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At least 721 records · Page 40Linked to original sources
USGS2015

Non-linear responses of glaciated prairie wetlands to climate warming

The response of ecosystems to climate warming is likely to include threshold events when small changes in key environmental drivers produce large changes in an ecosystem. Wetlands of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) are especially sensitive to climate variability, yet the possibility that functional changes may occur more rapidly with warming than expected has not been examined or modeled. The productivity and biodiversity of these wetlands are strongly controlled by the speed and completeness of a vegetation cover cycle driven by the wet and dry extremes of climate. Two thresholds involving duration and depth of standing water must be exceeded every few decades or so to complete the cycle and to produce highly functional wetlands. Model experiments at 19 weather stations employing incremental warming scenarios determined that wetland function across most of the PPR would be diminished beyond a climate warming of about 1.5–2.0 °C, a critical temperature threshold range identified in other climate change studies.

Prairie Pothole Region↗
USGS2017

Climate impacts on agricultural land use in the USA: the role of socio-economic scenarios

We examine the impacts of climate on net returns from crop and livestock production and the resulting impact on land-use change across the contiguous USA. We first estimate an econometric model to project effects of weather fluctuations on crop and livestock net returns and then use a semi-reduced form land-use share model to study agricultural land-use changes under future climate and socio-economic scenarios. Estimation results show that crop net returns are more sensitive to thermal and less sensitive to moisture variability than livestock net returns; other agricultural land uses substitute cropland use when 30-year averaged degree-days or precipitation are not beneficial for crop production. Under future climate and socio-economic scenarios, we project that crop and livestock net returns are both increasing, but with crop net returns increasing at a higher rate; cropland increases with declines of marginal and pastureland by the end of the twenty-first century. Projections also show that impacts of future climate on agricultural land uses are substantially different and a larger variation of land-use change is evident when socio-economic scenarios are incorporated into the climate impact analysis.

Climatic Change↗
USGS2019

Grounding simulation models with qualitative case studies: Toward a holistic framework to make climate science usable for US public land management

Policies directing agencies and public land managers to incorporate climate change into management face several barriers. These stem, in part, from a disconnect between the information that is produced and the information needs of local resource managers. A disproportionate focus on the natural and physical sciences in climate vulnerability and adaptation assessment obscure understandings of complex social systems and the interactions and feedbacks in social-ecological systems. We use a qualitative case study of bison management on Department of the Interior-managed and tribal lands to explore how a social-science driven Determinants and Analogue Vulnerability Assessment (DAVA) can inform ecological response models, specifically simulation models that account for multiple drivers of change. First, we illustrate how a DAVA approach can help to: 1) identify key processes, entities, and interactions across scales; 2) document local impacts, indicators, and monitoring efforts of drought and climate; and 3) identify major tradeoffs and uncertainties. We then demonstrate how qualitative narratives can inform simulation models by: 1) prioritizing model components included in modeling efforts; 2) framing joint management and climate scenarios; and 3) parameterizing and evaluating model performance. We do this by presenting a conceptual joint agent-based/state-and-transition simulation modeling framework. Simulation models can represent multiple interacting variables and can identify surprising, emergent outcomes that might not be evident from qualitative analysis alone, and we argue that qualitative case studies can ground simulation models in local contexts and help make them more structurally realistic and useful. Together, these can provide a step toward developing actionable climate change adaptation strategies.

Climate Risk Management↗
USGS2003

Understanding climatic impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation in the United States: Building a capacity for assessment

Based on the experience of the U.S. National Assessment, we propose a program of research and analysis to advance capability for assessment of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation options. We identify specific priorities for scientific research on the responses of ecological and socioeconomic systems to climate and other stresses; for improvement in the climatic inputs to impact assessments; and for further development of assessment methods to improve their practical utility to decision-makers. Finally, we propose a new institutional model for assessment, based principally on regional efforts that integrate observations, research, data, applications, and assessment on climate and linked environmental-change issues. The proposed program will require effective collaboration between scientists, resource managers, and other stakeholders, all of whose expertise is needed to define and prioritize key regional issues, characterize relevant uncertainties, and assess potential responses. While both scientifically and organizationally challenging, such an integrated program holds the best promise of advancing our capacity to manage resources and the economy adaptively under a changing climate.

Climatic Change↗
USGS2003

Climate variability and change in high elevation regions: Past, present & future

This special issue of Climatic Change contains a series of research and review articles, arising from papers that were presented and discussed at a workshop held in Davos, Switzerland on 25–28 June 2001. The workshop was titled ‘Climate Change at High Elevation Sites: Emerging Impacts’, and was convened to reprise an earlier conference on the same subject that was held in Wengen, Switzerland in 1995 (Diaz et al., 1997). The Davos meeting had as its main goals, a discussion of the following key issues: (1) reviewing recent climatic trends in high elevation regions of the world, (2) assessing the reliability of various biological indicators as indicators of climatic change, and (3) assessing whether physical impacts of climatic change in high elevation areas are becoming evident, and to discuss a range of monitoring strategies needed to observe and to understand the nature of any changes.

Climatic Change↗
USGS2011

Optimal timing for managed relocation of species faced with climate change

Managed relocation is a controversial climate-adaptation strategy to combat negative climate change impacts on biodiversity. While the scientific community debates the merits of managed relocation 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 , species are already being moved to new areas predicted to be more suitable under climate change 13,14 . To inform these moves, we construct a quantitative decision framework to evaluate the timing of relocation in the face of climate change. We find that the optimal timing depends on many factors, including the size of the population, the demographic costs of translocation and the expected carrying capacities over time in the source and destination habitats. In some settings, such as when a small population would benefit from time to grow before risking translocation losses, haste is ill advised. We also find that active adaptive management 15,16 is valuable when the effect of climate change on source habitat is uncertain, and leads to delayed movement.

Nature Climate Change↗
USGS2023

Climate change as a global amplifier of human–wildlife conflict

Climate change and human–wildlife conflict are both pressing challenges for biodiversity conservation and human well-being in the Anthropocene. Climate change is a critical yet underappreciated amplifier of human–wildlife conflict, as it exacerbates resource scarcity, alters human and animal behaviours and distributions, and increases human–wildlife encounters. We synthesize evidence of climate-driven conflicts occurring among ten taxonomic orders, on six continents and in all five oceans. Such conflicts disrupt both subsistence livelihoods and industrial economies and may accelerate the rate at which human–wildlife conflict drives wildlife declines. We introduce a framework describing distinct environmental, ecological and sociopolitical pathways through which climate variability and change percolate via complex social–ecological systems to influence patterns and outcomes of human–wildlife interactions. Identifying these pathways allows for developing mitigation strategies and proactive policies to limit the impacts of human–wildlife conflict on biodiversity conservation and human well-being in a changing climate.

Nature Climate Change↗
USGS2023

Historical DNA reveals climate adaptation in an endangered songbird

To cope with climate change, species may shift their distributions or adapt in situ to changing environmental conditions. However, clear examples of genetic changes via adaptation are limited. We explore evolutionary responses to climate change in the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher ( Empidonax traillii extimus ) through whole-genome comparisons between historical specimens, collected from 1888 to 1909 near San Diego, California, United States, and contemporary individuals from across the breeding range. Genomic analyses revealed that introgression into San Diego increased adaptive potential over time and shifted genome-wide population structure towards that of neighbouring populations. In contrast, loci linked to climate (dew point temperature and precipitation) shifted away from neighbouring populations and in a direction consistent with adaptation to climate change in southern California. This research highlights the role of admixture in facilitating adaptive shifts through its impact on genome-wide genetic variation and represents one of the few studies to document climate adaptation in a wild population.

Nature Climate Change↗
USGS2017

Emulation of long-term changes in global climate: application to the late Pliocene and future

Multi-millennial transient simulations of climate changes have a range of important applications, such as for investigating key geologic events and transitions for which high-resolution palaeoenvironmental proxy data are available, or for projecting the long-term impacts of future climate evolution on the performance of geological repositories for the disposal of radioactive wastes. However, due to the high computational requirements of current fully coupled general circulation models (GCMs), long-term simulations can generally only be performed with less complex models and/or at lower spatial resolution. In this study, we present novel longterm “continuous” projections of climate evolution based on the output from GCMs, via the use of a statistical emulator. The emulator is calibrated using ensembles of GCM simulations, which have varying orbital configurations and atmospheric CO2 concentrations and enables a variety of investigations of long-term climate change to be conducted, which would not be possible with other modelling techniques on the same temporal and spatial scales. To illustrate the potential applications, we apply the emulator to the late Pliocene (by modelling surface air temperature – SAT), comparing its results with palaeo-proxy data for a number of global sites, and to the next 200 kyr (thousand years) (by modelling SAT and precipitation). A range of CO2 scenarios are prescribed for each period. During the late Pliocene, we find that emulated SAT varies on an approximately precessional timescale, with evidence of increased obliquity response at times. A comparison of atmospheric CO2 concentration for this period, estimated using the proxy sea surface temperature (SST) data from different sites and emulator results, finds that relatively similar CO2 concentrations are estimated based on sites at lower latitudes, whereas higher-latitude sites show larger discrepancies. In our second illustrative application, spanning the next 200 kyr into the future, we find that SAT oscillations appear to be primarily influenced by obliquity for the first ∼ 120 kyr, whilst eccentricity is relatively low, after which precession plays a more dominant role. Conversely, variations in precipitation over the entire period demonstrate a strong precessional signal. Overall, we find that the emulator provides a useful and powerful tool for rapidly simulating the long-term evolution of climate, both past and future, due to its relatively high spatial resolution and relatively low computational cost. However, there are uncertainties associated with the approach used, including the inability of the emulator to capture deviations from a quasi-stationary response to the forcing, such as transient adjustments of the deep-ocean temperature and circulation, in addition to its limited range of fixed ice sheet configurations and its requirement for prescribed atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Climate of the Past↗
USGS2016

Interactions among vegetation, climate, and herbivory control greenhouse gas fluxes in a subarctic coastal wetland

High-latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid climate changes globally, and in many areas these changes are concurrent with shifts in patterns of herbivory. Individually, climate and herbivory are known to influence biosphere-atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange; however, the interactive effects of climate and herbivory in driving GHG fluxes have been poorly quantified, especially in coastal systems that support large populations of migratory waterfowl. We investigated the magnitude and the climatic and physical controls of GHG exchange within the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in western Alaska across four distinct vegetation communities formed by herbivory and local microtopography. Net CO 2 flux was greatest in the ungrazed Carex meadow community (3.97 ± 0.58 [SE] µmol CO 2 m −2 s −1 ), but CH 4 flux was greatest in the grazed community (14.00 ± 6.56 nmol CH 4 m −2 s −1 ). The grazed community is also the only vegetation type where CH 4 was a larger contributor than CO 2 to overall GHG forcing. We found that vegetation community was an important predictor of CO 2 and CH 4 exchange, demonstrating that variation in regional gas exchange is best explained when the effect of grazing, determined by the difference between grazed and ungrazed communities, is included. Further, we identified an interaction between temperature and vegetation community, indicating that grazed regions could experience the greatest increases in CH 4 emissions with warming. These results suggest that future GHG fluxes could be influenced by both climate and by changes in herbivore population dynamics that expand or contract the vegetation community most responsive to future temperature change.

Alaska↗
USGS2021

Effects of postfire climate and seed availability on postfire conifer regeneration

Large, severe fires are becoming more frequent in many forest types across the western United States and have resulted in tree mortality across tens of thousands of hectares. Conifer regeneration in these areas is limited because seeds must travel long distances to reach the interior of large burned patches and establishment is jeopardized by increasingly hot and dry conditions. To better inform postfire management in low elevation forests of California, USA, we collected 5‐year postfire recovery data from 1,234 study plots in 19 wildfires that burned from 2004–2012 and 18 years of seed production data from 216 seed fall traps (1999–2017). We used this data in conjunction with spatially extensive estimates of climate, topography, forest composition, and burn severity to construct taxon‐specific, spatially explicit models of conifer regeneration that incorporate estimated climate conditions and seed availability during postfire recovery windows. We found that after accounting for other predictors both postfire and historical precipitation were strong predictors of regeneration, suggesting that both direct effects of postfire moisture conditions and biological inertia from historical climate may play a role in regeneration. Alternatively, postfire regeneration may simply be driven by postfire climate and apparent relationships with historical climate could be spurious. The estimated sensitivity of regeneration to postfire seed availability was strongest in firs and all conifers combined and weaker in pines. Seed production exhibited high temporal variability with seed production varying by over two orders of magnitude among years. Our models indicate that during droughts postfire conifer regeneration declines most substantially in low‐to‐moderate elevation forests. These findings enhance our mechanistic understanding of forecasted and historically documented shifts in the distribution of trees.

California↗
USGS2022

Crowding, climate, and the case for social distancing among trees

In an emerging era of megadisturbance, bolstering forest resilience to wildfire, insects, and drought has become a central objective in many western forests. Climate has received considerable attention as a driver of these disturbances, but few studies have examined the complexities of climate–vegetation–disturbance interactions. Current strategies for creating resilient forests often rely on retrospective approaches, seeking to impart resilience by restoring historical conditions to contemporary landscapes, but historical conditions are becoming increasingly unattainable amidst modern bioclimatic conditions. What becomes an appropriate benchmark for resilience when we have novel forests, rapidly changing climate, and unprecedented disturbance regimes? We combined two longitudinal datasets—each representing some of the most comprehensive spatially explicit, annual tree mortality data in existence—in a post-hoc factorial design to examine the nonlinear relationships between fire, climate, forest spatial structure, and bark beetles. We found that while prefire drought elevated mortality risk, advantageous local neighborhoods could offset these effects. Surprisingly, mortality risk ( P m ) was higher in crowded local neighborhoods that burned in wet years ( P m = 42%) compared with sparse neighborhoods that burned during drought ( P m = 30%). Risk of beetle attack was also increased by drought, but lower conspecific crowding impeded the otherwise positive interaction between fire and beetle attack. Antecedent fire increased drought-related mortality over short timespans (<7 years) but reduced mortality over longer intervals. These results clarify interacting disturbance dynamics and provide a mechanistic underpinning for forest restoration strategies. Importantly, they demonstrate the potential for managed fire and silvicultural strategies to offset climate effects and bolster resilience to fire, beetles, and drought.

California↗
USGS2024

Restoration treatments enhance tree growth and alter climatic constraints during extreme drought

The frequency and severity of drought events are predicted to increase due to anthropogenic climate change, with cascading effects across forested ecosystems. Management activities such as forest thinning and prescribed burning, which are often intended to mitigate fire hazard and restore ecosystem processes, may also help promote tree resistance to drought. However, it is unclear whether these treatments remain effective during the most severe drought conditions or whether their impacts differ across environmental gradients. We used tree-ring data from a system of replicated, long-term (>20 years) experiments in the southwestern United States to evaluate the effects of forest restoration treatments (i.e., evidence-based thinning and burning) on annual growth rates (i.e., basal area increment; BAI) of ponderosa pine ( Pinus ponderosa ), a broadly distributed and heavily managed species in western North America. The study sites were established at the onset of the most extreme drought event in at least 1200 years and span much of the climatic niche of Rocky Mountain ponderosa pine. Across sites, tree-level BAI increased due to treatment, where trees in treated units grew 133.1% faster than trees in paired, untreated units. Likewise, trees in treated units grew an average of 85.6% faster than their pre-treatment baseline levels (1985 to ca. 2000), despite warm, dry conditions in the post-treatment period (ca. 2000–2018). Variation in the local competitive environment promoted variation in BAI, and larger trees were the fastest-growing individuals, irrespective of treatment. Tree thinning and prescribed fire altered the climatic constraints on growth, decreasing the effects of belowground moisture availability and increasing the effects of atmospheric evaporative demand over multi-year timescales. Our results illustrate that restoration treatments can enhance tree-level growth across sites spanning ponderosa pine's climatic niche, even during recent, extreme drought events. However, shifting climatic constraints, combined with predicted increases in evaporative demand in the southwestern United States, suggest that the beneficial effects of such treatments on tree growth may wane over the upcoming decades.

Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas↗
USGS2017

Modeling nonbreeding distributions of shorebirds and waterfowl in response to climate change

To identify areas on the landscape that may contribute to a robust network of conservation areas, we modeled the probabilities of occurrence of several en route migratory shorebirds and wintering waterfowl in the southern Great Plains of North America, including responses to changing climate. We predominantly used data from the eBird citizen-science project to model probabilities of occurrence relative to land-use patterns, spatial distribution of wetlands, and climate. We projected models to potential future climate conditions using five representative general circulation models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5). We used Random Forests to model probabilities of occurrence and compared the time periods 1981–2010 (hindcast) and 2041–2070 (forecast) in “model space.” Projected changes in shorebird probabilities of occurrence varied with species-specific general distribution pattern, migration distance, and spatial extent. Species using the western and northern portion of the study area exhibited the greatest likelihoods of decline, whereas species with more easterly occurrences, mostly long-distance migrants, had the greatest projected increases in probability of occurrence. At an ecoregional extent, differences in probabilities of shorebird occurrence ranged from −0.015 to 0.045 when averaged across climate models, with the largest increases occurring early in migration. Spatial shifts are predicted for several shorebird species. Probabilities of occurrence of wintering Mallards and Northern Pintail are predicted to increase by 0.046 and 0.061, respectively, with northward shifts projected for both species. When incorporated into partner land management decision tools, results at ecoregional extents can be used to identify wetland complexes with the greatest potential to support birds in the nonbreeding season under a wide range of future climate scenarios.

Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative↗
USGS2025

Long‐term regime shifts in xeric ecoregion freshwater fish assemblages due to Anthropogenic and climate stressors

Shifting climate regimes are projected to increase the area of xeric regions and result in more pronounced intermittency across river networks. Given these projected changes, we aim to understand the factors contributing to species persistence under increasing aridity. To investigate how changing flow regimes are related to changes in fish richness and assemblage composition, we compiled data from 1473 xeric stream sites in the United States and Australia. The temporal coverage of this dataset is more than 40 years, from 1980 to 2021. Our focus was on fishes occurring in xeric streams and included 191 species. We compiled climate, hydrologic, and fish species trait data to identify relationships between environmental drivers of species persistence and corresponding characteristics common to species in these systems and traits eliciting the strongest responses to environmental change. Our data show declines in overall precipitation in concert with increasing temperatures over the last several decades. Climatic shifts were accompanied by declines in discharge, increased zero-flow days, and longer durations of no-flow periods. In these same systems, an overall linear decline in fish species richness was observed, but it was not directly correlated with any hydrologic predictors. However, xeric species of conservation concern were small-bodied and occupied lower trophic levels than those not of concern. Listed species were primarily affected by multiple stressors, including habitat degradation and invasive species, compounded by a small geographic range. We thus propose a multiple stressors argument for the declines in xeric fish assemblages, something that may be exacerbated by climate alterations in the future. This work highlights a critical conservation need for xeric fishes and identifies taxa that are especially vulnerable to a combination of anthropogenic stressors and changing climates.

Ecology and Evolution↗
USGS2018

Springs as hydrologic refugia in a changing climate? A remote sensing approach

Spring‐fed wetlands are ecologically important habitats in arid and semi‐arid regions. Springs have been suggested as possible hydrologic refugia from droughts and climate change; however, springs that depend on recent precipitation or snowmelt for recharge may be vulnerable to warming and drought intensification. Springs that are expected to maintain their ecohydrologic function in a warmer, drier climate may be priorities for conservation and restoration. Identifying such springs is difficult because many springs lack hydrologic records of adequate temporal extent and resolution to assess their resilience to water cycle changes. This study demonstrates proof‐of‐concept for the assessment of certain spring types (i.e., helocrene, hypocrene, and hillslope springs) in terms of hydrologic and ecological resilience to climatic water stress using freely available remote‐sensing and climate data. We used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from 1985 through 2011 to delineate surface‐moisture zones (SMZs) associated with 39 clusters of 172 springs in a montane sage‐steppe landscape in southeastern Oregon, USA. We developed and synthesized seven NDVI‐based indicators of SMZ resilience to interannual changes in water availability: (1) mean and (2) standard deviation of July NDVI; (3) mean difference in July NDVI and (4) difference in coefficient of variation for July NDVI between each SMZ and its surrounding watershed; (5) response of SMZ July NDVI to 90‐day antecedent precipitation; (6) response of SMZ July NDVI to the previous winter's snowpack; and (7) range of NDVI values from an exceptionally wet year followed by three dry years. Because all resilience indicators were highly inter‐correlated, we derived an overall metric of SMZ resilience using principal components analysis that accounted for 66% of total variance. This overall resilience score was positively correlated with SMZ elevation, slope, mean annual precipitation, and with the number of associated springs. Resilience was greater for SMZs on topographically shaded, north‐facing slopes. Several high‐resilience SMZs were located immediately below persistent snowbanks, suggesting a possible source of steady recharge throughout the growing season. The approach presented here—if combined with field assessments of spring hydrogeology, discharge, and groundwater age—could help identify spring‐fed wetlands that are most likely to serve as hydrologic refugia from climate change.

Oregon↗
USGS2021

A greener future for the Galapagos: Forecasting ecosystem productivity by finding climate analogs in time

Forecasting ecosystem response to climate change is critical for guiding policymaking but challenging due to: complicated relationships between microclimates and regional climates; species’ responses that are driven by extremes rather than averages; the multifaceted nature of species’ interactions; and the lack of historical analogs to future climates. Given these challenges, even model systems such as the Galapagos Islands, a world-famous biodiversity hotspot and World Heritage Site, lack clear forecasts for future environmental change. Here, we developed a novel nonparametric method for simulating the ecosystem futures based on observed vegetation productivity (NDVI) during analogous weather observed historically. Using satellite images taken from the past to piece together a simulated future, we projected that productivity of terrestrial vegetation of the Galapagos will increase over the next century by approximately one standard deviation archipelago-wide, with largest increases during the wet season (January to June) and in the arid zones. Such greening would impact a variety of ecological and evolutionary processes, species of conservation concern, and agricultural practices. Our straightforward approach can be applied to many other regions, particularly those with rapid ecosystem responses to stochastic inter-annual climatic fluctuations that provide appropriate climate analogs for forecasting.

Galápagos Islands↗
USGS2022

Models combining multiple scales of inference capture hydrologic and climatic drivers of riparian tree distributions

Predicting species geographic distributions is key to managing invasive species, conserving biodiversity, and understanding species' environmental requirements. Species distribution models (SDMs) commonly focus on climatic predictors, but other environmental factors can also be essential, particularly for species with specialized habitats defined by hydrologic, topographic, or edaphic conditions (e.g., riparian, wetland, alpine, coastal, serpentine). Here, we demonstrate a novel approach for capturing strong effects of both hydrologic and climatic predictors in SDMs for riparian plants, by merging analyses targeted at environmental drivers within riparian ecosystems and across the western USA (3.8 × 10 6 km 2 ). We developed presence-background SDMs from five algorithms for three invasive riparian trees ( Tamarix ramossisima / chinensis [saltcedar], Elaeagnus angustifolia [Russian olive], and Ulmus pumila [Siberian elm]) and three native Populus spp. (cottonwoods). We used separate background datasets to develop models with different spatial scales of inference: (1) spatially filtered random points to represent available habitat across the study area and (2) target-group points from Salix (willow) occurrences to represent available riparian habitat. Random-background models captured hydrologic drivers of riparian tree distributions relative to the largely upland western USA, whereas Salix -background models captured climatic drivers within the context of riparian ecosystems. Combining predictions from the two backgrounds identified hydrologically suitable habitats within climatically suitable regions, resulting in fewer false “absences” than either background alone, improving predictions over previous SDMs, and providing more complete information to guide management decisions. Surprisingly, the predicted habitat for U. pumila , a newly recognized riparian invader, was as or more extensive than Populus deltoides / fremontii , T. ramossisima / chinensis , and E. angustifolia , the most common riparian tree complexes in the western USA. Watersheds constituting 20% of U. pumila predicted habitat contained no occurrence records, indicating high risk of future and unrecognized invasions. Combining models from random and ecosystem-specific target-group backgrounds may improve SDMs for species from many specialized habitats, providing a method to link predicted distributions to localized geographic features while capturing broad-scale climatic requirements.

western United States↗