP coordinators and LCC professionals in the creation of a set of detailed best practices and learning resources tailored to needs that they help to identify. We will regularly engage with the SWAP coordinators as we develop these resources to allow each state to influence and employ the resources as needed, recognizing that time and resources to participate in this project will vary among states. As part...
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Climate change is expected to drastically change the environmental conditions which forests depend. Lags in tree species movements will likely be outpaced by a more rapidly changing climate. This may result in species extirpation, a change in forest structure, and a decline in resistance and resilience (i.e., the ability to persist and recover from external perturbations, respectively). In the northern Great Lakes region of North America, an ecotone exists along the boreal-temperate transition zone where large changes in species composition exist across a climate gradient. Increasing temperatures are observed in the more southern landscapes. As climate change is expected to substantially affect mid-continental landscapes,...
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With the ultimate goal of conserving and restoring threatened native grassland prairies and the wildlife that depend on them, the National Audubon Society (Audubon) is facilitating a landscape conservation design for the grassland birds in the greater Chicago region. As a first step in this process standardized avian point count surveys conducted primarily by citizen volunteers were combined with landcover composition and configuration, soils, and vegetation productivity data to model abundance of five grassland bird species. Models were updated with additional data and expert review in 2015 and now provide map outputs of existing grassland bird habitat and population estimates for species of conservation concern...
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There is mounting concern that climate change will lead to the collapse of cyclic population dynamics, yet the influence of climate variability on population cycling remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that variability in survival and fecundity, driven by climate variability at different points in the life cycle, scales up from local populations to drive regional characteristics of population cycling and spatial synchronization.
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In total this project has developed digital wetland inventory and habitat data for ten counties within and around the Great Lakes watershed of Wisconsin. Digital data has now been completed for the following counties: Sawyer, Sauk, Barron, Polk, Langlade, Menominee, Price, Shawano, Taylor, and Winnebago.
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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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Today more than 80% of Americans live in urban areas and by 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will call a city ‘home’. Our cities are built on lands and river systems that connect to larger natural areas. The protection of that land and water is vital for a city’s economy and the health and well-being of its urban residents. Ecological Places in Cities, EPiC, is a network of cities and conservation groups working together towards a new vision that integrates nature’s benefits and natural defenses with the needs of our urban future. We use advanced urban planning approaches along with innovative civic leadership to ensure that urban nature and our future generations can grow and thrive together.
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The Nature Conservancy - Great Lakes Program is leading the development of a scalable (Great Lakes wide, individual lake basin, to coastal reach within a lake basin) rule-based spatial model for ranking the relative importance of coastal lands and waters as habitat for migrating birds. Results will guide conservation actions including land acquisition, land and water management and restoration, and development of wind energy facilities. Specifically, the team will: 1) refine, create and integrate migratory bird stopover habitat models which depict the distribution of potential stopover sites along or near the shorelines of Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario; and, 2) develop an online portal that will deliver...
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Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), stoneflies (Plecoptera), and caddisflies (Trichoptera) (a.k.a. EPT taxa) are the most environmentally sensitive of freshwater insects. They are utilized the world over as indicators of water quality in flowing waters. Their decline has been documented in Asia, Europe, and North America. A 220,321 record dataset of new and museum EPT specimen records covering much of the Midwest and Maximum Entropy (Maxent) software were used construct to current and future, climate influenced distribution models. Nearly 100 physical and historic vegetation variables and 9 BIOCLIM variables derived from downscaled climate data for the region were employed in this process. A total of 426 EPT species were...
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Our goal was to predict road culvert passability, as defined by culvert outlet drop and outlet water velocity, for three fish swimming groups using remotely collected environmental variables that have been shown to influence the passability of road culverts.We generated four boosted regression tree models, one for road culvert outlet drop and one each for the three culvert outlet water velocities, and predicted the probability of impassable road culverts on low-order streams based on the models. Independent variables in the modelsincluded the upstream area draining to the culvert, slope at the culvert, stream segment gradient and stream reach gradient.Gradient of the stream segment was the most important predictor...
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Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), stoneflies (Plecoptera), and caddisflies (Trichoptera) (a.k.a. EPT taxa) are the most environmentally sensitive of freshwater insects. They are utilized the world over as indicators of water quality in flowing waters. Their decline has been documented in Asia, Europe, and North America. A 220,321 record dataset of new and museum EPT specimen records covering much of the Midwest and Maximum Entropy (Maxent) software were used construct to current and future, climate influenced distribution models. Nearly 100 physical and historic vegetation variables and 9 BIOCLIM variables derived from downscaled climate data for the region were employed in this process. A total of 426 EPT species were...
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Northern Great Lakes forests represent an ecotone in the boreal–temperate transition zone and are expected to change dramatically with climate change. Managers are increasingly seeking adaptation strategies to manage these forests. We explored the efficacy of two alternative management scenarios compared with business-as-usual (BAU) management: expanding forest reserves meant to preserve forest identity and increase resistance, and modified silviculture meant to preserve forest function and increase adaptive capacity. Our study landscapes encompassed northeastern Minnesota and northern Lower Michigan, which are predicted to experience significant changes in a future climate and represent a gradient of latitude,...
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The emerald ash borer (EAB) poses a tremendous threat to ash forest habitats across the upper Great Lakes. Of particular concern is the impact EAB will have on the ecology and functioning of black ash ( Fraxinus nigra) forested wetlands, which cover over 500,000 ha in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and represent the region’s most common ash forest habitat. Black ash often occurs in relatively pure stands on poorly drained sites where it serves as a foundation species exerting a strong control over ecosystem structure and functioning. Correspondingly, extirpation of this species by EAB could have negative cascading effects, including dramatic rises in water tables and shifts in vegetation composition towards...


map background search result map search result map On-a-wing and a (GIS) Layer: Prioritizing migratory bird habitat along Great Lakes shoreline Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Facilitating the Effectiveness of State Wildlife Action Plans at Multiple Scales in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes LCC Region Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Identifying Regional Priority Areas for Focusing Conservation Actions in Streams and Grasslands Ecological Places in Cities EPiC Network Report: Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Book Chapter 12: Conservation of Migratory Fishes in Freshwater Ecosystems Publication: Predicting road culvert passability for migratory fishes Report: Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events Report: Quantifying and mitigating the impacts of emerald ash borer on black ash forests in the upper Great Lakes region Report: Grassland Bird Conservation Design in the Chicago Region Publication: Climate variability drives population cycling and synchrony Report: A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for the Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake Report: Digital Conversion of Updated Wisconsin Wetland Inventory Dissertation: Resistance and Resilience of Northern Great Lakes Forests to the Effects of Climate Change Publication: Effects of alternative forest management on biomass and species diversity in the face of climate change in the northern Great Lakes region Report: Grassland Bird Conservation Design in the Chicago Region Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Report: Digital Conversion of Updated Wisconsin Wetland Inventory Dissertation: Resistance and Resilience of Northern Great Lakes Forests to the Effects of Climate Change Publication: Effects of alternative forest management on biomass and species diversity in the face of climate change in the northern Great Lakes region Ecological Places in Cities EPiC Network On-a-wing and a (GIS) Layer: Prioritizing migratory bird habitat along Great Lakes shoreline Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Facilitating the Effectiveness of State Wildlife Action Plans at Multiple Scales in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes LCC Region Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Identifying Regional Priority Areas for Focusing Conservation Actions in Streams and Grasslands Report: Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Book Chapter 12: Conservation of Migratory Fishes in Freshwater Ecosystems Publication: Predicting road culvert passability for migratory fishes Report: Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events Report: Quantifying and mitigating the impacts of emerald ash borer on black ash forests in the upper Great Lakes region Publication: Climate variability drives population cycling and synchrony Report: A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for the Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake