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Climate change is already affecting species in many ways. Because individual species respond to climate change differently, some will be adversely affected by climate change whereas others may benefit. Successfully managing species in a changing climate will require an understanding of which species will be most and least impacted by climate change. Although several approaches have been proposed for assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change, it is unclear whether these approaches are likely to produce similar results. In this study, we compared the relative vulnerabilities to climate change of 76 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and trees based on three different approaches to assessing vulnerability....
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In the Pacific Northwest, land and resource managers strive to make decisions that benefit both natural and human communities, balancing ecological and economic demands including wildlife habitat, forest products, forage for grazing, clean water, and wildfire control. Climate change adds a layer of complexity to the planning process because of its uncertain effects on the environment. In order to make sound decisions, managers need information about how climate change will affect wildlife habitat, both on its own and in conjunction with management actions. The goal of this project was to explore how future climate may interact with management alternatives to shape wildlife habitat across large landscapes. Scientists...
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The eulachon is a small fish that is both highly nutritious and culturally significant to the Chilkat and Chilkoot peoples of the Tlingit Nation in Southeast Alaska, for whom it is a traditional food. Tribal members are increasingly concerned about how climate change might stress the health and abundance of eulachon populations, which are already perceived as being low. In order to successfully manage these fisheries in light of climate change, tribal communities need information about how euchalon are vulnerable and which management strategies will help the species adapt. For this project, researchers used climate projections, monitoring data, and traditional ecological knowledge to assess the climate change vulnerability...
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WDFW will use funds provided by the NPLCC to integrate climate change impacts and implications into our State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) Revision. We will secure appropriate expertise to review existing research and tools, including products prepared as part of the Pacific Northwest Vulnerability Assessment, and extract and apply information that is relevant to specific components of our SWAP. Our intent is to integrate climate change throughout the SWAP Revision.Our goal for the SWAP is to evaluate climate change threats and actions not as a stand-alone concept but in the context of existing stressors and conservation challenges.
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WDFW will use funds provided by the NPLCC to integrate climate change impacts and implications into our State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) Revision. We will secure appropriate expertise to review existing research and tools, including products prepared as part of the Pacific Northwest Vulnerability Assessment, and extract and apply information that is relevant to specific components of our SWAP. Our intent is to integrate climate change throughout the SWAP Revision. Our goal for the SWAP is to evaluate climate change threats and actions not as a stand-alone concept but in the context of existing stressors and conservation challenges. The intent of this project is to ask the so what questions. How should our conservation...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2015, Climate Change, Climate change, Climate change, Climate change, All tags...
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Fire in the western U.S. poses one of the greatest threats to human and ecological communities alike. In fact, fire management is the largest single expenditure of land management funds on federal lands. Now, climate change is altering wildfire patterns. Climate change in the West is creating warmer and drier conditions, resulting in an increase in the amount of dead vegetation available to fuel fires. This project sought to assess the vulnerability of forests in the southwestern U.S. to climate change and wildfire, in order to understand how these ecosystems might become altered as a result. Researchers (a) examined how climate change impacts wildfires in the region, to better understand fire risk; (b) identified...
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The bull trout, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, is well adapted to the cold waters of the Northwest. Recent changes in climate have caused winter flooding and warmer summer water temperatures in the region, reducing the cold-water habitats that bull trout depend on. The southernmost bull trout populations, found in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada, are currently restricted to small reserves where the coldest waters still exist. These shrinking habitats have created a severed environment being further split by dams, poor water quality, and invasive species. The goal of this project was to determine how these factors threaten the species regionally by using predictions of stream...
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Climate change poses a variety of threats to biodiversity. Most efforts to assess the likely impacts of climate change on biodiversity try to rank species based on their vulnerability under changed environmental conditions. These efforts have generally not considered the ability of organisms to adjust their phenotype to the changing environment. Organisms can do this by one of two ways. First, they can adjust their phenotype via non-evolutionary pathways. Second, they can undergo adaptive evolutionary change. We used two interconnected approaches to evaluate thermal adaptation capacity in a cold-water fish species. 1) Using tagging data, we estimated thermal performance curves for wild fish. The curves indicate...
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Whitebark pine is a high-elevation, important tree species that provides critical habitat for wildlife and supplies valued ecosystem services. These trees currently face multiple threats, including attack by the mountain pine beetle, which has recently killed whitebark pines over much of the western U.S. Climate is an important factor in these outbreaks, and future warming is expected to affect epidemics. Our project developed statistical models of outbreaks in whitebark pine for three regions: the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Northern U.S. Rocky Mountains, and the Cascade Range. We used these models to understand climate/beetle outbreak relationships, evaluate climatic causes of recent outbreaks, and estimate...
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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...
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Biodiversity is declining worldwide, and this trend could potentially become more severe as climate conditions change. An integral component of proactive adaptive management planning requires forecasts of how changes in climate will affect individual species. This need has been identified my multiple federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Forest Service. The goal of this project was to assist land and wildlife managers in anticipating which species are most vulnerable to changes in climate in the Southwest, and how resources can best be invested to facilitate adaptation. Researchers evaluated the current and future breeding ranges...
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Wetlands provide critical services to natural and human communities alike, forming important wildlife habitat, storing and filtering water, sequestering carbon, and offering opportunities for recreation. Unfortunately, not only are these valuable ecosystems understudied compared to others, but they are also among the most sensitive to climate change. Climate change threatens wetlands by altering temperature and precipitation, which cause changes in water level and water temperature. Due to this threat, the international community and domestic agencies alike have highlighted the need to better understand wetlands in the face of climate change, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to the Ramsar Convention,...
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Salmonids, a group of coldwater adapted fishes of enormous ecological and socio-economic value, historically inhabited a variety of freshwater habitats throughout the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Over the past century, however, populations have dramatically declined due to habitat loss, overharvest, and invasive species. Consequently, many populations are listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Complicating these stressors is global warming and associated climate change. Overall, aquatic ecosystems across the PNW are predicted to experience increasingly earlier snowmelt in the spring, reduced late spring and summer flows, increased winter flooding, warmer and drier summers, increased...
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Climate responses of sagebrush are needed to inform land managers of the stability and restoration of sagebrush ecosystems, which are an important but threatened habitat type. We evaluated climate responses of sagebrush using two approaches: (1) experimental manipulations of temperature and precipitation for natural plants in the field, and (2) assessment of how climate adaptation and weather have affected sagebrush seeding efforts on nearly 25 large-scale sagebrush seeding projects done over the past several decades. Experimental warming increased growth of sagebrush in high-elevation meadows in the Teton Mountains, but had marginal or no effect at lower elevations sites (near Twin Falls and Boise, Idaho, respectively)....
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Over 50% of commercial and recreationally important fish species depend on coastal wetlands. In the Pacific Northwest, coastal wetlands, where the ocean meets the land, are highly productive areas that support a wealth of wildlife species from salmon to ducks. 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. However, wetlands in this region and elsewhere are threatened by sea-level rise and other climate-related changes. According to a USFWS and NOAA report, between 2004 and 2009, 80,000 acres of wetland were lost on average each year, which is a significant increase from the previous...
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What will the rivers of the Pacific Northwest look like in the future? Will they be stable or unstable? Will the waters be cold and clear or warm and muddy? Will they have salmon or other species? These questions motivated our two-year study of climate warming effects on headwater streams draining the Cascade Mountains. Using a novel combination of snow, geohydrology, and sediment transport models we assessed the vulnerability of stream channels to changing peak streamflow. Our snow modeling shows that with just a 2°C warming, snowfall shifts to rainfall at all elevations, peak snowpacks occur over two months earlier, and snowpacks are reduced by over half of historical values. Our geohydrology modeling shows that...
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Climate change is poised to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events – such as tornadoes, flooding, drought, and snowstorms – which may damage buildings and other structures, cause economic hardship, disrupt plant and wildlife communities, and endanger people’s physical and emotional health. The purpose of this project was to enhance the knowledge of local tribal environmental professionals in Oklahoma related to planning for extreme weather events as a result of climate change. Researchers hosted a one-day workshop at the University of Oklahoma (OU) that was attended by professionals representing at least five tribes, as well as interdisciplinary scholars and students engaged in climate...
    map background search result map search result map Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change on Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreaks and Subsequent Threats to Whitebark Pine Climate, Land Management and Future Wildlife Habitat in the Pacific Northwest Modeling the Effects of Climate Change on Wetlands in the Pacific Northwest Predicting Climate Change Impacts on River Ecosystems and Salmonids across the Pacific Northwest Understanding Climate Change Vulnerability in the Pacific Northwest: A Comparison of Three Approaches Climate Change and Peak Flows: Informing Managers About Future Impacts to Streamflow Dynamics and Aquatic Habitat Marshes to Mudflats: Climate Change Effects Along Coastal Estuaries in the Pacific Northwest Sagebrush Ecosystems in a Changing Climate Identification and Laboratory Validation of Temperature Tolerance for Macroinvertebrates: Developing Vulnerability Prediction Tools Rangewide Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Threatened Bull Trout Identifying the Vulnerability of Birds and Reptiles to Changes in Climate in the Southwest The Vulnerability of Forests to Climate Change and Wildfire in the Southwestern U.S. Identifying Climate Vulnerabilities and Prioritizing Adaptation Strategies for Eulachon Populations in Southeast Alaska Identifying Tribal Vulnerabilities and Supporting Planning for Extreme Weather Events Can Wildlife Species Evolve in Response to a Changing Climate? Informing Species Vulnerability Assessments Integrating Climate Change into Washington's State Wildlife Action Plan Revision Final Report: Integrating Climate Change into Washington’s State Wildlife Action Plan Revision Identifying Climate Vulnerabilities and Prioritizing Adaptation Strategies for Eulachon Populations in Southeast Alaska Integrating Climate Change into Washington's State Wildlife Action Plan Revision Sagebrush Ecosystems in a Changing Climate Modeling the Effects of Climate Change on Wetlands in the Pacific Northwest Final Report: Integrating Climate Change into Washington’s State Wildlife Action Plan Revision Identifying Tribal Vulnerabilities and Supporting Planning for Extreme Weather Events Climate Change and Peak Flows: Informing Managers About Future Impacts to Streamflow Dynamics and Aquatic Habitat Climate, Land Management and Future Wildlife Habitat in the Pacific Northwest Rangewide Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Threatened Bull Trout Marshes to Mudflats: Climate Change Effects Along Coastal Estuaries in the Pacific Northwest Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change on Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreaks and Subsequent Threats to Whitebark Pine The Vulnerability of Forests to Climate Change and Wildfire in the Southwestern U.S. Predicting Climate Change Impacts on River Ecosystems and Salmonids across the Pacific Northwest Identifying the Vulnerability of Birds and Reptiles to Changes in Climate in the Southwest Identification and Laboratory Validation of Temperature Tolerance for Macroinvertebrates: Developing Vulnerability Prediction Tools Can Wildlife Species Evolve in Response to a Changing Climate? Informing Species Vulnerability Assessments Understanding Climate Change Vulnerability in the Pacific Northwest: A Comparison of Three Approaches