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Upper Midwest & Great Lakes LCC Data Manager

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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Aging infrastructure is creating a pressing national need to align priorities between civil engineering and other interests. Restoring ecological connectivity of river networks that are fragmented by dams and road crossings has become a prominent objective for environmental managers across the country. A mature decision-support framework and newly available data on the condition of dams throughout the Lake Michigan basin offer unique opportunities to test for potential cost-efficiency gains from sharing the costs of removing decrepit dams between environmental and engineering organizations. At sites where these interests align, genuine win-win scenarios could advance both ecological connectivity and infrastructure...
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Within the time frame of the longevity of tree species, climate change will change faster than the ability of natural tree migration. Migration lags may result in reduced productivity and reduced diversity in forests under current management and climate change. We evaluated the efficacy of planting climate-suitable tree species (CSP), those tree species with current or historic distributions immediately south of a focal landscape, to maintain or increase aboveground biomass, productivity, and species and functional diversity. We modeled forest change with the LANDIS-II forest simulation model for 100 years (2000–2100) at a 2-ha cell resolution and five-year time steps within two landscapes in the Great Lakes region...
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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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Full life-cycle vulnerability assessments are identifying the effects of climate change on nongame migratory birds that are of conservation concern and breed in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. Full life-cycle analyses are critical, as current efforts likely underestimate the vulnerability of migratory land birds due to a focus on assessing only one component of the annual cycle. The approach provides a framework for integrating exposure to climate changes, sensitivity to these changes, and the potential for adaptation in both winter and summer seasons, and accounts for carry-over effects from one season to another. The results of this work will inform regional management by highlighting both local and...
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