Projects By Category: Vulnerability Assessment

We assessed change in the seasonal timing of insect emergence from tundra ponds near Barrow, Alaska over a four-decade timespan, and explored factors that regulate this significant ecological phenomenon.

This project provides a better understanding how linkages among surface-water availability, connectivity, and temperature mediate habitat and trophic dynamics of the Fish Creek Watershed (FCW).

Contemporary observations suggest that water may disappear entirely from portions of some North Slope stream-beds during periods of drought or low flow. Climate models project even drier summers in the future.

If current trends continue, Brooks Range glaciers will disappear over the next century, affecting stream flow regimes, riparian areas, and deltas. In turn, changes in stream habitat will impact local fisheries and the subsistence users who depend on them.

The Integrated Ecosystem Model for Alaska project (IEM) uses down-scaled climate models as the drivers of ecosystem change to produce forecasts of future fire, vegetation, permafrost and hydrology regimes at a resolution of 1km.

The Shorebird Demographic Network is an international collaboration designed to evaluate how climate mediated changes in the arctic ecosystem are affecting shorebird distribution, ecology, and demography. The main purpose of the network is to monitor demographic parameters (e.g.

Arey Lagoon and Island, situated on the Beaufort Sea coast just west of Barter Island and within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), was selected as a focus site for an in-depth study of coastal processes on a regional to local scale.

To elucidate these potential “bottom up” effects of climate changes to Arctic ungulates and evaluate the trophic mismatch hypothesis, the Arctic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (ALCC), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S.

This project used species distribution modeling to assess the risk to habitat change under various climate change scenarios for rare plants.

This project is analyzing downscaled climate model data to assess the geography of climate change at scales relevant to actual conservation actions.

This project uses bottom-up modeling at a parcel scale to measure the effects of sea-level rise (SLR) on coastal ecosystems and tidal salt marshes.

This project designed a monitoring program and protocol to detect the effects of climate change on tidal marsh bird population abundance and distribution.

The Aleutian archipelago is an area that is rich in cultural history. Information about cultural sites and artifacts exists in a variety of formats including peer-reviewed publications, agency reports, and other records.

This project will expand abundance & distribution models for seabirds, currently underway in Aleutian Is region (USFWS-funded project under Survey, Monitoring & Assessment program) to the greater ABSI-LCC region, and integrate 2013 seabird surveys into the analysis.

The Wildlife Conservation Society will assess the climate change vulnerability of bird species that regularly breed in substantial populations in Alaska using the NatureServe Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) tool.

This project used historical climate records for Alaska and Western Canada to identify patterns in temperature and precipitation reflecting the distribution of biomes seen across this region today.