Treatment area summarized by Whitebark Pine Climate Suitability Zone
Dates
Publication Date
2017
Start Date
2069
End Date
2099
Citation
Kathryn Ireland, 2017, Treatment area summarized by Whitebark Pine Climate Suitability Zone.
Summary
This dataset represents the area in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem prioritized for different whitebark pine(Pinus albicaulis) management activities, summarized by climate suitability zones. This data was developed for use in a landscape simulation modeling study aimed at evaluating how well alternative management strategies maintain whitebark pine populations under historical climate and future climate conditions. For the study, we developed three spatial management alternatives for whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem representing no active management, current management, and climate-informed management. These management alternatives were implemented in the simulaton model FireBGCv2 under historical climate and three [...]
Summary
This dataset represents the area in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem prioritized for different whitebark pine(Pinus albicaulis) management activities, summarized by climate suitability zones. This data was developed for use in a landscape simulation modeling study aimed at evaluating how well alternative management strategies maintain whitebark pine populations under historical climate and future climate conditions. For the study, we developed three spatial management alternatives for whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem representing no active management, current management, and climate-informed management. These management alternatives were implemented in the simulaton model FireBGCv2 under historical climate and three future climate change scenarios - the HadGEM-ES, CESM1-CAM5, and CNRM-CM5 Global Circulation Models under the RCP 8.5 emissions scenario. We worked with the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee's (GYCC) Whitebark Pine Subcommittee to develop this spatial representation of their current management strategy. The treatments mapped represent a set of the treatments recommended in the GYCC Whitebark Pine 2011 Strategy document and include planting blister-rust resistant whitebark pine seedlings, competition removal thinning, wildland fire use and prescribed fire, and protection from mountain pine beetles using verbenone and carbaryl. We used historical and future projections of climate suitability based on species distribution models for whitebark pine (Chang et al. 2014) to map zones of core, deteriorating, and future whitebark pine habitat. Core zones were those areas that are currently suitable for whitebark and remain suitable in the future. Deteriorating zones were where the climatic conditions for whitebark pine are expected to decline. Future zones were areas that are projected to become newly suitable for whitebark pine. We then overlaid our climate zones for whitebark pine with similar projections of future climate suitability for all of whitebark pine’s competitors - Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, lodgepole pine, and Douglas-fir (Piekielek et al. 2015. We discussed the different combinations of climate suitability zones (core, deteriorating, future) and potential future level of competition (low or high) from other species with the GYCC Whitebark Pine Subcommittee to determine which management activities should be prioritized within each management zone. The result is a map of management zones where different activities are prioritized to meet the goal of maintaining whitebark pine populations. This was used to determine which treatments would be implemented spatially during the simulation modeling, dependent upon additional criteria related to simulated stand-level conditions. In this dataset, we used the resulting map of spatially prioritized management activities to summarize the area prioritized for each management activity that fell within Core, Deteriorating, and Future climate suitability zones
Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.
Treatment Area by Climzone.xml Original FGDC Metadata
View
18.15 KB
application/fgdc+xml
Treatment by Climzone.csv
2.71 KB
text/csv
Purpose
The purpose of this data is to provide a tabular summary of the area prioritized for treatment within each future climate suitability zone for whitebark pine and for each management scenario. These data were created to summarize treatment areas under current and climate-informed management strategies for a mid-range future climate scenario at the end of the century (CESM1-CAM5, RCP 8.5, 2069-2099).The data was used to produce figures in resulting manuscripts.