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Monarch butterfly habitat—including milkweed host plants and nectar food sources—has declined drastically throughout most of the United States. Observed overwinter population levels have also exhibited a long-term downward trend that suggests a strong relationship between habitat loss and monarch population declines. To try and reverse this trend, there has been a call to action to engage in monarch conservation across all landscapes within the migratory pathway—and urban areas could play a critical role, but how?The Field Museum, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have spent the last year working on an Urban Monarch landscape conservation design (LCD), or a “Monarch’s view of the city”, project...
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The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Connectivity Collaborative (AHC Collaborative) is working to develop best practices for aquatic connectivity project selection. Over the past decade, a suite of spatial desktop decision support tools has been developed for the Great Lakes region to aid in planning and selection of barrier (i.e. culverts or dams impeding aquatic organism passage) removal or rehabilitation. These tools are, for the most part, under-utilized by decision makers, likely because they do not know the tools exist, where to find them, how to use them, or how they perform in supporting “real life” decisions. We propose to examine the performance of both local, empirical data sets and existing decision support...
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The project had four explicit objectives: 1) Conduct a climate vulnerability assessment of Species of Greatest Need of Conservation and major habitat types 2) Identify conservation strategies that increase resiliency or adaptive capacity, or mitigate the effects of climate change 3) Outline an adaptive management approach for informing management decisions 4) Recommend changes to existing monitoring programs and identify research needs
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Researchers assessed how an expansion of forest reserves and climate-adaptive management may improve ecological connectivity and resilience under different climate scenarios. Resilience is measured as the capacity for these systems to maintain extant forest communities and aboveground live biomass. Forest landscape change was simulated via a spatially explicit forest ecosystem model, LANDIS-II. Simulations covered areas in northern Minnesota and northern lower Michigan that represent northern Great Lakes forest types. Restoring and maintaining ecological connectivity is one of the primary climate change adaptation strategies available to land managers, in addition to silvicultural practices. This study is...
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As a major threat to global biodiversity, climate change will alter where and how we manage conservation lands (e.g., parks, refuges, wildlife management areas, natural areas). As a new challenge with high uncertainty, many conservation practitioners have yet to consider how to minimize their greenhouse gas contributions (i.e., mitigation), or reduce the vulnerability of natural systems to climatechange (i.e., adaptation). This is particularly true for conservation land managers; because they are often pressed for time and resources, few have initiated long-term climate change planning and amended management activities. Furthermore, where available, climate change guidance is often coarse-level, vague, and beyond...
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Climate change is expected to alter the distributions and community composition of stream fishes in the Great Lakes region in the 21st century, in part as a result of altered hydrological systems (stream temperature, streamflow, and habitat). Resource managers need information and tools to understand where fish species and stream habitats are expected to change under future conditions. Fish sample collections and environmental variables from multiple sources across the United States Great Lakes Basin were integrated and used to develop empirical models to predict fish species occurrence under present-day climate conditions. Random Forests models were used to predict the probability of occurrence of 13 lotic fish...
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Downloadable, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service, Shapefile; Tags: 2011, 2011, 2012, 2012, 2013, All tags...
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In the United States, many resources devoted to conservation are routed through states, but animal and plant populations do not conform to state boundaries. Consequently, neighboring states can enhance their collective conservation impact by coordinating natural resources management. In order to support managers as they review and revise state Wildlife Action Plans in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, this project identified regional conservation priorities for streams and grasslands of the Upper Midwest.Specifically, we (1) selected stream and grassland species of common conservation interest to partnering states, (2) modeled and mapped regional distributions of these species, and (3) used predicted species...
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Capacity to prioritize barrier removals in the Great Lakes basin is currently limited by lack of data on the passability of road crossings and dams for both unwanted invasive species and desirable native migratory fishes. Building upon our initial barrier inventory, this project has two key elements. First, we are testing whether our landscape statistical models accurately predict the upstream limits of fish migrations along the Wisconsin coast of Lake Michigan. This involves intensive field work to determine the actual upstream limits of suckers, pike, and steelhead during the spring migration. Second, we are collecting systematic data on the size and condition of dams throughout the Lake Michigan basin. These...
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Brief:Under this project a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB) was developed to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings. SUMMARY:KBIC Natural Resources Department received funding through the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative to develop a collaborative and integrated geodatabase of inventoried connectivity barriers within the South Central Lake Superior Basin (SCLSB), to prioritize restoration for more than 2,000 inventoried stream crossings (see Figure 1). This project stemmed from KBIC’s participation in the Partnering for Watershed Restoration Group (PWR),...
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Working within the constraints of the SWAP revision timeline, we propose to advance biodiversity conservation within the region by enhancing the regional effectiveness of SWAPs and the ability of the LCC to address regional biodiversity priorities. We propose to accomplish these outcomes through engagement of SWAP coordinators and LCC professionals in the creation of a set of detailed best practices and learning resources tailored to needs that they help to identify. We will regularly engage with the SWAP coordinators as we develop these resources to allow each state to influence and employ the resources as needed, recognizing that time and resources to participate in this project will vary among states. As part...
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The availability of output from climate model ensembles,such as phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project(CMIP3 and CMIP5), has greatly expanded information about future projections,but there is no accepted blueprint for how this data should be utilized.The multi-model average is themost commonly cited single estimate of future conditions,but higher-order moments representing thevariance and skewness of the distribution of projections provide important information about uncertainty. We have analyzed a set of statistically downscaled climate model projections from the CMIP3 archive to assess extreme weather events at a level aimed to be appropriate for decisionmakers. Our analysis uses the distribution...
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Today more than 80% of Americans live in urban areas and by 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will call a city ‘home’. Our cities are built on lands and river systems that connect to larger natural areas. The protection of that land and water is vital for a city’s economy and the health and well-being of its urban residents. Ecological Places in Cities, EPiC, is a network of cities and conservation groups working together towards a new vision that integrates nature’s benefits and natural defenses with the needs of our urban future. We use advanced urban planning approaches along with innovative civic leadership to ensure that urban nature and our future generations can grow and thrive together.
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The Nature Conservancy - Great Lakes Program is leading the development of a scalable (Great Lakes wide, individual lake basin, to coastal reach within a lake basin) rule-based spatial model for ranking the relative importance of coastal lands and waters as habitat for migrating birds. Results will guide conservation actions including land acquisition, land and water management and restoration, and development of wind energy facilities. Specifically, the team will: 1) refine, create and integrate migratory bird stopover habitat models which depict the distribution of potential stopover sites along or near the shorelines of Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario; and, 2) develop an online portal that will deliver...
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Mayflies (Ephemeroptera), stoneflies (Plecoptera), and caddisflies (Trichoptera) (a.k.a. EPT taxa) are the most environmentally sensitive of freshwater insects. They are utilized the world over as indicators of water quality in flowing waters. Their decline has been documented in Asia, Europe, and North America. A 220,321 record dataset of new and museum EPT specimen records covering much of the Midwest and Maximum Entropy (Maxent) software were used construct to current and future, climate influenced distribution models. Nearly 100 physical and historic vegetation variables and 9 BIOCLIM variables derived from downscaled climate data for the region were employed in this process. A total of 426 EPT species were...
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Ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries is widely impaired, and many agencies and organizations are currently investing in restoring these connections to enhance target fish and wildlife populations. To assist in targeting these investments, we have been developing spatial data on the location and attributes of barriers (dams and road-stream crossings) and fish breeding habitat throughout the Great Lakes basin to analyze the optimum strategy for enhancing connectivity and restoring fish migrations. The proposed work will result in guidance for barrier restoration at scales from individual watersheds to the entire basin, refine methodologies for spatial analysis of barriers, and provide...
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With the ultimate goal of conserving and restoring threatened native grassland prairies and the wildlife that depend on them, the National Audubon Society (Audubon) is facilitating a landscape conservation design for the grassland birds in the greater Chicago region. As a first step in this process standardized avian point count surveys conducted primarily by citizen volunteers were combined with landcover composition and configuration, soils, and vegetation productivity data to model abundance of five grassland bird species. Models were updated with additional data and expert review in 2015 and now provide map outputs of existing grassland bird habitat and population estimates for species of conservation concern...
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This project directly addresses the need for integration of climate change information and strategies into Wisconsin’s Wildlife Action Plan (WWAP) as identified by Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Land Conservation Cooperative. Wisconsin’s WWAP is used as a major conservation planning tool by state agencies and partners, but this tool currently lacks information on climate change. At the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), the WWAP informs master planning for state‐owned properties, influences land acquisition priorities, and provides direction for management, inventory, and research. As a user‐friendly, detailed, web‐based resource, the WWAP is also available to other conservation organizations and private...
Forest-dominated landscapes provide a wide range of ecosystem services to many different sectors of society, including forest products (e.g., timber), recreational opportunities and support of tourism, carbon sequestration, and habitat for fish and wildlife and other biodiversity. However, many forests and embedded aquatic systems in the Northwoods are in degraded condition due to land and resource management decisions, impacts of over-abundant deer populations, and the spread of nonnative forest pests and pathogens that have led to “surprise” losses of key tree species. The long-term viability of these vast expanses of forest-dominated systems has great potential to be further compromised as climatic changes...
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For management agencies, there is a growing need to understand (1) how climate change affects and will continue to affect wildlife populations of conservation concern, and (2) how the negative Upper Midwest Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative Request for Funding 2013 demographic effects of climate change can be mitigated through management strategies. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA) integrates available data and scientific understanding in a transparent process, details assumptions and uncertainties, and ultimately projects population-level responses of target species to future climate change. Climate change is already influencing distributions and abundances of species throughout North...
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This scenario planning decision support tool for the Kankakee River basin as a first case study/proof-of concept. Hydrology models, both surface water and groundwater, and ecology of the Kankakee River watershed will be combined to evaluate the effects of habitat restoration on water suppy ecosystem services, agricultural irrigation demands, urbanization, and waterfowl habitat, and sportsman and recreational user interests. Various scenarios for restoration identified with peer input were tested for the watershed. Each scenario results in different individual and aggregate values for ground water recharge, surface water storage, waterfowl habitat, sportsman and recreational use, and agricultural capacity. Some...


map background search result map search result map On-a-wing and a (GIS) Layer: Prioritizing migratory bird habitat along Great Lakes shoreline Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Developing a Portfolio of Mitigation and Adaption Options for Land Managers in the Upper Great Lakes Identification & Risk Assessment of Most Climate Vulnerable Terrestrial Species and Natural Communities and Climate Vulnerability Assessment in the UMGL LCC Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Re-establishing ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries: Prioritization in a complex system Scenarios for forest reserve expansion and adaptive management under alternative climate change scenarios in the northern Great Lakes Assessment of Waterfowl Habitat Restoration as an Adaptive Mechanism for Water Sustainability in the Grand Kankakee River Watershed Facilitating the Effectiveness of State Wildlife Action Plans at Multiple Scales in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes LCC Region Grassland Bird Conservation Design in the Chicago Region Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Adapting Conservation to a Changing Climate: An Update to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan Climate Change Impacts on Wisconsin's Natural Communities and Conservation Opportunities Areas: Updating Wisconsin's Wildlife Action Plan Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Identifying Regional Priority Areas for Focusing Conservation Actions in Streams and Grasslands Urban Monarch Conservation Workshop November 9-10, 2016 Ecological Places in Cities EPiC Network Comparison of Decision Making Techniques for Selection of River Connectivity Projects in the Michigan Fruitbelt Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events Comparison of Decision Making Techniques for Selection of River Connectivity Projects in the Michigan Fruitbelt Assessment of Waterfowl Habitat Restoration as an Adaptive Mechanism for Water Sustainability in the Grand Kankakee River Watershed Grassland Bird Conservation Design in the Chicago Region Collaborative Restoration of Aquatic Resources in the South Central Lake Superior Basin Adapting Conservation to a Changing Climate: An Update to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan Climate Change Impacts on Wisconsin's Natural Communities and Conservation Opportunities Areas: Updating Wisconsin's Wildlife Action Plan Scenarios for forest reserve expansion and adaptive management under alternative climate change scenarios in the northern Great Lakes Developing a Portfolio of Mitigation and Adaption Options for Land Managers in the Upper Great Lakes Urban Monarch Conservation Workshop November 9-10, 2016 Ecological Places in Cities EPiC Network On-a-wing and a (GIS) Layer: Prioritizing migratory bird habitat along Great Lakes shoreline Regional decision support tool for identifying vulnerabilities of riverine habitat and fishes to climate change Identification & Risk Assessment of Most Climate Vulnerable Terrestrial Species and Natural Communities and Climate Vulnerability Assessment in the UMGL LCC Predicting climate change effects on riverine aquatic insects in the Upper Midwest Re-establishing ecological connectivity between the Great Lakes and their tributaries: Prioritization in a complex system Facilitating the Effectiveness of State Wildlife Action Plans at Multiple Scales in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes LCC Region Field Assessments of Great Lakes Barriers Identifying Regional Priority Areas for Focusing Conservation Actions in Streams and Grasslands Publication: Interpreting climate model projections of extreme weather events