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Rick Nelson

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Understanding How Climate and Land Use Change Will Impact Wetland-Dependent Birds: Are Waterfowl Effective Surrogates for Other Species?
The Prairie Pothole Region spans parts of North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Iowa and south-central Canada and contains millions of wetlands that provide habitat for breeding and migrating birds. Because it is the continent’s most important breeding area for waterfowl, conservation and management largely focuses on protecting habitat for nesting ducks. However, other wetland-dependent birds also rely on this region, and it is important to understand the degree to which habitat conserved for ducks provides habitat for other species, and how the quality of this habitat will be affected by climate change. Project researchers tested whether waterfowl are effective representatives, or surrogates, for other wetland-dependent...
The Sage Steppe Partner Forum (SSPF) is requesting funding for technical support services to upgrade and enhance the Sage Steppe Partner Forum wiki and engage partners in coordinated sage-steppe conservation planning and implementation. SSPF will enhance communication resources to better serve biome-wide coordinated conservation implementation as four LCCs and partners initiate the Sagebrush Conservation Science Network.
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Positioning the Sage Steppe Partner Forum as a pivotal communication tool for Sagebrush Biome conservation implementation (project not executed, funding reprioritized)
The Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC) is sponsoring the Sage Steppe Partner Forum to help facilitate collaboration among conservation practitioners and partnerships that share landscape conservation challenges in an eco-geographic context. Draft Partner Forum guidance suggests that field-level managers, scientists, and conservation constituents will, through a loosely structured process, identify priority conservation information and scientific needs that fall within the scope of the Great Northern LCC Strategic Conservation Framework.The sagebrush-steppe biome covers some 480,000 square miles in 14 western states and provinces expanding the SSPF challenge to areas outside the GNLCC geography....
Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: British Columbia, Burrowing Owl, California, Climate Change, Colorado, All tags...
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Integrating Climate and Biological Data into Management Decisions for the Greater Sage-­Grouse and their Habitats
Climate affects both the demographics of the Greater sage-grouse bird and the condition and long-term viability of their habitats, including sage-steppe communities. This project builds on collaboration among federal land managers, state wildlife biologists, scientists, and other organizations to create a long-term framework for implementing adaptive management for the sage-grouse. The study examined factors that might be limiting grouse numbers and will investigate components of weather patterns in relation to projected climate change models. Precipitation and temperature, as well as variables such as evaporation and soil moisture, will be considered. Overall, the project focused on (1) providing workshops to foster...
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Informing the Identification of Economically Effective Targets for Grassland Conservation in the Dakotas
The conversion of grassland to cropland in the Dakotas could imperil wildlife such as nesting waterfowl and contribute to the degradation of water quality in the Mississippi River watershed. However, high crop prices in recent years have contributed to a high rate of grassland to cropland conversion on private lands. In addition to these economic factors, changes in climate could exacerbate the challenge of protecting grasslands, as conditions may become more amenable to row crop production. The goal of this project was to work with grassland conservation managers to better target the use of funds allocated toward incentivizing grassland preservation in the Dakotas. Researchers identified the vulnerability of...
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