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Abstract (from esa): For decades, botanists have recognized that rare plants are clustered into ecological “islands”: small and isolated habitat patches produced by landscape features such as sinkholes and bedrock outcrops. Insular ecosystems often provide unusually stressful microhabitats for plant growth (due, for example, to their characteristically thin soils, high temperatures, extreme pH, or limited nutrients) to which rare species are specially adapted. Climate‐driven changes to these stressors may undermine the competitive advantage of stress‐adapted species, allowing them to be displaced by competitors, or may overwhelm their coping strategies altogether. Special features of insular ecosystems – such as...
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Climate change has been shown to influence lake temperatures globally. To better understand the diversity of lake responses to climate change and give managers tools to manage individual lakes, we modelled daily water temperature profiles for 10,774 lakes in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin for contemporary (1979-2015) and future (2020-2040 and 2080-2100) time periods with climate models based on the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, the worst-case emission scenario. From simulated temperatures, we derived commonly used, ecologically relevant annual metrics of thermal conditions for each lake. We included all available supporting metadata including satellite and in-situ observations of water clarity, maximum...
Lakes in Wisconsin are getting warmer, and fish communities are changing as a result. Learn more by visiting https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/climate-change-walleye-bass/ where you can read more detailed information about the study’s findings, and examine predictions for individual lakes throughout Wisconsin with an interactive map.
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Nutritional ecology forms the interface between environmental variability and large herbivore behaviour, life history characteristics, and population dynamics. Forage conditions in arid and semi-arid regions are driven by unpredictable spatial and temporal patterns in rainfall. Diet selection by herbivores should be directed towards overcoming the most pressing nutritional limitation (i.e. energy, protein [nitrogen, N], moisture) within the constraints imposed by temporal and spatial variability in forage conditions. We investigated the influence of precipitation-induced shifts in forage nutritional quality and subsequent large herbivore responses across widely varying precipitation conditions in an arid environment....
Abstract (from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11160-017-9477-y): To date, there are few comprehensive assessments of how climate change affects inland finfish, fisheries, and aquaculture at a global scale, but one is necessary to identify research needs and commonalities across regions and to help guide decision making and funding priorities. Broadly, the consequences of climate change on inland fishes will impact global food security, the livelihoods of people who depend on inland capture and recreational fisheries. However, understanding how climate change will affect inland fishes and fisheries has lagged behind marine assessments. Building from a North American inland fisheries assessment, we convened...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12568/abstract): Anthropogenic climate change has created myriad stressors that threaten to cause local extinctions if wild populations fail to adapt to novel conditions. We studied individual and population-level fitness costs of a climate change-induced stressor: camouflage mismatch in seasonally colour molting species confronting decreasing snow cover duration. Based on field measurements of radiocollared snowshoe hares, we found strong selection on coat colour molt phenology, such that animals mismatched with the colour of their background experienced weekly survival decreases up to 7%. In the absence of adaptive response, we show that these mortality...
Abstract: Greenhouse gas-induced climate change will have notable effects on the Great Lakes region, in the atmosphere, land surfaces, and lakes themselves. Simulations of these effects were carried out using the Coupled Hydrosphere-Atmosphere Research Model (CHARM), driven by output from the Canadian General Circulation Model version 3 (CRCM3) for past and future time periods. This results in increased downward longwave radiation and near-surface air temperature. The air temperature increases during summer have strong spatial minima directly over the lakes that are limited to the lowest model layer and seem to be associated with frequent fog depicted by CHARM. Precipitation is also generally increased, with the...
Abstract (from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10980-015-0205-5): Context The Florida Everglades has diminished in size and its existing wetland hydrology has been altered. The endangered snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) has nearly abandoned the Everglades, and its prey, the apple snail (Pomacea paludosa), has declined. Objective We developed a population model (EverSnail) to understand apple snail response to inter- and intra-annual fluctuations in water depths over the Everglades landscape. EverSnail was developed as a tool to understand how apple snails respond to different hydrologic scenarios. Methods EverSnail is an age- and size-structured, spatially-explicit landscape model of P. paludosa...
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The Green Wave Hypothesis posits that herbivore migration manifests in response to waves of spring green-up (i.e., green-wave surfing). Nonetheless, empirical support for the Green Wave Hypothesis is mixed, and a framework for understanding variation in surfing is lacking. In a population of migratory mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), 31% surfed plant phenology in spring as well as a theoretically perfect surfer, and 98% surfed better than random. Green-wave surfing varied among individuals, and was unrelated to age or energetic state. Instead, the greenscape, which we define as the order, rate, and duration of green-up along migratory routes, was the primary factor influencing surfing. Our results indicate that...
Abstract (from Ecological Society of America): Species that are primarily seral may form stable (self‐sustaining) communities under certain disturbance regimes or environmental conditions, yet such populations may also be particularly vulnerable to ecological change. Aspen (Populus spp.) are generally considered seral throughout the Northern Hemisphere, including P. tremuloides, the most widely distributed tree species in North America. Recent declines in aspen populations have occurred, especially along drought‐sensitive margins of its range and where fire exclusion and herbivory have promoted community transition. However, aspen also forms stable stands, and examination of the mechanisms that influence persistence...
This article was released as a USGS Science Feature on January 29, 2013. The article gives an overview of the findings from the NCCWSC supported project "The Potential Influence of Changing Climate on the Persistence of at Risk Native Salmonids".
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The Green Wave Hypothesis posits that herbivore migration manifests in response to waves of spring green-up (i.e., green-wave surfing). Nonetheless, empirical support for the Green Wave Hypothesis is mixed, and a framework for understanding variation in surfing is lacking. In a population of migratory mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), 31% surfed plant phenology in spring as well as a theoretically perfect surfer, and 98% surfed better than random. Green-wave surfing varied among individuals, and was unrelated to age or energetic state. Instead, the greenscape, which we define as the order, rate, and duration of green-up along migratory routes, was the primary factor influencing surfing. Our results indicate that...
map background search result map search result map Thermal metrics: A large-scale database of modeled contemporary and future water temperature data for 10,774 Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes Extreme precipitation variability, forage quality and large herbivore diet selection in arid environments Individual Variability in Surfing Migration Dates Extreme precipitation variability, forage quality and large herbivore diet selection in arid environments Individual Variability in Surfing Migration Dates Thermal metrics: A large-scale database of modeled contemporary and future water temperature data for 10,774 Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes