Migratory birds are responding to changes in climate in complex and sometimes unpredictable ways. The timing of breeding and migration typically coincide with the periods of peak food availability; however, these peaks are shifting as temperatures and precipitation patterns change, resulting in a mismatch in the timing of key events. The degree to which this mismatch is impacting migratory birds varies among species and regions, creating a major source of uncertainty for managers. The goal of this project is to develop tools to support migratory bird management decision-making in the face of uncertain future climate and land use conditions. In order to identify and implement the most effective management strategies, decision-makers [...]
Summary
Migratory birds are responding to changes in climate in complex and sometimes unpredictable ways. The timing of breeding and migration typically coincide with the periods of peak food availability; however, these peaks are shifting as temperatures and precipitation patterns change, resulting in a mismatch in the timing of key events. The degree to which this mismatch is impacting migratory birds varies among species and regions, creating a major source of uncertainty for managers.
The goal of this project is to develop tools to support migratory bird management decision-making in the face of uncertain future climate and land use conditions. In order to identify and implement the most effective management strategies, decision-makers need to have both an understanding of the potential outcomes of different management actions and of how environmental conditions might change over time.
To address this need, researchers will (1) evaluate predictions of how changing climate conditions are expected to affect migratory birds and how these impacts could affect management decisions, and (2) work closely with managers to determine which areas of uncertainty could have the biggest impact on the success of decision-making. Researchers will then develop a decision-support framework for identifying optimal strategies for migratory bird management in the face of uncertain future climate and land use conditions. This work will focus on supporting key management decisions related to acquiring public lands for habitat, setting harvest regulations for waterfowl, and assessing allowable take of migratory birds.
Decision making for management of public natural resources is a forward-looking enterprise: to identify and implement the most effective actions it is necessary to predict the outcomes of management strategies and future environmental conditions. The overall goal of this project is to develop tools to improve decision making under uncertainty about changes in climate, land use, and coupled human-natural systems. These analyses will inform decision making in three areas of migratory bird management: land acquisition, harvest management, and allowable take of migratory birds.
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Decision making for natural resource management often relies on the assumption of a relatively stable system in which the effects of both stressors and management strategies can be predicted, and are not changing over time. Human and natural systems are governed by dynamic processes and there is increasing evidence that these processes are no longer stationary. One implication of this realization is that the best available science and empirical observations of the past may represent conditions that no longer exist and have little relevance to future conditions. The overall goal of this project is to develop tools to improve decision making under uncertainty about climate and system change. These analyses will inform decision making in three areas of migratory bird management: land acquisition, harvest management, and allowable take of migratory birds. This project will identify key uncertainty affecting migratory bird management in these three decision making frameworks and provide a research prioritization that will identify the most productive areas of investigation for USGS and other research scientists. We will first articulate and evaluate a suite of hypotheses about how climate change is likely to affect migratory birds and how these impacts may affect specific management decisions to acquire public lands, set harvest regulations for waterfowl, and permit allowable take of migratory birds. Next we will conduct a qualitative value of information analysis that will identify which of the areas of uncertainty related to climate and other system change has greatest potential effects on management decision making and greatest potential for reduction. We will accomplish this in part using a workshop with migratory bird managers and scientists with expertise in migratory bird ecology. From these analyses, we will prioritize scientific investigations about climate change and migratory birds and set a research agenda for USGS and other research scientists to improve management decision making.