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Changing climate conditions could have significant impacts on wildlife health. Shifts in temperature and precipitation may directly affect the occurrence of disease in fish and wildlife by altering their interactions with pathogens (such as the bacterium that causes Lyme disease), helping vectors like mosquitoes and ticks expand their range, or speeding up the time it takes for a parasite to develop from an egg to an adult. Climate change can also indirectly affect the health of fish and wildlife as their habitats change. For example, reduced food availability could lead to overcrowding and increased disease transmission, or warmer temperatures might increase stress levels, weakening immune systems and making animals...
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Habitat fragmentation occurs when loss of habitat (e.g. to land use changes or human development) divides large or connected habitat areas into smaller, more isolated areas. This process is recognized as one of the most pressing conservation issues in the Southeastern U.S. Habitat loss and fragmentation reduces the amount of suitable habitat available to wildlife species, divides wildlife populations and reduces genetic diversity, and interrupts important migration patterns; and climate change is likely to disrupt habitat areas even more. Maintaining connectivity between habitats and wildlife populations will be a key management strategy for conserving biodiversity in the region into the future. Previous work by...
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The Nature Conservancy’s Southeast Resilience Project aimed to identify key places areas for conservation based on land characteristics that increase diversity and resilience. This is the estimated resilience score, based on the combined scores of landscape diversity and local connectedness, and ranked relative to the geophysical setting and ecoregion. The estimated resilience score is given as a SD category based on its standard normalized score for the setting and ecoregion. The Resilience Project DOES NOT take into account sea level rise. A climate-resilient conservation portfolio includes sites representative of all geophysical settings selected for their landscape diversity and local connectedness. We developed...
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This data set contains information on the probabilities of hurricane-induced erosion (collision, inundation and overwash) for each 1-km section of the United States coast for category 1-5 hurricanes. The analysis is based on a storm-impact scaling model that uses observations of beach morphology combined with sophisticated hydrodynamic models to predict how the coast will respond to the direct landfall of category 1-5 hurricanes. Hurricane-induced water levels, due to both surge and waves, are compared to beach and dune elevations to determine the probabilities of three types of coastal change: collision (dune erosion), overwash, and inundation. Data on dune morphology (dune crest and toe elevation) and hydrodynamics...
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Coastal wetlands provide a suite of valuable benefits to people and wildlife, including important habitat, improved water quality, reduced flooding impacts, and protected coastlines. However, in the 21st century accelerated sea-level rise and coastal development are expected to greatly alter coastal landscapes across the globe. The future of coastal wetlands is uncertain, challenging coastal environmental managers to develop conservation strategies that will increase the resilience of these valuable ecosystems to change and preserve the benefits they provide. One strategy for preparing for the effects of sea-level rise is to ensure that there is space available for coastal wetlands to adapt by migration. In a...
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In 2013, the Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA) study was started as part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project. One of the objectives of the RSQA is to characterize the relationships between water-quality stressors and stream ecology and subsequently determine the relative effects of these stressors on aquatic biota within the streams (Garrett and others, 2017; Journey and others, 2015; Coles and others, 2019; Sheibley and others, 2017; May and others, 2020). The study was implemented in five regions across the United States (U.S.); the Midwest (MSQA) in 2013, the Southeast (SESQA) in 2014, the Pacific Northwest (PNSQA) in 2015, the Northeast (NESQA) in 2016,...
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Much of the biodiversity of the southeastern U.S. is found in grasslands, including meadows, prairies, glades, and savannas. These grasslands provide vital habitat to a variety of plants and animals, but many grassland types have undergone over 90% loss due to fire suppression and urban sprawl. The remaining grassland patches—remnants—now face emerging threats from invasive species and climate change. The project researchers recently convened a workshop with grassland managers and experts from across the Southeast, from Texas to West Virginia to Florida, to identify the most pressing science needs to effectively manage and restore grasslands over the coming decades. This project directly addresses those needs by...
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This dataset represents the extent of urbanization (for the year indicated) predicted by the model SLEUTH, developed by Dr. Keith C. Clarke, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Geography and modified by David I. Donato of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Eastern Geographic Science Center (EGSC). Further model modification and implementation was performed at the Biodiversity and Spatial Information Center at North Carolina State University.Urban growth probability extents throughout the 21st century were projected for the Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP), which encompasses all or parts of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,...
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The Potential Reforestation Index geospatial data product is a companion to the Forest Retention Index product from the Mapping the South’s Forests of the Future project. The Retention Index describes the likelihood that existing forests will remain in a forested condition at decadal time steps through 2060. The Potential Reforestation Index describes the likelihood that a non-forested land unit will be converted to forest cover at those same time steps. We used two datasets to determine areas currently occupied by agriculture that may be most conducive to reforestation efforts: National Commodity Crop Productivity Index (NCCPI) and Potentially Restorable Wetlands on Agriculture Land (PRWAg). The NCCPI is available...
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Forest Retention Index classes for the southeastern United States at 2040 were processed using the Forest Retention Decision Tree and rendered on a 30-meter by 30-meter grid. The Forest Retention Index is used only for current forestland, identified using National Land Cover Database 2011. Many datasets were used as inputs for the Forest Retention Decision Tree, and they can be grouped into five broad categories: Protected, Tier 1 Priority, Tier 2 Priority, Threats to Forest Retention, and Socio-Economic Value of Forests. Protected datasets include Protected Areas Database-United States, National Conservation Easement Database, state-maintained databases, and private datasets volunteered by conservation partners....
The project team examined State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) from 15 southeastern states and Puerto Rico in order to: 1) identify the various approaches used to address climate change in the recent SWAP updates, 2) highlight key commonalities and differences among the states, and 3) improve understanding of the challenges and opportunities that state agencies face as they address climate change risks. Methods included detailed review of the SWAPs and follow-up interviews with SWAP coordinators. This dataset reviews examples of vulnerability assessment tools and resources used or referenced in the State Wildlife Action Plans.
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Estimates of water flows in streams are critical to inform natural resource managers of water availability for both human and ecological needs. Monitoring flow in the stream using a streamgage provides information about the amount and timing of surface water resources. However, not every stream has a streamgage and decisions about water resources may need to be made in a watershed where there is no flow information. Hydrologic models can be used to provide estimates of streamflow in the absence of streamflow information. These models depend upon available streamflow data for calibration, and can be very inaccurate without the use of those data. This research developed a method to group watersheds that are gaged...
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The polygon data in the geodatabase represent range-wide habitat suitability model predictions for five species of herpetofauna: gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), southern hognose snake (Heterodon simus), Florida pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus), gopher frog (Lithobates capito), and striped newt (Notophthalmus perstriatus). Collectively, the habitat suitability polygons extend across the range of these species in the Southeast US, including areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. This assessment was conducted by the USGS Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Georgia in collaboration with other partners. Habitat suitability...
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Sea level rise is likely to be a major driver of coastal habitat change in the coming decades, and therefore influence the location and magnitude of ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats. We used a spatial model to map coastal habitat changes due to sea level rise in six mid-Atlantic states, including North Carolina, and translate habitat changes into effects on net carbon flux from the coastal zone.
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The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is a familiar species across the southeastern Coastal Plain, but its population has declined significantly over the decades. One reason is that much of its primary habitat, sparse stands of mature pine, has been replaced by development or agriculture. Another is that periodic ground fires, which are important for providing needed forage for the tortoise, have been largely suppressed on the landscape. The gopher tortoise is a “keystone” species, meaning that its disappearance from the landscape would jeopardize the existence of many other species that make use of its underground burrows. Besides tortoise habitat, the uplands of the Coastal Plain contain isolated seasonal...
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Grasslands are plant communities that have few or no trees, or have open canopies that allow for the development of a grassy groundcover. Grasslands in the southeastern U.S. support rare plant and animal species and in some cases qualify as global or regional hotspots of biodiversity. Yet the Southeast’s grasslands have been reduced by approximately 90% since European settlement, as the result of agriculture, urbanization, and fire suppression. Today, climate change represents an additional stressor that may pose direct and indirect threats to grassland-related biodiversity. Additional knowledge is urgently needed to evaluate conservation options for species of conservation concern in southeastern U.S. grasslands,...
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources need to develop a plan of action to help the recovery of two endangered species in the genus Eleutherodactylus (commonly known as “coqui”), while also reducing the risk that 14 other coqui species would be added to the Endangered Species list. Prior work by these researchers has identified factors influencing life history for three representative species (E. wightmanae, E. britonni, and E. antillensis) including where species occur, their abundance, and key drivers of reproduction, all of which are driven by climate and land use change. For this next research stage, this project will: (1) characterize the ability...
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The Southeastern United States spans a broad range of physiographic settings and maintains exceptionally high levels of faunal diversity. Unfortunately, many of these ecosystems are increasingly under threat due to rapid human development, and management agencies are increasingly aware of the potential effects that climate change will have on these ecosystems. Natural resource managers and conservation planners can be effective at preserving ecosystems in the face of these stressors only if they can adapt current conservation efforts to increase the overall resilience of the system. Climate change, in particular, challenges many of the basic assumptions used by conservation planners and managers. Previous conservation...
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We routinely encounter uncertainty when we make decisions – from picking a new morning coffee to choosing where to live. Even decisions that are supported by science contain some level of remaining uncertainty. In the context of conservation and wildlife management, the potential for uncertainty to influence decisions is perhaps most obvious when we think about predicting how actions (or non-actions) will have lasting impacts into the future. Our abilities to precisely predict future climatic and ecological conditions and determine the exact consequences of our actions are, and will remain, limited. Conservation practitioners and land and wildlife managers must navigate these challenges to make science-informed...
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USGS researchers assessed how climate change can affect land cover and flow in river systems, examining a variety of resolutions for detecting and projecting the conditions of aquatic habitats and species.


map background search result map search result map Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation TNC Southeast Resilience SERAP: The Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Species and Habitat in the Southeast Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): Assessing Global Change Impacts on Natural and Human Systems in the Southeast USGS Erosion Hazard for the East and Gulf Coasts SLEUTH Urbanization 2020-2100 Estimating Future Water Availability and Streamflow in the Southeast Enhancing the Capacity of Coastal Wetlands to Adapt to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Development Turning the Science of Connectivity into Action: Finding Model Consistency and Identifying Priority Habitats for Conservation Potential Reforestation Index for the South at 2040 Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies Forest Retention Index for the South at year 2050 Clarifying Science Needs for Southeastern Grasslands Range-wide habitat suitability maps for at-risk species in the longleaf system - polygon version Strategic Habitat Conservation and Adaptive Strategies for the Conservation of Coqui Frogs in Puerto Rico Watershed Boundaries for the U.S. Geological Survey Regional Stream Quality Assessment Understanding Impacts on Southeastern Grasslands from Climate Change, Urban Expansion, and Invasive Species Examples of vulnerability assessment tools and resources used or referenced in the State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) Effects of Sea Level Rise on Coastal Habitats and Blue Carbon SERAP: The Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Species and Habitat in the Southeast SLEUTH Urbanization 2020-2100 Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation Estimating Future Water Availability and Streamflow in the Southeast Range-wide habitat suitability maps for at-risk species in the longleaf system - polygon version Effects of Sea Level Rise on Coastal Habitats and Blue Carbon Turning the Science of Connectivity into Action: Finding Model Consistency and Identifying Priority Habitats for Conservation Understanding Impacts on Southeastern Grasslands from Climate Change, Urban Expansion, and Invasive Species Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): Assessing Global Change Impacts on Natural and Human Systems in the Southeast TNC Southeast Resilience Enhancing the Capacity of Coastal Wetlands to Adapt to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Development USGS Erosion Hazard for the East and Gulf Coasts Forest Retention Index for the South at year 2050 Potential Reforestation Index for the South at 2040 Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Watershed Boundaries for the U.S. Geological Survey Regional Stream Quality Assessment Clarifying Science Needs for Southeastern Grasslands Examples of vulnerability assessment tools and resources used or referenced in the State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies