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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...
We aimed to gain a better understanding of the management decision context, planning practice and the role and quality of management plans, and decision making processes across the Southeast. To do so, we conducted interviews with decision makers, and developed a questionnaire on the decision making process and climate change perceptions that may be deployed in the future. The results of this project will provide insights for the conservation of open pine systems and other related high priority conservation contexts that the Southeast Climate Science Center and Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy team hope to explore in future efforts.
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This dataset represents the extent of urbanization (for the year indicated) predicted by the model SLEUTH, developed by Dr. Keith C. Clarke, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Geography and modified by David I. Donato of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Eastern Geographic Science Center (EGSC). Further model modification and implementation was performed at the Biodiversity and Spatial Information Center at North Carolina State University.
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAMC-D-15-0182.1): The potential ecological and economic effects of climate change for tropical islands were studied using output from 12 statistically downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) taking Puerto Rico as a test case. Two model selection/model averaging strategies were used: the average of all available GCMs and the average of the models that are able to reproduce the observed large-scale dynamics that control precipitation over the Caribbean. Five island-wide and multidecadal averages of daily precipitation and temperature were estimated by way of a climatology-informed interpolation of the site-specific downscaled climate model output. Annual...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Southeast CASC
Abstract (from PLOS One): Conversion of wild habitats to human dominated landscape is a major cause of biodiversity loss. An approach to mitigate the impact of habitat loss consists of designating reserves where habitat is preserved and managed. Determining the most valuable areas to preserve in a landscape is called the reserve design problem. There exists several possible formulations of the reserve design problem, depending on the objectives and the constraints. In this article, we considered the dynamic problem of designing a reserve that contains a desired area of several key habitats. The dynamic case implies that the reserve cannot be designed in one time step, due to budget constraints, and that habitats...
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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...
Abstract (from Journal of Economic Entomology): Emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), is one of the most serious forest pests in the United States. Ongoing research indicates that establishment of larval parasitoids depends upon the season-long availability of host stages susceptible to parasitism. We monitored emerald ash borer overwintering stages at 90 sites across 22 states to: 1) produce a model of the percentage of emerald ash borer overwintering as non-J larvae; 2) link that model to establishment of Tetrastichus planipennisi; and 3) explore changes to our model under climate change scenarios. Accumulated growing degree days (GDD) is an important predictor of the proportion...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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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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The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used to downscale select general circulation models (GCMs) that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). WRF was used to produce output at a 2-km horizontal resolution for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands by applying a 30-km/10- km/2-km one-way nest. Data from each nest was archived. Two twenty-year time slices from two CMIP5 GCMs were dynamically downscaled using WRF, a historical time slice (1985-2005) and a future time slice (2040-2060). The CMIP5 GCMs downscaled included the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) and the Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques-CERFACS (CNRM). The high Greenhouse Gas Emission Scenario, RCP8.5,...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13550/abstract): Biological effects of climate change are expected to vary geographically, with a strong signature of latitude. For ectothermic animals, there is systematic latitudinal variation in the relationship between climate and thermal performance curves, which describe the relationship between temperature and an organism's fitness. Here, we ask whether these documented latitudinal patterns can be generalized to predict arthropod responses to warming across mid- and high temperate latitudes, for taxa whose thermal physiology has not been measured. To address this question, we used a novel natural experiment consisting of a series of urban warming...
Abstract (From http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol20/iss4/art14/): National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the United States play an important role in the adaptation of social-ecological systems to climate change, land-use change, and other global-change processes. Coastal refuges are already experiencing threats from sea-level rise and other change processes that are largely beyond their ability to influence, while at the same time facing tighter budgets and reduced staff. We engaged in workshops with NWR managers along the U.S. Atlantic coast to understand the problems they face from global-change processes and began a multidisciplinary collaboration to use decision science to help address them. We are applying a...
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The goal of barrier island restoration in the northern Gulf of Mexico is to restore barrier island morphology using sediment to support the functions and habitats the islands provide. Barrier island restoration typically involves placement of sediment either directly on the island footprint or within the littoral zone for system transport and distribution. The re-engineering of barrier islands presents numerous challenges and uncertainties associated with climate change induced hurricanes/storms and other dynamic components of the system such as sediment availability and erosional trends. The goal of this study was to use a collaborative SDM approach to develop two Bayesian decision network models (DMs) for restoration...
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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...
The study area shows the boundary (black line) of Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge acquisition area. Existing protected areas are shown in green. The areas considered in refuge design is a more detailed map of study area showing boundary (black line) of Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge acquisition area, Conservation Focal Area or fee zone (blue), protected areas (green), and areas excluded from consideration for the reserve design (brown). Map reproduced from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2012).


map background search result map search result map 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 Assessing Science Needs and Conservation Decisions to Inform the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Approved Products Informing Conservation Management Decision-Making at Coastal National Wildlife Refuges Urban Growth Projection for DSL-SAMBI Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF): Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands Dynamical Downscaled Climate Change Projections 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 Urban Growth Projection for DSL-SAMBI Assessing Science Needs and Conservation Decisions to Inform the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF): Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands Dynamical Downscaled Climate Change Projections Approved Products