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Assessing the impact of flow alteration on aquatic ecosystems has been identified as a critical area of research nationally and in the Southeast U.S. This project aimed to address the Ecohydrology Priority Science Need of the SE CSC FY2012 Annual Science Work Plan by developing an inventory and evaluation of current efforts and knowledge gaps in hydrological modeling for flow-­‐ecology science in global change impact studies across the Southeast. To accomplish this goal, we completed a thorough synthesis and evaluation of hydrologic modeling efforts in the Southeast region (including all states of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,...
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Coastal wetlands and the many beneficial services they provide (e.g., purifying water, buffering storm surge, providing habitat) are changing and disappearing as a result of sea-level rise brought about by climate change. Scientists have developed a wealth of information and resources to predict and aid decision-making related to sea-level rise. However, while some of these resources are easily accessible by coastal managers, many others require more expert knowledge to understand or utilize. The goal of this project was to collate science and models pertaining to the effects of sea-level on coastal wetlands into a format that would be accessible and useful to resource managers. Researchers conducted training sessions...
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There is growing evidence that headwater stream ecosystems are especially vulnerable to changing climate and land use, but managers are challenged by the need to address these threats at a landscape scale, often through coordination with multiple management agencies and landowners. This project sought to provide an example of cooperative landscape decision-making by addressing the conservation of headwater stream ecosystems in the face of climate change at the watershed scale. Predictive models were built for critical resources to examine the effects of the potential alternative actions on the objectives, taking account of climate effects and examining whether there are key uncertainties that impede decision making....
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Water scarcity is a growing concern in Texas, where surface water is derived almost entirely from rainfall. Changes in air temperature and precipitation patterns associated with global climate change are anticipated to regionally affect the quality and quantity of inland surface waters and consequently their suitability as habitat for freshwater life. In addition to directly affecting resident organisms and populations, these changes in physicochemical traits of aquatic habitats may favor the establishment of harmful invasive species. As conflicts over the use of water resources grow in intensity, this information will become important for fish and wildlife managers to anticipate impacts of climate change on trust...
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Throughout its native range in the Eastern U.S., the brook trout is a culturally and economically important species that is sensitive to warming stream temperatures and habitat degradation. The purpose of this assessment was to determine the impacts that projected future land use and climate changes might have on the condition of stream habitat to support self-sustaining brook trout populations. The study region encompassed the historic native range of brook trout, which includes the northeastern states and follows the Appalachian Mountains south to Georgia, where the distribution is limited to higher elevation streams with suitable water temperatures. Relationships between recent observations of brook trout and...
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Global climate change and sea-level rise will have profound effects on estuarine fish, shellfish and wildlife populations and their habitats. Our ability to manage sustainable fish, shellfish and other wildlife populations in the future will be seriously compromised unless we have a basic understanding of the coming changes and use this to develop mitigation and adaptation measures. The overall objective of this multi-agency research is to develop the baseline climatic and biological data, models, and tools to predict the cumulative impact of climate change on habitats and ecosystem services in a series of coastal estuaries of the Pacific Northwest. In collaboration with other federal, state, and non-governmental...
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Forests in the eastern United States are changing in response to ecological succession, tree harvest, and other disturbances and climate change has the potential to further change these forests. We predicted the distribution and abundance of common tree species across portions of the eastern U.S. under alternative climate scenarios that varied in the amount of warming by the end of the century from 1.1 to 4.2 degrees celsius. We used a forest landscape change model to forecast changes in tree abundances and distribution in the North Atlantic region of the U.S. while accounting for climate change, succession, and harvest. We then considered a broader region of the U.S. and combined our results with results from previous...
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This project brought together a team of researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and universities to develop a comprehensive web-based dataset of high-resolution (or ‘downscaled’) climate change projections, to enable scientists and decision-makers to better assess climate related ecosystem impacts. Currently, scientists and resource managers often find it difficult to use downscaled climate projections because of the multiple methodologies used to produce them and the time-consuming process required to obtain model output. In response, the research team implemented a three-part plan to provide high resolution climate data for the impact modeling community. First, a database was developed of up-to-date...
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We are seeking to better understand networks among resource managers with respect to developing plans for climate change adaptation. We are pursuing this through a network analysis based on a survey of federal resource management staff and scientists in the southwestern and Midwestern U.S. Originally planned, this study was conceived to cover the Southwest and North Central Climate Science Centers, as defined by the USGS. In practice, surveys are most easily distributed within regions as defined by the federal resource agencies. Unfortunately, there is no uniform set of regions. We have tried to be comprehensive in our survey and cover at least the North Central and Southwestern Region.
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The San Francisco Bay estuary contains the largest remaining expanse of tidal salt marshes in the western U.S. These marshes are home to a variety of federal and state protected species, such as the California clapper rail, California black rail, and the salt marsh harvest mouse. The estuary is also located on the Pacific Flyway, and is an important site for migrating and wintering birds. As climate conditions change, these salt marshes face a number of threats, including accelerated rates of sea-level rise, shifting precipitation, erosion, and more frequent and intense storms. Seas in the San Francisco Bay estuary have been rising 2.2 centimeters per decade, and could rise by as much as 1.24 meters by 2100, according...
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Quaking aspen populations are declining in much of the West due to altered fire regimes, competition with conifers, herbivory, drought, disease, and insect outbreaks. Aspen stands typically support higher bird biodiversity and abundance than surrounding habitat types, and maintaining current distribution and abundance of several bird species in the northern Great Basin is likely tied to the persistence of aspen in the landscape. This project examined the effects of climate change on aspen and associated bird communities by coupling empirical models of avian-habitat relationships with landscape simulations of vegetation community and disturbance dynamics under various climate change scenarios. Field data on avian...
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Prairie ecosystems and the grassland birds that rely on them for habitat may be particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in climate. Extensive portions of prairie have already been lost due to agriculture and urbanization, and as a result grassland birds have declined more than any other bird group in the last four decades. Now, climate change could exacerbate existing threats to these birds as temperatures in certain prairie ecosystems are expected to rise and extreme weather events, such as drought, could become more common. The goal of this project was to develop a framework to identify demographic sensitivities and assess the vulnerability of grassland bird species to future climate change. To do so, the researchers...
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While 21st century temperatures are projected to increase in Puerto Rico and the broader U.S. Caribbean (whose geography is contained within the Caribbean Landscape Conservation Cooperative, or CLCC), the low variability and already high annual average temperatures suggest that the largest climate-related impact on ecosystems and water resources is more likely to be through changes in the timing, pattern, and availability of moisture. The development of adaptation strategies that respond to anthropogenic climate change for the CLCC, and particularly for Puerto Rico, is currently hindered by the lack of local-scale climate scenarios that resolve the complex topographical and meso-scale climate features that will...
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Coral reefs are some of the most biologically rich and economically valuable ecosystems in the world. They provide food, fishing, and recreation opportunities for millions of people, protect coastlines from storms, and shelter thousands of plant and animal species. However, climate change is contributing to the degradation of coral reefs in two significant ways: warming temperature and increasing acidification of ocean waters. Scientists are actively working to gather more specific information about how these factors will impact coral reef ecosystems. The purpose of this study was to identify differences in climate vulnerability among three important reef-building coral species in the Florida Keys. Researchers...
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Climate in the southeastern U.S. is predicted to be changing at a slower rate than other parts of North America; however, land use change associated with urbanization is having a significant effect on wildlife populations and habitat availability. We sought to understand the effect of global warming on both beneficial and pest insects of trees. We used urban warming as a proxy for global warming in as much as many cities have already warmed as much, due to heat island effects, as they are expected to warm due to climate change by 2050 or even 2100. We were able to develop good predictive models of how warming influences beneficial and pest insects for cities in the Southeast and across the east coast more generally....
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Climate change is expected to alter stream temperature and flow regimes over the coming decades, and in turn influence distributions of aquatic species in those freshwater ecosystems. To better anticipate these changes, there is a need to compile both short- and long-term stream temperature data for managers to gain an understanding of baseline conditions, historic trends, and future projections. Unfortunately, many agencies lack sufficient resources to compile, conduct quality assurance and control, and make accessible stream temperature data collected through routine monitoring. Yet, pooled data from many sources, even if temporally and spatially inconsistent, can have great value both in the realm of stream temperature...
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As glaciers melt from climate change, their contents – namely, large quantities of freshwater, sediment, and nutrients – are slowly released into coastal ecosystems. This project addressed the impacts of melting glaciers on coastal ecosystems in the Copper River region of the Gulf of Alaska, which is home to several commercially important fisheries. Researchers examined how glacial melting is altering the amount and timing of freshwater that enters the Gulf of Alaska from the Copper River. They also investigated the source and amount of two nutrients, iron and nitrate, dissolved in the water. As a complementary piece of the study, researchers tested the relationship between nutrient levels, plankton populations,...
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In the Southeast, where rapid human development is increasingly dividing natural areas, habitat fragmentation and loss threaten the health and even genetic viability of wildlife populations, and interrupt migration routes. Climate change is projected to exacerbate fragmentation by further disrupting landscapes. To make matters worse, it is also expected to shift the range of many species, forcing animals capable of adapting by moving to expand into new areas to find more suitable temperatures and adequate food supplies – a challenge made difficult, if not impossible, by disconnected landscapes. Maintaining connectivity between habitats is a key strategy for conserving wildlife populations into the future, and sound...
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Our study addresses the general question of the degree to which wildlife species can adapt to, or possibly even modify, effects from climate change. We focused on five species of mammals in the alpine zone of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, including the federally endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep and the American pika, a species recently proposed for listing due to the loss of populations from altered climatic conditions. It was expected that there will be an upward expansion of trees and shrubs from lower elevations and that many or even most alpine meadows will be converted to woody dominated communities. Meadows provide critical habitat for many alpine mammal species, and their conversion could represent...
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Spruce-fir forests and associated bird species are recognized as some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and species to the impacts of climate change. This work capitalized on a rich suite of long-term data from these ecosystems to document recent trends in these forests and their associated bird species and developed tools for predicting their future abundance under climate change. Findings from this work indicate declining trends in the abundance of spruce-fir obligate birds, including Bicknell’s Thrush, across the Lake States and New England. In contrast, montane spruce-fir forests in the White and Green Mountains of New England exhibited patterns of increasing abundance, potentially due to their recovery from...
map background search result map search result map Fate of Endangered Species in San Francisco Bay Tidal Marshes with Sea-Level Rise How will Mammals in the Alpine Zone of the Sierra Nevada Mountains Respond to Future Climate? Impacts of Climate Change and Melting Glaciers on Coastal Ecosystems in the Gulf of Alaska Predicting Climate Change Threats to Key Estuarine Habitats and Ecosystem Services in the Pacific Northwest Quantifying Vulnerability of Quaking Aspen Woodlands and Associated Bird Communities to Global Climate Change in the Northern Great Basin Development of the Geo Data Portal to Make Climate Projections and Scientific Data More Accessible to Users Modeling and Projecting the Influence of Climate Change on Texas Surface Waters and their Aquatic Biotic Communities Understanding How Warming Temperatures Will Impact Trees and Insects Using Cities as a Proxy Impact of Ocean Warming and Acidification on Growth of Reef-Building Corals NorEaST: A Tool to Understand the Responses of Fish to Changes in Stream Temperature Understanding Habitat Connectivity to Inform Conservation Decisions Evaluating the Use of Models for Projecting Future Water Flow in the Southeast A Handbook for Resource Managers to Understand and Utilize Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Wetland Models Projected Vulnerability of Brook Trout to Climate and Land Use Changes in the Eastern U.S. (Regional Assessment) Climate Change and Federal Land Management: Assessing Priorities Using a Social Network Approach Assessing the Vulnerability of Grassland Bird Populations to Climate Change Modeling Effects of Climate Change on Spruce-Fir Forest Ecosystems and Associated Priority Bird Populations Changes in Forested Landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. Under Future Climate Scenarios Projecting the Future of Headwater Streams to Inform Management Decisions Modeling Future Temperature and Precipitation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean Fate of Endangered Species in San Francisco Bay Tidal Marshes with Sea-Level Rise Predicting Climate Change Threats to Key Estuarine Habitats and Ecosystem Services in the Pacific Northwest Modeling Effects of Climate Change on Spruce-Fir Forest Ecosystems and Associated Priority Bird Populations Quantifying Vulnerability of Quaking Aspen Woodlands and Associated Bird Communities to Global Climate Change in the Northern Great Basin How will Mammals in the Alpine Zone of the Sierra Nevada Mountains Respond to Future Climate? Impacts of Climate Change and Melting Glaciers on Coastal Ecosystems in the Gulf of Alaska Understanding How Warming Temperatures Will Impact Trees and Insects Using Cities as a Proxy Modeling Future Temperature and Precipitation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean Modeling and Projecting the Influence of Climate Change on Texas Surface Waters and their Aquatic Biotic Communities Impact of Ocean Warming and Acidification on Growth of Reef-Building Corals Changes in Forested Landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. Under Future Climate Scenarios Projected Vulnerability of Brook Trout to Climate and Land Use Changes in the Eastern U.S. (Regional Assessment) A Handbook for Resource Managers to Understand and Utilize Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Wetland Models Projecting the Future of Headwater Streams to Inform Management Decisions NorEaST: A Tool to Understand the Responses of Fish to Changes in Stream Temperature Understanding Habitat Connectivity to Inform Conservation Decisions Climate Change and Federal Land Management: Assessing Priorities Using a Social Network Approach Evaluating the Use of Models for Projecting Future Water Flow in the Southeast Assessing the Vulnerability of Grassland Bird Populations to Climate Change Development of the Geo Data Portal to Make Climate Projections and Scientific Data More Accessible to Users