Understanding western monarch overwintering micro-habitat selection to inform habitat restoration

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) populations across the continent have dropped precipitously over the last 30 years, especially those found west of the Rocky Mountains. In 2018 and 2019, it was estimated that less than 30,000 individuals make up the western population of monarchs, representing the lowest estimates on record and less than one percent of 1980s-1990s population levels. An analysis of annual and seasonal data from 1980-2017 showed monarch butterflies overwintering in coastal California have declined more quickly than monarch overwintering in Mexico, and declines were most strongly associated with losses and degradation of overwintering habitat. To inform restoration of the overwintering...

Characterization of Montane Ecosystems, Their Microclimates, and Wildlife Distribution and Abundance Across the Hydrographic Great Basin

FY2013This project retrieves four years of data from over 200 temperature sensors nested within 28 sites across ~40 million hectares of the hydrographic Great Basin. The sensors span all major aspects and up to 700 m of elevation within sites, and occur in numerous management jurisdictions in 18 mountain ranges plus other areas not in ranges. This project: Quantifies the variability of climate at micro-, meso-, and macroscales across the Basin, and across diel, seasonal, and interannual periods. Informs management and conservation efforts, in terms of helping calibrate and refine the climatic stage upon which all biological actors and efforts hinge (Beier and Brost 2010). Feeds into other bioclimatic and wildlife...

Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2013, 2014, Academics & scientific researchers, California, California, All tags... California, California, California, Conservation NGOs, Conservation Plan/Design/Framework, Conservation Planning, Conservation Planning, Datasets/Database, Federal resource managers, Federal resource managers, Great Basin, Great Basin, Great Basin, Great Basin, Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative, LCC, LCC Network Science Catalog, Montane, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada, Pika, Pika, Pika, Pika, Pika, Population & Habitat Evaluation/Projection, Population & Habitat Evaluation/Projection, Project, Publication, Report, State agencies, State agencies, Vulnerability Assessment, Vulnerability Assessment, alpine, alpine, alpine, alpine, completed, montane, montane, montane, montane, mountain, mountain, mountain, mountain, talus, talus, talus, talus, Fewer tags

Evaluating Species’ Adaptive Capacity in a Changing Climate: Applications to Natural-Resource Management in the Northwestern U.S.

Natural resource managers are confronted with the pressing challenge to develop conservation plans that address complex ecological and societal needs against the backdrop of a rapidly changing climate. Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) provide valuable information that helps guide management and conservation actions in this regard. An essential component to CCVAs is understanding adaptive capacity, or the ability of a species to cope with or adjust to climate change. However, adaptive capacity is the least understood and evaluated component of CCVAs. This is largely due to a fundamental need for guidance on how to assess adaptive capacity and incorporate this information into conservation planning...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2019, Birds, Birds, CASC, Data Visualization & Tools, All tags... Data Visualization & Tools, Fish, Fish, Forests, Mammals, Mammals, Northwest, Northwest CASC, Northwest Forest Plan, Other Wildlife, Other Wildlife, Plants, Plants, Projects by Region, Science Tools for Managers, Science Tools for Managers, Wildlife and Plants, Wildlife and Plants, adaptive capacity, at-risk species, fish, natural-resource management, vulnerability, wildlife, Fewer tags

Toward climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale

Abstract (from Conservation Science and Practice): Climate change uncertainty poses serious challenges to conservation efforts. One emerging conservation strategy is to identify and conserve climate change refugia: areas relatively buffered from contemporary climate change that enable persistence of valued resources. This management paradigm may be pursued at broad scales by leveraging existing resources and placing them into a tangible framework to stimulate further collaboration that fosters management decision-making. Here, we describe a framework for moving toward operationalizing climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale with an analysis for the Sierra Nevada ecoregion (CA, USA). Structured...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation

Designing Climate-Resilient Habitat for At-Risk Species in the Southern Sierra Nevada Forest

Climate change adaptation research has made major advances over the last decade. For example, much is known about the impacts of climate change, many novel adaptation planning approaches have been developed, decision tools have become ubiquitous, and many novel adaptation options have been proposed. However, additional research is needed to demonstrate how these adaptation planning schemes can translate to implementation on the ground. The area in and around the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in Southern Sierra Nevada serve as ideal natural laboratories to study the impacts of climate change and the effectiveness of various on-the-ground forest treatments and restoration designs. Southern Sierra Nevada faces...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2020, Birds, Birds, Birds, CASC, All tags... Drought, Drought, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Extreme Weather, Extreme Weather, Fire, Fire, Fire, Fish, Fish, Fish, Forests, Forests, Forests, Landscapes, Landscapes, Landscapes, Mammals, Mammals, Mammals, Other Landscapes, Other Landscapes, Other Wildlife, Other Wildlife, Other Wildlife, Plants, Plants, Projects by Region, Projects by Region, Southwest, Southwest, Southwest CASC, Wildlife and Plants, Wildlife and Plants, Wildlife and Plants, Fewer tags

Journal Article: Improving Conservation Outcomes with a New Paradigm for Understanding Species’ Fundamental and Realized Adaptive Capacity

Worldwide, many species are responding to ongoing climate change with shifts in distribution, abundance, phenology, or behavior. Consequently, natural-resource managers face increasingly urgent conservation questions related to biodiversity loss, expansion of invasive species, and deteriorating ecosystem services. We argue that our ability to address these questions is hampered by the lack of explicit consideration of species’ adaptive capacity (AC). AC is the ability of a species or population to cope with climatic changes and is characterized by three fundamental components: phenotypic plasticity, dispersal ability, and genetic diversity. However, few studies simultaneously address all elements; often, AC is confused...

Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Academics & scientific researchers, California, Climate adaptation, Completed, EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > LANDSCAPE, All tags... Federal resource managers, Great Basin, Great Basin, LCC Network Science Catalog, Montane, Nevada, Pika, Report, State agencies, biota, climate change, conservation management, environment, fundamental adaptive capacity, policy-relevant research questions, realized adaptive capacity, vulnerability assessment, Fewer tags

Foothill yellow-legged frog (Rana boylii) reintroduction feasibility study for the Southwestern California clade in the Central California coast

A primarily stream-dwelling and obligate stream-breeding species, the foothill yellow-legged frog (FYLF) has declined from over half of its historical range, and a listing decision under the U.S. Endangered Species Act will likely be made in December 2021. Recent analyses suggest that the Southwestern California (SWC) clade is the most genetically unique and at the highest risk due to stressors in its geography, revealing the urgency of addressing the conservation of this clade. The rapid extirpation of some FYLF populations from the Central California Coast may have resulted from chytrid fungus. Therefore, strategic translocations from the remaining populations along the Central California Coast now could help...

California Forest-Fuels Management Research Initiative

California has a broad diversity of forest ecosystems and associated wildlife, which are facing complex conservation challenges due to the increase in the frequency, severity, and size of fire outbreaks throughout the state. Although these ecosystems are fire adaptive, these catastrophic fires burn with such high severity that they destroy complete forest stands and kill off the seed bank needed for natural forest regeneration. One of the primary mechanisms for reducing the threat of high severity fires is fuel management treatments to reduce the understory and prevent damaging crown fires from occurring. Increasingly federal, state, and private entities are coordinating fuel management projects across the patchwork...

Assessment of wetland habitat suitability and persistence in California’s Central Valley to support the FWS Partners Program strategic planning efforts

California’s Central Valley habitats will continue to be influenced in the future by factors including changing land use, water availability, and population growth. Water scarcity and droughts will increasingly challenge wetland managers in the Central Valley. Thus, decisions on where to implement restoration and conservation projects today would benefit by considering plausible future landscape scenarios to ensure that restoration projects implemented now, continue to have value for decades to come. Recent work has developed spatially-explicit land use and climate change scenarios for Central Valley wetlands. Building on these existing efforts, this project will assess site-specific suitability of wetland habitat...