Filters: Date Range: {"choice":"year"} (X) > Categories: Publication (X)
1,076 results (66ms)
Filters
Date Types (for Date Range)
Types
Contacts
Categories
Tag Types
|
Watersheds draining the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) of Alaska are dominated by permafrostand snowmelt runoff that create abundant surface storage in the form of lakes, wetlands, and beaded streams. These surface water elements compose complex drainage networks that affect aquatic ecosystem connectivity and hydrologic behavior. The 4676 km2 Fishand Creek drainage basin is composed of three watersheds that represent a gradient of theACP landscape with varying extents of eolian, lacustrine, and fluvial landforms. In each watershed, we analyzed 2.5-m-resolution aerial photography, a 5-m digital elevationmodel, and river gauging and climate records to better understand ACP watershed structureand processes. We show that...
Case Study: Integrated Scenarios and Outreach for Habitat Threat Assessments on California RangelandsWe developed six scenarios organized around our management question: How can we maintain viable ranchlands and their ecosystem services in light of future integrated threats? The scenarios represent alternative futures of climate/land use/hydrological change for the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition (Rangeland Coalition) focus area (the foothills around the Central Valley and most of the southern Inner Coast Range) based on (a) consistent storylines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES)5 and (b) downscaled global climate models (GCMs) that represent...
Categories: Data,
Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Completed,
LCC Network Science Catalog,
Publication,
data.gov California LCC,
environment
The responses of individual species to environmental changes can be manifested at multiple levels that range from individual-level (i.e., behavioral responses) to population-level (i.e., demographic) impacts. Major environmental changes that ultimately result in population level impacts are often first detected as individual-level responses. For example, herbivores respond to limited forage availability during drought periods by increasing the duration of foraging periods and expanding home range areas to compensate for the reduction in forage. However, if the individual-level responses are not sufficient to compensate for reduced forage availability, reduced survival and reproductive rates may result. We studied...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Report;
Tags: American pronghorn,
Drought,
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather,
Mammals,
National CASC,
Abstract: The Land Transformation Model (LTM) is hierarchically coupled with meso-scale drivers to project urban growth across the conterminous USA. Quantity of urban growth at county and place (i.e., city) scales is simulated using population, urban density and nearest neighbor dependent attributes. We compared three meso-scale LTMs to three null models that lack meso-scale drivers. Models were developed using circa 1990–2000 data and validated using change in the 2001 and 2006 National Land Cover Databases (NLCD). LTM and null models were assessed using the mean difference in quantity between simulated and actual growth measured at multiple spatial scales. We found that LTM models performed relatively well at...
Melanism (dark coloration) is a condition resulting from a greater than normal expres-sion of the eumelanin pigments in the plumage (Gill 1990). The dark coloration can be advantageous to raptors by increasing the feathers’ resistance to bacterial degradation (Goldstein et al. 2004). conversely, abnormally dark pigmentation can reduce success in pairing by disguising key species-identification cues (García 2003) and decrease lifetime reproductive success by increasing mortality (krüger and lindström 2001). Polymorphism in color, of which melanism is one example, occurs in at least 3.5% of avian species worldwide and in 22% of raptors of the family Accipitridae (harriers, hawks, eagles, kites, and Old World vultures;...
Stream fragmentation alters the structure of aquatic communities on a global scale, generally through loss of native species. Among riverscapes in the Great Plains of North America, stream fragmentation and hydrologic alteration (flow regulation and dewatering) are implicated in the decline of native fish diversity. This study documents the spatio–temporal distribution of fish reproductive guilds in the fragmented Arkansas and Ninnescah rivers of south-central Kansas using retrospective analyses involving 63 years of fish community data. Pelagic-spawning fishes declined throughout the study area during 1950–2013, including Arkansas River shiner (Notropis girardi) last reported in 1983, plains minnow (Hybognathus...
Categories: Data,
Publication;
Types: Citation,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: CATFISHES/MINNOWS,
Colorado,
Colorado,
FISH,
Federal resource managers,
Habitat fragmentation and flow regulation are significant factors related to the decline and extinction of freshwater biota. Pelagic-broadcast spawning cyprinids require moving water and some length of unfragmented stream to complete their life cycle. However, it is unknown how discharge and habitat features interact at multiple spatial scales to alter the transport of semi-buoyant fish eggs. Our objective was to assess the relationship between downstream drift of semi-buoyant egg surrogates (gellan beads) and discharge and habitat complexity. We quantified transport time of a known quantity of beads using 2–3 sampling devices at each of seven locations on the North Canadian and Canadian rivers. Transport time was...
We used the United States National Grid to develop a sampling grid for monitoring programs in the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative, delineated by Bird Conservation Regions 18 and 19. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are science based partnerships with the goal to inform and guide conservation at regional landscape levels. Developing a standardized sampling grid for a LCC is a new endeavor and is designed to reduce program costs, avoid repetition in sampling, and increase efficiency in monitoring programs. This is possible because the grid’s nationwide coverage, uniform starting point, and scalability allow researchers to expand their monitoring programs from a small, local level to a regional or...
Categories: Data,
Publication;
Types: Citation,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: BIRDS,
Colorado,
Colorado,
Federal resource managers,
Final Report,
Around the globe, fish and wildlife managers are facing increasingly complex management issues because of multiscale ecological effects like climate change, species invasion, and land-use change. Managers seeking to prevent extinctions or preserve ecosystems are increasingly considering more interventionist techniques to overcome the resulting changes. Among those techniques, translocation methods that intentionally move species into new, less impacted habitats are being considered. These types of translocations are known by a range of terms, including “managed relocation” and “assisted migration,” but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC, 2013) has proposed...
Categories: Data,
Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Data.gov USFWS Science Applications,
Publication,
SA Science Catalog,
biota,
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere,
Abstract (from http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789400775145): This volume offers a scientific assessment of the effects of climatic variability and change on forest resources in the United States. Derived from a report that provides technical input to the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the book serves as a framework for managing U.S. forest resources in the context of climate change. The authors focus on topics having the greatest potential to alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems, and therefore ecosystem services, by the end of the 21st century. Part I provides an environmental context for assessing the effects of climate change on forest resources, summarizing...
Abstract (from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0174045): Several studies have projected increases in drought severity, extent and duration in many parts of the world under climate change. We examine sources of uncertainty arising from the methodological choices for the assessment of future drought risk in the continental US (CONUS). One such uncertainty is in the climate models’ expression of evaporative demand (E0), which is not a direct climate model output but has been traditionally estimated using several different formulations. Here we analyze daily output from two CMIP5 GCMs to evaluate how differences in E0 formulation, treatment of meteorological driving data, choice of GCM,...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Drought,
Drought,
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather,
North Central CASC
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Data Visualization & Tools,
Drought,
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather,
North Central CASC,
Science Tools For Managers,
America’s remaining grassland in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is at risk of being lost to crop production. When crop prices are high, like the historically high corn prices that the U.S. experienced between 2008 and 2014, the risk of grassland conversion is even higher. Changing climate will add uncertainties to any efforts toward conservation of grassland in the PPR. Grassland conversion to cropland in the region would imperil nesting waterfowl among other species and further impair water quality in the Mississippi watershed. In this project, we sought to contribute to the understanding of land conversion in the PPR with the aim to better target the use of public and private funds allocated toward incentivizing...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation,
Report;
Tags: Data Visualization & Tools,
Grasslands and Plains,
Landscapes,
Mississippi watershed,
North Central CASC,
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Drought,
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather,
Northwest CASC,
Rivers, Streams and Lakes,
Sea-Level Rise and Coasts,
A cocktail of land-based sources of pollution threatens coral reef ecosystems, and addressing these has become a key management and policy challenge in the State of Hawaii, other US territories, and globally. In West Maui, Hawai'i, nearly one quarter of all living corals were lost between 1995 and 2008. Onsite disposal systems (OSDS) for sewage leak contaminants into drinking water sources and nearshore waters. In recognition of this risk, the Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH) is prioritizing areas for cesspool upgrades. Independently, we applied a decision analysis process to identify priority areas to address sewage pollution from OSDS in West Maui, with the objective of reducing nearshore coral reef exposure...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Coral Reefs,
Data Visualization & Tools,
Pacific Islands CASC,
Science Tools For Managers,
Water, Coasts and Ice
The Hawaiian Islands are home to a variety of native species that have been subject to numerous threats including development of habitat for human use, predation by introduced herbivores, and competition with invasive plant species. In addition to these threats global climate change is expected to increase temperature and alter patterns of precipitation in Hawaii. This project models the relative vulnerability of native plant species to the effects of climate change, in order to assist resource managers in effectively allocating limited resources to efficiently preserve and protect current and future habitat for native plants. We modeled vulnerability by creating an expert system – a network model linking biological...
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...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Climate Change,
Coral Reef,
Coral Reefs,
Mariana Islands,
Pacific Islands CASC,
Indigenous communities make up less than 5% of the world’s population while stewarding 85% of biodiversity on the planet. In Hawaii, Native Hawaiian language resources, including proverbs, stories, and chants, provide glimpses to how people adapted with environmental rhythms, seasons, and offerings. Drought, the absence of water for agricultural, economic, and social use for a period, is important as a main water resource in Hawai‘i are clouds captured and purified by high island mountains in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This research provides insight on Native Hawaiian relationships to drought historically as well as current practices within community-based management. Of importance are historical records of...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0088.1): A comprehensive understanding of the spatial, seasonal, and diurnal patterns in cloud cover frequency over the Hawaiian Islands was developed using high-resolution image data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. The Terra and Aqua MODIS cloud mask products, which provide the confidence that a given 1-km pixel is unobstructed by cloud, were obtained for the entire MODIS time series (10-plus years) over the main Hawaiian Islands. Monthly statistics were generated from the daily cloud mask data, including mean cloud cover...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Cloud Cover,
Other Water,
Pacific Islands CASC,
Plants,
Remote Sensing,
Abstract (from http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-13-00202.1): Traditional long-term (decadal) and large-scale (hundreds of kilometers) shoreline change modeling techniques, known as single transect, or ST, often overfit the data because they calculate shoreline statistics at closely spaced intervals along the shore. To reduce overfitting, recent work has used spatial basis functions such as polynomials, B splines, and principal components. Here, we explore an alternative to such basis functions by using regularization to reduce the dimension of the ST model space. In our regularized-ST method, traditional ST is an end member of a continuous spectrum of models. We use an evidence information criterion...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: B splines,
Data Visualization & Tools,
Pacific Islands CASC,
Science Tools For Managers,
Sea-Level Rise and Coasts,
|
|