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Full life-cycle vulnerability assessments are identifying the effects of climate change on nongame migratory birds that are of conservation concern and breed in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. Full life-cycle analyses are critical, as current efforts likely underestimate the vulnerability of migratory land birds due to a focus on assessing only one component of the annual cycle. The approach provides a framework for integrating exposure to climate changes, sensitivity to these changes, and the potential for adaptation in both winter and summer seasons, and accounts for carry-over effects from one season to another. The results of this work will inform regional management by highlighting both local and...
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Natural landscapes in the Southwestern United States are changing. In recent decades, rising temperatures and drought have led to drier conditions, contributed to large-scale ecological impacts, and affected many plant and animal species across the region. The current and future trajectory of climate change underscores the need for managers and conservation professionals to understand the impacts of these patterns on natural resources. In this regional assessment of the Southwest Climate Change Initiative, we evaluate changes in annual average temperatures from 1951–2006 across major habitats and large watersheds and compare these changes to the number of species of conservation concern that are found within these...
Reducing coral reef vulnerability to climate change requires that managers understand and support the natural resilience of coral reefs. We define coral reef resilience as: the capacity of a reef to resist and/or recover from disturbance given its probable exposure regime, and maintain provision of ecosystem goods and services. Spatial variation in exposure to disturbance and the resilience of reefs in the face of those disturbances will determine the fate of coral reefs within management jurisdictions. This project sought to: (1) undertake ecological resilience assessments in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which is in the west Pacific near Guam, and (2) collaboratively develop a decision-support...
Abstract (from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0138759): Future climate change may significantly alter the distributions of many plant taxa. The effects of climate change may be particularly large in mountainous regions where climate can vary significantly with elevation. Understanding potential future vegetation changes in these regions requires methods that can resolve vegetation responses to climate change at fine spatial resolutions. We used LPJ, a dynamic global vegetation model, to assess potential future vegetation changes for a large topographically complex area of the northwest United States and southwest Canada (38.0–58.0°N latitude by 136.6–103.0°W longitude). LPJ is a...
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Congress passed the State Wildlife Grants program (SWG) in 2001 in recognition of the need for funding of wildlife diversity programs. Congress mandated each state and territory to develop a Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (now named Wildlife Action Plans) by 2005 in order to continue to receive federal funds through the SWG program. Nevada’s Wildlife Action Plan (WAP) was completed and approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 2005. Nevada’s WAP has served as a plan of action for state wildlife conservation and funding by targeting the species of greatest conservation need and the key habitats on which they depend. To date, NDOW has received over $11 million in federal dollars through...
Tensions are evident in energy policy objectives between centralised top-down interconnected energy systems and localised distributed approaches. Examination of these tensions indicates that a localised approach can address a systemic problem of interconnected systems; namely vulnerability. The challenge for energy policy is to realise the interrelated goals of energy security, climate and environmental targets and social and economic issues such as fuel poverty, whilst mitigating vulnerability. The effectiveness of conventional approaches is debatable. A transition to a low carbon pathway should focus on resilience, counter to vulnerability. This article draws from on-going work which evaluates the energy aspects...
A method for assessment of watershed health is developed by employing measures of reliability, resilience and vulnerability (R–R–V) using stream water quality data. Observed water quality data are usually sparse, so that a water quality time-series is often reconstructed using surrogate variables (streamflow). A Bayesian algorithm based on relevance vector machine (RVM) was employed to quantify the error in the reconstructed series, and a probabilistic assessment of watershed status was conducted based on established thresholds for various constituents. As an application example, observed water quality data for several constituents at different monitoring points within the Cedar Creek watershed in north-east Indiana...
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Grasslands of the Sky Islands region once covered over 13 million acres in southeastern Arizona and adjacent portions of New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua. Attempts to evaluate current ecological conditions suggest that approximately two thirds of these remain as intact or restorable grassland habitat. These grasslands provide watershed services such as flood control and aquifer recharge across the region, and continue to support dozens of species of concern. Prioritizing conservation interventions for these remaining grassland blocks has been challenging. Reliable data on condition and conservation value of grasslands in the region have not been systematically summarized. State and national boundaries further complicate...
Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly altering aquatic ecosystems across the Rocky Mountain West and may detrimentally impact populations of sensitive species that are often the focus of conservation efforts. The objective of this report is to synthesize a growing literature on these topics to address the following questions: (1) What is changing in climate and related physical/hydrological processes that may influence aquatic species and their habitats? (2) What are the implications for fish populations, aquatic communities, and related conservation values? (3) What can we do about it? In many instances, proactive efforts may help populations adapt to climate change; but elsewhere, transitions of aquatic ecosystems...
In the Pacific Northwest, coastal wetlands support a wealth of ecosystem services including habitat provision for wildlife and fisheries and flood protection. The tidal marshes, mudflats, and shallow bays of coastal estuaries link marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats and provide economic and recreational benefits to local communities. Climate change effects such as sea-level rise are currently altering these habitats, but we know little about how these areas will change over the next 50-100 years. Our study examined the effects of sea-level rise on nine tidal marshes in Washington and Oregon, with the goal of providing scientific data to support future coastal planning and conservation. We compiled physical...
The article argues that the currently dominant idea of material welfare is at odds with a lifestyle that does justice to basic human values. Measurement of welfare needs to attach importance to a good environment. With regard to the subjective counterpart: social research on the experience of welfare - the quality of life - in various Western countries shows clearly that intangible values are very important in the lives of most people. In a process of globalization of economy and cultural supplies, it will be important to strengthen democratic concern with the environmental question. The legitimation of political authority in (inter)national negotiations will depend on the attention paid to welfare and quality of...
Alaska's communities are experiencing impacts from unprecedented climate-related changes in the harvests of natural resources. Residents of rural Alaska are reporting heretofore unseen changes in the geographic distribution and abundance of marine resources, increases in the frequency and ferocity of storm surges in the Bering Sea, changes in the distribution and thickness of sea ice, and increases in river and coastal erosion. When combined with ongoing socio-economic change, climate, weather, and changes in the biophysical system interact in a complex web of feedbacks and interactions that make life in rural Alaska challenging. We present a framework of indicators to assess three basic constituents of community...
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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.
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12850/abstract): Understanding how climatic variation influences ecological and evolutionary processes is crucial for informed conservation decision-making. Nevertheless, few studies have measured how climatic variation influences genetic diversity within populations or how genetic diversity is distributed across space relative to future climatic stress. Here, we tested whether patterns of genetic diversity (allelic richness) were related to climatic variation and habitat features in 130 bull trout ( Salvelinus confluentus) populations from 24 watersheds (i.e., ~4–7th order river subbasins) across the Columbia River Basin, USA. We then determined whether...
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Developing conservation strategies for threatened species increasingly requires understanding vulnerabilities to climate change, in terms of both demographic sensitivities to climatic and other environmental factors, and exposure to variability in those factors over time and space. Weconducted a range-wide, spatially explicit climate change vulnerability assessment for Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus), a declining endemic species in a region showing strong environmental change. Using active season and winter adult survival estimates derived from 17 data sets throughout the species’ range, we identified demographic sensitivities to winter drought, maximum precipitation during the summer, and the proportion...
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This report is volume 2 of a two-volume ecological assessment of grassland ecosystems in the Southwestern United States. Broad-scale assessments are syntheses of current scientific knowledge, including a description of uncertainties and assumptions, to provide a characterization and comprehensive description of ecological, social, and economic components within an assessment area. Volume 1 of this assessment focused on the ecology, types, conditions, and management practices of Southwestern grasslands. Volume 2 (this volume) describes wildlife and fish species, their habitat requirements, and species-specific management concerns, in Southwestern grasslands. This assessment is regional in scale and pertains primarily...
Alaska's communities are experiencing impacts from unprecedented climate-related changes in the harvests of natural resources. Residents of rural Alaska are reporting heretofore unseen changes in the geographic distribution and abundance of marine resources, increases in the frequency and ferocity of storm surges in the Bering Sea, changes in the distribution and thickness of sea ice, and increases in river and coastal erosion. When combined with ongoing socio-economic change, climate, weather, and changes in the biophysical system interact in a complex web of feedbacks and interactions that make life in rural Alaska challenging. We present a framework of indicators to assess three basic constituents of community...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320715300926): Ecological resilience assessments are an important part of resilience-based management (RBM) and can help prioritize and target management actions. Use of such assessments has been limited due to a lack of clear guidance on the assessment process. This study builds on the latest scientific advances in RBM to provide that guidance from a resilience assessment undertaken in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). We assessed spatial variation in ecological resilience potential at 78 forereef sites near the populated islands of the CNMI: Saipan, Tinian/Aguijan, and Rota. The assessments are based on measuring indicators...
The objective of this study was to determine why certain stream insects tend to be found in certain temperature ranges. Many federal, state and local agencies use stream insects to monitor the health of freshwater ecosystems. While the temperature ranges for some insects are often inferred from the temperature of the waters where they were collected, this inference is coarse at best and problematic at worst. Stream temperatures fluctuate a lot during the year and temperature may or may not control where an insect lives. Field insects were collected and sent to a laboratory for testing several temperature endpoints, particularly at higher temperatures. Respiration, breathing rate, and some physical activities were...
Abstract (from http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2014-0098#.VN_BFGjF_gl): Linked atmospheric and wildfire changes will complicate future management of native coldwater fishes in fire-prone landscapes, and new approaches to management that incorporate uncertainty are needed to address this challenge. We used a Bayesian network (BN) approach to evaluate population vulnerability of bull trout ( Salvelinus confluentus) in the Wenatchee River basin, Washington, USA, under current and future climate and fire scenarios. The BN was based on modeled estimates of wildfire, water temperature, and physical habitat prior to, and following, simulated fires throughout the basin. We found that bull trout population...
map background search result map search result map Sustaining the Grassland Sea Assessment of Grassland Ecosystem Conditions in the Southwestern United States: Wildlife and Fish, Volume 2 Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States Nevada Wildlife Action Plan Publication: A blind spot in climate change Publication: Climate variability drives population cycling and synchrony Publication: Demographic consequences of climate change and land cover help explain a history of extirpations and range contraction in a declining snake species Sustaining the Grassland Sea Nevada Wildlife Action Plan Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States Assessment of Grassland Ecosystem Conditions in the Southwestern United States: Wildlife and Fish, Volume 2 Publication: A blind spot in climate change Publication: Climate variability drives population cycling and synchrony Publication: Demographic consequences of climate change and land cover help explain a history of extirpations and range contraction in a declining snake species