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A unique opportunity for USGS to collaborate with IRIS-PASSCAL (the national seismic instrument facility) has presented itself to develop a geophysical data archive format that follows FAIR principles. IRIS-PASSCAL is extending facility to include magnetotelluric (MT) instruments prescribing the need for them to archive collected MT data by extending their existing protocol. Concurrently, Congress has mandated the USGS to collect nationwide MT data (5000 stations) which will all need to be archived under FAIR principles. In collaboration with IRIS-PASSCAL, we propose to develop a generalized HDF5 format for archiving MT data which can easily be extended to other geophysical data in the future. This project will...
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Hawai‘i’s isolation, paired with limited water resources, make the archipelago sensitive to reductions in water availability. Drought can take different forms, varying across Island geographies with respect to frequency, intensity, duration, and extent. A drought event can exert hydrological, agricultural, ecological, and socio-economic impacts – and these impacts have been growing over the past century as droughts have become more frequent and severe. While the impacts of drought in Hawai‘i have been recently documented, important gaps remain in understanding these dynamics when engaging with multiple other stressors such as invasive species, shifting fire and climate patterns, pests, and pathogens. In particular,...
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Assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change is a key step in anticipating climate impacts on species. Vulnerability assessments characterize species’ future conservation needs and can guide current planning and management actions to support species persistence in the face of climate change. A full assessment of climate vulnerability involves characterizing three essential components: sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and exposure. Assessing sensitivity and adaptive capacity, as well as determining which aspects of exposure to assess all require detailed knowledge of species-specific traits and ecology. Such a detailed understanding is hard to come by, even for well-studied species, thus, developing vulnerability...
In the eastern portion of its range (east of the Mobile and Tombigbee Rivers in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina), the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is a Candidate species for federal listing as a Threatened species by the USFWS. There is a gap in knowledge of tortoise population structure and habitat use in coastal areas particularly along barrier islands, which may impact the listing decision. This proposed project would help fill that gap by conducting line-transect surveys for tortoise burrows, assessing fine-scale habitat use through radio-telemetry and determining population connectivity through genetic analyses. The objectives of the study are: 1. Identifying habitats used by gopher...
Native freshwater mussels of the family Unionidae are experiencing high imperilment status due to habitat alteration and destruction, pollution and poor water quality, and the introduction of aquatic invasive species. The Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern regions of the United States contain the greatest biodiversity of native freshwater mussels in the world and are now at even greater risk from the continued stresses of human-mediated changes to the landscape through urban and rural development, mining activities, climate change, nutrient influx and their associated impacts to water and sediment quality. The specific objectives of this study are to (1) Compare the relative sensitivity of early life stages...
With the onset and advance of whitenose syndrome (WNS) across USFWS Regions 2-6 managers realized that then current Indiana bat presence and absence survey guidelines were likely insufficient due to population declines. The objectives of this study are: 1. Continue to test automated bat identification software following USFWS and USGS jointlydeveloped protocols and standards as submitted to USFWS over the study period and report findings 2. Establish and operate zero-crossing, frequency division survey sites in representative upland, riparian and field-edge habitat in areas with recent past (since advent of WNS) or currently known Indiana bat maternity colonies in KY, TN, VA, IN and NY. 3. Establish and operate...
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Several times during the severe drought of 2010-2015, communities within the jurisdictional territories of the Chickasaw Nation and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma were precariously close to running out of water. According to previous studies, temperatures are expected to continue to rise throughout the southern states, and droughts are predicted to be longer and more severe. Even small changes to a river’s water flow regime may have unanticipated consequences on the water resources, especially for communities that rely on direct river diversions to supply their needs. A suitable water availability model is a key tool needed to help communities investigate where vulnerabilities in water resources may occur and the...
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Mangroves are forested tidal wetlands that occur in tropical, sub-tropical, and warm temperate coastal regions around the world. Mangroves occupy a significant area of coastlines globally and provide important ecosystem services to humans and wildlife. These services include aesthetic value, storm protection, food provisioning, recreation, critical wildlife habitat, and biological carbon sequestration. However, mangrove wetlands are being lost globally due to both human development and sea level rise. Since mangroves provide numerous services and protections to society, the influences of environmental change on these ecosystems need to be understood so that effective management action can be taken. This project...
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Madagascar, a country rich in natural capital and biodiversity but with high levels of poverty, food insecurity, and population growth, faces a number of development challenges, including obtaining sustained financial support from external sources and building internal capacity to address the poor environmental, health, and socio-economic conditions. Climate change poses an increasing threat to achieving development goals and is usually considered in development plans and project designs. However, there have been numerous challenges in the effective implementation of those plans, particularly in the sustained engagement of the communities to undertake adaptive actions but also due to insufficient scientific information...
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Brook trout are the only native fish from the salmon family in the southeastern United States. Despite their recreational and cultural significance, human activities, such as habitat degradation and introduction of non-native species, have led to serious declines of brook trout populations in the region. Stream temperature and flow alterations from climate change are projected to impact this cold-water species even further. Recent studies show that there is much site-to-site variation in how climate affects stream temperature and flow. Therefore, vulnerability of local trout populations to climate change also varies. Understanding local variation in climate responses across the region is critical to maintaining...
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Species are on the move as they respond to climate change. This includes many native species, but also species with high costs to society such as disease vectors, pests, and nonnative invasive species (an invasive species is a species that is not native to a specific location but is spreading with the tendency of causing damage to native plants and animals). Currently there are hundreds of invasive species with relatively restricted ranges in the southeastern U.S., but as the climate changes these species are expected to expand their ranges to new regions. It is important to understand if and how these species might move and what actions we can take to lessen their impact on species and habitats. To achieve this...
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Freshwater is a critical driver for island ecosystems. Climate change has fundamentally altered the water cycle in tropical islands. The changes in dynamic patterns of streamflow could result in the temporal and spatial difference in the riverine, estuarine, and coastal habitats that support native species. In particular, these habitats support the nine native aquatic species in Hawaiʻi at different stages of their migratory life cycle. To examine how changes in streamflow regimes have impacted habitat quality for these native aquatic species, an ongoing project has examined statewide long-term stream records. Researchers are in the process of building hydrological models and connecting the stream dynamics with...
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Trout are one of the most culturally, economically, and ecologically important groups of freshwater fishes in the Rocky Mountain region. However, human impacts and climate change are significantly altering freshwater ecosystems that support native trout species. Despite their broad importance, many of the region’s trout populations are threatened and some require immediate conservation efforts to reverse their decline. Although work is being done to understand and mitigate these changes, the ability to accurately assess vulnerability is currently limited due to a lack of data-driven approaches that incorporate uncertainty and adaptive capacity at scales relevant to effective management. USGS researchers will...
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Under shifting temperatures and precipitation patterns, Midwestern states are increasingly at risk from non-native invasive plants that are changing the composition, structure, and function of native forests. Non-native invasive plants impact the resilience and sustainability of forest communities by outcompeting native tree seedlings and diverse flowering plants, and by altering ecologically important patterns of natural processes like fire, wind, drought, and flooding. Land managers facing this threat are having to not only consider current non-native invasive plants within their landscapes but also future impacts with the expansion of these plants northward and westward under a changing climate, especially as...
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Prescribed burning is a primary tool used to reduce wildfire risk and manage ecosystems to achieve a range of ecological, economic and societal goals.  The ability of fire managers to use prescribed fire as a management tool is complicated in regions such as the Southeast because of rapid population growth, extensive suburban development, and a changing climate. Such change restricts prescribed burning while also highlighting the necessity of an active prescribed fire management regime to reduce wildfire risk in these communities. To help managers make decisions in light of these factors, there is a need to document: 1) the current conditions under which practitioners are willing to burn and restrictions to active...
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The cloud offers new and exciting opportunities for USGS employees to leverage computing resources and services that can quickly improve their workflows and reduce expenditures typically associated with establishing a comparable environment with physical infrastructure. However, due to the novelty of access to and use of the cloud environment, there is limited documentation and shared examples detailing how those resources and services are being used across the USGS. Developing a platform that allows cloud users to contribute to the available documentation and provides a location to consolidate information relevant to operating in the USGS cloud will help to decrease duplication of efforts across projects that share...
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As freshwater streams and native fish are threatened by changing environmental conditions, efforts to coalesce existing data and integrate modeling and projection tools are increasingly necessary for informing effective land, water, and species management. For example, identifying and integrating disparate datasets of streamflow, stream water temperature and species distribution is critical for development of statistical models that inform comprehensive, multi-species climate vulnerability assessments to help managers plan for the future. Regional assessments of the vulnerability of native fishes to climate change in the Pacific Northwest have focused almost exclusively on salmonids (a family of fish that includes...
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Wildfire is a significant yet underappreciated issue on Pacific Islands that threatens ecosystems from ridge-tops to reefs, including native species, waters, human communities, and natural and cultural resources. In the Hawaiian archipelago, the percentage of land burned annually is equal or greater than that burned across the western United States, with most fires occurring in drier nonnative grasslands and shrublands, which make up 25% of Hawaiʻi’s total land area. As island communities face increased wildfire risk due to climate change and other factors, such as continued plant invasions, collaborative bio-cultural stewardship approaches to adaptation will be critical to wildfire management. Fire causes and effects...
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In the Gulf of Alaska, streams will experience more dramatic low water events, interspersed with larger and potentially more frequent high flow events in the coming decades. Reduced stream flows are likely to occur due to diminished snowpack and seasonal droughts, while higher flow events are likely to occur with more frequent storms and rain-on-snow events. These changes are likely to influence the growth trajectories of juvenile salmon, such as coho salmon and chinook salmon, that live up to two years in freshwater before migrating to the ocean. Stream flows can influence juvenile salmon growth by modifying food availability, water clarity, temperature, and predation risk. This high-resolution study examines...
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Yellow perch and alewife are ecologically, economically, and culturally important fish species in Lake Michigan whose populations support recreational and commercial fisheries. However, both of these species’ populations have been in decline for over 20 years. This project seeks to understand the factors affecting variability in offspring survival of yellow perch and alewife in Lake Michigan in order to project survival under scenarios of future climate change. Like other fish species, yellow perch and alewives produce huge numbers of small offspring, but most die early in life. Small changes in survival at this early stage can have a strong impact on the number of fish that ultimately contribute to fisheries....
map background search result map search result map Assessing the Vulnerability of Native Trout in the Northern Rockies: Linking Science and Management for Climate Adaptation An Assessment of Invasive Species Range Shifts in the Southeastern U.S. and Actions to Manage Them Understanding and Forecasting Potential Recruitment of Lake Michigan Fishes Modeling the Interaction of Forest Management and Climate Change on the Spread and Impact of Non-Native Invasive Plants Development of a Streamflow Data Catalog and Evaluation of the Vulnerability of Sensitive Fish Species to Climate Change Across the Pacific Northwest Building Tools to Assess Future Climate Impacts on Water Resources of the Canadian River Basin Malo‘o ka lani, wela ka honua (When the sky is dry, the earth is parched): Investigating the Cultural Dimensions of Indigenous Local Knowledge Responses to Changing Climate Conditions Brook Trout Population Responses to Climate Variation Across the Southeast USA Science to Inform the Management of Mangrove Ecosystems Undergoing Sea Level Rise at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, Florida A Climate Risk Management Screening and Assessment Review for Madagascar’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy The Influence of Stream Flow Patterns on Juvenile Salmon Growth in Southeast Alaska A Climate Vulnerability Assessment Framework for Data-Poor Species Impacts of Extreme Events on the Native and Nonnative Aquatic Species of Hawaiʻi Stream Ecosystem Understanding Prescribed Fire Management in the Context of Climate Change and Landscape Transformation Future of Fire in the Pacific Islands: Towards a National Synthesis for Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate Science to Inform the Management of Mangrove Ecosystems Undergoing Sea Level Rise at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, Florida Modeling the Interaction of Forest Management and Climate Change on the Spread and Impact of Non-Native Invasive Plants Brook Trout Population Responses to Climate Variation Across the Southeast USA Development of a Streamflow Data Catalog and Evaluation of the Vulnerability of Sensitive Fish Species to Climate Change Across the Pacific Northwest A Climate Risk Management Screening and Assessment Review for Madagascar’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy Assessing the Vulnerability of Native Trout in the Northern Rockies: Linking Science and Management for Climate Adaptation Understanding and Forecasting Potential Recruitment of Lake Michigan Fishes An Assessment of Invasive Species Range Shifts in the Southeastern U.S. and Actions to Manage Them The Influence of Stream Flow Patterns on Juvenile Salmon Growth in Southeast Alaska Malo‘o ka lani, wela ka honua (When the sky is dry, the earth is parched): Investigating the Cultural Dimensions of Indigenous Local Knowledge Responses to Changing Climate Conditions Building Tools to Assess Future Climate Impacts on Water Resources of the Canadian River Basin A Climate Vulnerability Assessment Framework for Data-Poor Species Impacts of Extreme Events on the Native and Nonnative Aquatic Species of Hawaiʻi Stream Ecosystem Understanding Prescribed Fire Management in the Context of Climate Change and Landscape Transformation Future of Fire in the Pacific Islands: Towards a National Synthesis for Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate