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While 21st century temperatures are projected to increase in Puerto Rico and the broader U.S. Caribbean (whose geography is contained within the Caribbean Landscape Conservation Cooperative, or CLCC), the low variability and already high annual average temperatures suggest that the largest climate-related impact on ecosystems and water resources is more likely to be through changes in the timing, pattern, and availability of moisture. The development of adaptation strategies that respond to anthropogenic climate change for the CLCC, and particularly for Puerto Rico, is currently hindered by the lack of local-scale climate scenarios that resolve the complex topographical and meso-scale climate features that will...
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This project generated a series of freely available datasets that provide projections of climate change at appropriate spatial scales that can directly address specific management questions. These climate change projections are the result of “downscaling” output from global climate models (GCMs) that formed the basis of many conclusions in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 5 (AR5). The datasets include projections of climate variables in addition to daily temperature and precipitation such as surface winds, humidity, and solar radiation that are needed in hydrologic and ecological modeling. Two products, one at a 4-km resolution and the other at a 6-km resolution, covering the...
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Reserve design is a process that must address many ecological, social, and political factors to successfully identify parcels of land in need of protection to sustain wildlife populations and other natural resources. Making land acquisition choices for a large, terrestrial protected area is difficult because it occurs over a long timeframe and may involve consideration of future conditions such as climate and urbanization changes. Decision makers need to consider factors including: order of parcel purchasing given budget constraints, future uncertainty, potential future landscape-scale changes from urbanization, and climate. In central Florida, two new refuges and the expansion of a third refuge are in various stages...
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A priority of the Southeast Climate Science Center (SECSC) is to support the planning and implementation of a Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS). This project examined the decision making context, decision making process, and management planning associated with the restoration of open pine ecosystems in the Southeast. To better understand the planning practice associated with this system, we assessed the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and non-governmental agencies. We found that newer plans scored higher than older plans, suggesting agencies may be learning to develop better plans over time and indicating older plans should be prioritized for revision. Plans from federal and...
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Barrier islands protect mainland areas from storm surge, but can erode over time and require restoration. Ship Island, a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi, provides an example of this: the island was battered by Hurricane Camille in 1969 and split into two separate islands. As part of the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to use approximately 22 million cubic yards of sand to close the gap between East and West Ship Islands. This will restore both the island’s physical integrity and habitat for important species such as sea turtles, shorebirds, and Gulf sturgeon. This project served as a case study to test the usefulness of structured decision-making – a...
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Coastal National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) provide a myriad of beneficial services, including buffering storm surge, improving water quality, supporting commercial fisheries, and providing habitat for imperiled wildlife and plants. Yet in the last century, coastal ecosystems in the eastern U.S. have been severely altered by human development activities as well as sea-level rise and more frequent extreme events related to climate change. These influences threaten the goods and services provided by NWRs and pose decision-making challenges for refuge managers. The purpose of this project was to explore how structured decision-making – a formal, systematic method for analyzing decisions – could help NWR staff make informed...
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Climate in the southeastern U.S. is predicted to be changing at a slower rate than other parts of North America. However, land use change associated with urbanization is having a significant effect on wildlife populations and habitat availability. We sought to understand the effect of global warming on both beneficial and pest insects of trees. We used urban warming as a proxy for global warming as many cities have already warmed as much, due to heat island effects, as they are expected to warm due to climate change by 2050 or even 2100. We were able to develop good predictive models of how warming influences beneficial and pest insects for cities in the Southeast and across the east coast more generally. We were...
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The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is a familiar species across the southeastern Coastal Plain, but its population has declined significantly over the decades. One reason is that much of its primary habitat, sparse stands of mature pine, has been replaced by development or agriculture. Another is that periodic ground fires, which are important for providing needed forage for the tortoise, have been largely suppressed on the landscape. The gopher tortoise is a “keystone” species, meaning that its disappearance from the landscape would jeopardize the existence of many other species that make use of its underground burrows. Besides tortoise habitat, the uplands of the Coastal Plain contain isolated seasonal...
    map background search result map search result map Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation Structured Decision-Making as a Tool for Coastal Restoration: A Case Study on Ship Island, Mississippi Informing the Identification of High-Priority Lands for the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge Considering Future Climate and Urbanization Modeling Future Temperature and Precipitation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean Assessing Science Needs and Conservation Decisions to Inform the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Downscaling Climate Projections to Understand Future Temperature and Precipitation Patterns in the Southeast Tree Eaters: Predicting the Response of Herbivores to the Integrated Effects of Urban and Global Change Informing Conservation Management Decision-Making at Coastal National Wildlife Refuges Informing Conservation Management Decision-Making at Coastal National Wildlife Refuges Informing the Identification of High-Priority Lands for the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge Considering Future Climate and Urbanization Modeling Future Temperature and Precipitation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation Assessing Science Needs and Conservation Decisions to Inform the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Downscaling Climate Projections to Understand Future Temperature and Precipitation Patterns in the Southeast Tree Eaters: Predicting the Response of Herbivores to the Integrated Effects of Urban and Global Change