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Climate change is already affecting ecosystems, and will likely trigger significant and permanent changes in both ecological and human communities. Such transformations are already occurring in the Arctic region of Alaska, where temperatures are warming at twice the global average and causing some ecosystems to transition to new states. Arctic warming has led to coastal erosion that has forced human communities to relocate and a loss of sea ice that has forced marine mammals, such as polar bears and walrus, to adapt to a more terrestrial mode of living. Meanwhile, in the Great Plains of the U.S., past interactions between land and water use during the Dust Bowl and recent high rates of depletion of the Ogallala...
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Wildfires scorched 10 million acres across the United States in 2015, and for the first time on record, wildfire suppression costs topped $2 billion. Wildfire danger modeling is an important tool for understanding when and where wildfires will occur, and recent work by our team in the South Central United States has shown wildfire danger models may be improved by incorporating soil moisture information. Advancements in wildfire danger modeling may increase wildfire preparedness, and therefore decrease loss of life, property, and habitat due to wildfire. Still, soil moisture—an important determinant of wildfire risk—is not currently used for wildfire danger assessments because data are generally unavailable at the...
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Prairies were once widespread across North America, but are now one of the most endangered and least protected ecosystems in the world. Agriculture and residential development have reduced once extensive prairies into a patchwork of remnant prairies and “surrogate” grasslands (e.g., hayfields, planted pastures). Grassland ecosystems and many grassland-dependent birds are also particularly vulnerable to rapid shifts in climate and associated changes in drought and extreme weather. The Central Flyway is a vast bird migration route that comprises more than half of the continental U.S., and extends from Central America to Canada, and harbors the greatest diversity of grassland birds in North America. Throughout this...
Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of population and habitat fragmentation coupled with inadequate regulatory mechanisms to control development in critical areas. In addition to the current threats to habitat, each 1 degree celsius increase due to climate change is expected to result in an additional 87,000 km2 of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) that will be converted to unsuitable habitat for sage-grouse. Thus, the future distribution and composition of sagebrush landscapes is likely to differ greatly from today’s configuration. We conducted a large, multi-objective project to identify: (1) characteristics of habitats required by sage-grouse,...
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This data set includes a dropped-edge analysis of grassland and forest networks in the South Central United States based on land cover data from 2006 and graph theory to evaluate Landscape Resistance to Dispersal (LRD). LRD represents the degree to which habitat availability limits species movement. LRD decreases as habitat availability increases and increases as habitat availability decreases. This data set includes a range of LRD thresholds to represent species with different dispersal abilities and responses to landscape structure. A threshold indicates the highest LRD that still allows dispersal by a particular group of species. LRD thresholds are included in the data set, with low values representing connectivity...
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Winter climate change has the potential to have a large impact on coastal wetlands in the southeastern U.S. Warmer winter temperatures and reductions in the intensity of freeze events would likely lead to mangrove forest range expansion and salt marsh displacement in parts of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast. The objective of this research was to better understand some of the ecological implications of mangrove forest migration and salt marsh displacement. The potential ecological effects of mangrove migration are diverse ranging from important biotic impacts (e.g., coastal fisheries, land bird migration; colonial nesting wading birds) to ecosystem stability (e.g., response to sea level rise and drought;...
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This data set contains daily survival rates from 81 studies of passerine obligate grassland bird species that primarily breed in the United States; patch size information was extracted when available. Temperature and precipitation variables were calculated for the study sites and years the data were collected. The studies we used collected data across the period 1978 to 2013.
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Establishing connections among natural landscapes is the most frequently recommended strategy for adapting management of natural resources in response to climate change. The U.S. Northern Rockies still support a full suite of native wildlife, and survival of these populations depends on connected landscapes. Connected landscapes support current migration and dispersal as well as future shifts in species ranges that will be necessary for species to adapt to our changing climate. Working in partnership with state and federal resource managers and private land trusts, we sought to: 1) understand how future climate change may alter habitat composition of landscapes expected to serve as important connections for wildlife,...
Monitoring vegetation phenology is critical for quantifying climate change impacts on ecosystems. We present an extensive dataset of 1783 site-years of phenological data derived from PhenoCam network imagery from 393 digital cameras, situated from tropics to tundra across a wide range of plant functional types, biomes, and climates. Most cameras are located in North America. Every half hour, cameras upload images to the PhenoCam server. Images are displayed in near-real time and provisional data products, including timeseries of the Green Chromatic Coordinate (Gcc), are made publicly available through the project web page (https://phenocam.sr.unh.edu/webcam/gallery/). Processing is conducted separately for each...
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Establishing connections among natural landscapes is the most frequently recommended strategy for adapting management of natural resources in response to climate change. The U.S. Northern Rockies still support a full suite of native wildlife, and survival of these populations depends on connected landscapes. Connected landscapes support current migration and dispersal as well as future shifts in species ranges that will be necessary for species to adapt to our changing climate. Working in partnership with state and federal resource managers and private land trusts, we sought to: 1) understand how future climate change may alter habitat composition of landscapes expected to serve as important connections for wildlife,...
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Establishing connections among natural landscapes is the most frequently recommended strategy for adapting management of natural resources in response to climate change. The U.S. Northern Rockies still support a full suite of native wildlife, and survival of these populations depends on connected landscapes. Connected landscapes support current migration and dispersal as well as future shifts in species ranges that will be necessary for species to adapt to our changing climate. Working in partnership with state and federal resource managers and private land trusts, we sought to: 1) understand how future climate change may alter habitat composition of landscapes expected to serve as important connections for wildlife,...
Establishing connections among natural landscapes is the most frequently recommended strategy for adapting management of natural resources in response to climate change. The U.S. Northern Rockies still support a full suite of native wildlife, and survival of these populations depends on connected landscapes. Connected landscapes support current migration and dispersal as well as future shifts in species ranges that will be necessary for species to adapt to our changing climate. Working in partnership with state and federal resource managers and private land trusts, we sought to: 1) understand how future climate change may alter habitat composition of landscapes expected to serve as important connections for wildlife,...
Abstract (from Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation): The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to map and monitor the environment has increased sharply in the last few years. Many individuals and organizations have purchased consumer‐grade UAVs, and commonly acquire aerial photographs to map land cover. The resulting ultra‐high‐resolution (sub‐decimeter‐resolution) imagery has high information content, but automating the extraction of this information to create accurate, wall‐to‐wall land‐cover maps is quite difficult. We introduce image‐processing workflows that are based on open‐source software and can be used to create land‐cover maps from ultra‐high‐resolution aerial imagery. We compared four machine‐learning...
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) has increased the extent and frequency of fire and negatively affected native plant and animal species across the Intermountain West (USA). However, the strengths of association between cheatgrass occurrence or abundance and fire, livestock grazing, and precipitation are not well understood. We used 14 years of data from 417 sites across 10,000 km(2) in the central Great Basin to assess the effects of the foregoing predictors on cheatgrass occurrence and prevalence (i.e., given occurrence, the proportion of measurements in which the species was detected). We implemented hierarchical Bayesian models and considered covariates for which > 0.90 or < 0.10 of the posterior predictive mass...
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We used land cover projections for 2011 and 2050 of two scenarios derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). Scenario A1B emphasizes economic growth with a global orientation and scenario B2 focuses on environmental sustainability with a regional view. Our study area included counties within the southern Great Plains ecoregion in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. We calculated changes in landscape connectivity (dECA) between 2011 and 2050 for different species groups and landscape scenarios. We also calculated changes in habitat suitability (dA). We assessed the degree to which changes in landscape connectivity were influenced by changes in grassland...
Abstract (from IOP Science): Global agriculture is challenged to increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing products for an increasing population. Growing crop production could be achieved through higher yield per hectare (i.e. intensive farming) or more hectares (extensive farming), which however, have different ecological and environmental consequences. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that expanding cropland for additional production may lead to loss of vegetation and soil carbon, and threaten the survival of wildlife. New concerns about the impacts of extensive farming have been raised for the US Corn Belt, one of the world's most productive regions, as cropland...
Abstract (from http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/agsaaea16/235895.htm): We evaluate the regional-level agricultural impacts of climate change in the Northern Great Plains. We first estimate a non-linear yield-weather relationship for all major commodities in the area: corn, soybeans, spring wheat and alfalfa. We separately identify benevolent and harmful temperature thresholds for each commodity, and control for severe-to-extreme dry/wet conditions in our yield models. Analyzing all major commodities in a region extends the existing literature beyond just one crop, most typically corn yields. Alfalfa is particularly interesting since it is a legume-crop that is substitutable with grasses as animal feed and rotated...
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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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Habitat fragmentation, modification, and loss have been implicated in the decline of many species, including more than 85% of those considered threatened or endangered. Therefore, connectivity, or the ability of organisms to move among habitat patches, is a critical component of landscape health. In addition to influencing the sustainability of wildlife populations and communities, connectivity also contributes to the availability of ecosystem services. The goal of this project was to evaluate terrestrial connectivity across the South Central United States, with a focus on the impact of projected climate and land use changes. The researchers addressed this goal using a variety of approaches, including evaluating...
map background search result map search result map Climate, Land Management and Future Wildlife Habitat in the Pacific Northwest Terrestrial Connectivity Across the South Central United States: Implications for the Sustainability of Wildlife Populations and Communities Field Notes - Scanned Field Data Sheets and Field Notebook Pages for the following project - Ecological implications of mangrove forest migration in the southeastern US (2012-2013) Potential climate change impacts on bighorn sheep connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Potential climate change impacts on forest connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Potential climate change impacts on mountain goat connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Wildfire Probability Mapping Based on Regional Soil Moisture Models Daily Survival Rates of Grassland Passerines and Associated Weather Variables (1978-2013) Future changes in landscape connectivity for grassland species in the southern Great Plains based on a scenario of future land-use change that focuses on environmental sustainability with a regional view Dropped-edge analysis of terrestrial connectivity of grassland and forest networks in the South Central United States based on the National Land Cover Database from 2006 Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate-Driven Ecological Transformation: Case Studies from Arctic Alaska and the U.S. Great Plains Strategies for Reducing the Vulnerability of Grassland Birds to Climate Change within the Central Flyway Field Notes - Scanned Field Data Sheets and Field Notebook Pages for the following project - Ecological implications of mangrove forest migration in the southeastern US (2012-2013) Climate, Land Management and Future Wildlife Habitat in the Pacific Northwest Potential climate change impacts on bighorn sheep connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Potential climate change impacts on forest connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Potential climate change impacts on mountain goat connectivity in the U.S. Northern Rockies Future changes in landscape connectivity for grassland species in the southern Great Plains based on a scenario of future land-use change that focuses on environmental sustainability with a regional view Dropped-edge analysis of terrestrial connectivity of grassland and forest networks in the South Central United States based on the National Land Cover Database from 2006 Wildfire Probability Mapping Based on Regional Soil Moisture Models Terrestrial Connectivity Across the South Central United States: Implications for the Sustainability of Wildlife Populations and Communities Strategies for Reducing the Vulnerability of Grassland Birds to Climate Change within the Central Flyway Daily Survival Rates of Grassland Passerines and Associated Weather Variables (1978-2013) Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate-Driven Ecological Transformation: Case Studies from Arctic Alaska and the U.S. Great Plains