Projects

More information is needed about species composition, abundance, or distribution of the microfauna and meiofauna living within the interstitial spaces of the littoral zones along the Beaufort Sea coast.

Hydrologic data for the Alaska Arctic are sparse, and fewer still are long-term (> 10 year) datasets. This lack of baseline information hinders our ability to assess long-term alterations in streamflow due to changing climate.

Conserving migratory or wide-ranging species presents considerable challenges, as these individuals move across disparate jurisdictions often crossing international borders among crucial stages of their annual cycle.

Groundwater pumping for irrigated agriculture has depleted regional aquifers that sustain habitat for native fishes in the western Great Plains of North America.

The Great Plains LCC funded/facilitated meeting in relation to the Lesser Prairie Chicken Managment Plan developed by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Project funding also went toward a literature review of Lesser Prairie Chickens.

DJ Case will work with PLJV and other project cooperators to develop, conduct, and analyze 14 focus groups with key landowners in six states within the GPLCC.

The black‐tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) is considered an indicator species for the short grass prairie of North America; however, this species currently occupies an estimated 2% of its original distribution.

Playa wetlands are critical resources of the Great Plains, providing a range of ecological functions such as groundwater recharge, surface water storage, wetland habitat, and sediment filtering.

The Arkansas River Shiner (ARS), *Notropis girardi*, is a federally threatened minnow that now occurs natively in modest numbers only in the South Canadian River, following decades of range contraction and population losses.

This project expands upon the first version of the SGP-CHAT and create a more robust spatial planning tool (SPT) for directing conservation of the lesser prairie chicken (LPC).

While habitat selection and population estimates are well documented for spring migrating birds in the central Platte River system, little information or monitoring efforts on the North Platte River exist, particularly for the multiple priority bird species known to be present.

While we assessed the vulnerability of a number of different wildlife and plant species to climate change, none of those species exhibited high vulnerability to changes projected for the region and there was limited differentiation in vulnerability between the individual species.

Rate of global biodiversity loss increased significantly during the 20th century associated with human environmental alterations.

Potamodromous migrations, those that occur entirely in fresh waters, are made by a variety of minnows (Family Cyprinidae) in, and between, freshwater habitats around the world.

The range-wide plan (RWP) has been developed in response to concerns about lesser prairie-chicken (LPC) habitat threats which may be impacting LPC populations, and the proposed listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Species populations are in a state of flux due to the cumulative and interacting impacts of climate change and human stressors across landscapes.

We used the United States National Grid to develop a sampling grid for monitoring programs in the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative, delineated by Bird Conservation Regions 18 and 19.

Landscape Design has been described as the bridge between landscape ecology and conservation delivery. It recognizes the need for humans to live and work in the landscape and it seeks to understand the patterns and the underlying processes of those patterns.

Genetic, demographic, and environmental processes affect natural populations synergistically, and understanding their interplay is crucial for the conservation of biodiversity.

Biodiversity in stream networks is threatened globally by interactions between habitat fragmentation and altered hydrologic regimes.

Within grassland communities of the GPLCC one such key indicator species is the Lesser Prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidinctus). Lesser Prairie-chicken range extends across the southern portion of the GPLCC area throughout Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas.

Reduced to its most fundamental level, the management problem addressed by this project is the basic conflict between the fact that fish need water and the reality that the amount and quality of the water available has been dramatically altered by human activities.

Mapping ecological systems of Kansas and Nebraska expands upon previous work completed for Texas and Oklahoma and advances the desire of regional and state partners to have a consistently mapped seamless land cover for the Great Plains region.

Land-use change, invasive species, and climate change have dramatically impaired ecosystem function worldwide. Understanding how changes to ecosystems impact species of conservation concern is essential for effective conservation delivery.

Playas and other wetlands within the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) provide essential habitat for many wetland-dependent vertebrate species and are especially important as migration and wintering areas for waterfowl and shorebirds.

Natural resource management requires decision making in the face of uncertain future conditions.

Grassland Species as Indicators for use in Climate Change Modeling

A return on Investment Approach to restoring natural Flow Regimes in the Red River

Modeling reptile habitat in the Great Plains Ecogregion of the United States.

Flow Protection and Restoration Opportunity Areas

Monitoring is fundamental to wildlife management but rarely does it happen. Most often the challenges of funding, protocols, and qualified workers prove too great and most monitoring collapses in a few short years.

The Cascadia Partner Forum will complete conservation design for four Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative conservation targets with significance to the transboundary Cascadia landscape to inform sound, data-driven management planning and action.

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It has been recognized by the Appalachian LCC partnership that to develop and deliver landscape-level planning tools, it is essential to develop an Appalachian-wide map depicting where cave and karst habitats and resources occur across the landscape.

Future climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies will be dependent on the best available projections of how the regional climate will change and the impacts those changes will have on the region’s natural and cultural resources.

Across the Tennessee River Basin is a collaboration within the Appalachian LCC bringing together multiple agencies and stakeholders in a joint effort to plan and deliver landscape conservation actions to protect one of the most diverse areas for aquatic species in North America.

Provision of shade via riparian restoration is a well-established management adaptation strategy to mitigate against temperature increases in streams. Effective use of this strategy depends upon accurately identifying vulnerable, unforested riparian areas in priority coldwater stream habitats.

Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachian LCC used models that combined data on energy development trends and identified where these may intersect with important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a more comprehensive picture of what potential energy development coul

The Data Needs Assessment research project was undertaken to review the variety of resources on conservation planning to provide packages of products, data, and identified data gaps to improve conservation planning in the Appalachian LCC.

Given the rapid environmental change experienced and expected across the Appalachians, it will be crucial to understand the vulnerabilities of valued ecosystem services to drivers of large-scale change that may threaten their sustainability.

In 2012 the GCPO LCC recognized that advanced web-applications would be instrumental in delivering effective LCC science products.

Long-term, large-scale (i.e. landscape) conservation struggles with big questions such as how can a single strategy be identified when there are multiple possible future outcomes?

Pilot an approach that integrates dynamic landscape population viability models and structured decision making to choose among conservation scenarios that best meet desired endpoints for focal wildlife species.

The GCPO LCC region contains some of the most diverse aquatic biota in the world. The streams and rivers on which this biota depends are valuable conservation and economic resources.

The Conservation Blueprint provides a foundation to design strategies for collaborative conservation effort to achieve sustainable landscapes in the face of change.

To inform management for a resilient and functioning landscape, we need to understand how the landscape is changing.

WGFD has a quantity of GPS-based animal movement data available for processing.