Resources

The primary purpose of this project is to acquire long-term data series on
temperature of selected lakes to support management of nursery habitat of lakerearing
juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in relation to climate
change. We adopted protocol developed by the National Park Service (NPS) to
establish moored all-season vertical temperature monitoring arrays in eight lakes
of Kodiak, Togiak, and Alaska Peninsula/Becharof National Wildlife Refuges
(NWR) in summer and fall 2011. We recorded lake temperature at a resolution of

The primary purpose of this project is to acquire long-term data series on
temperature of selected lakes to support management of nursery habitat of lakerearing
juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in relation to climate
change. We adopted protocol developed by the National Park Service (NPS) to
establish moored all-season vertical temperature monitoring arrays in eight lakes
of Kodiak, Togiak, and Alaska Peninsula/Becharof National Wildlife Refuges
(NWR) in summer and fall 2011. We recorded lake temperature at a resolution of

Intraspecific variation in the seasonal reproductive timing of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.) has important
implications for the resilience of salmon and for organisms in freshwater and terrestrial communities that depend
on salmon resources. Stream temperature has well known associations with salmon spawn timing but
how stream and watershed geomorphology relates to the variation in salmon spawn timing is less understood.
We used multivariate statistics applied to five environmental variables to compare conditions across

to be completed

One of the major challenges in understanding changes in coastal processes in western Alaska is the lack of measured ocean data in the region. ​This project leveraged existing human resources, and physical and computational infrastructure to collect and disseminate oceanographic observations in the Bering Sea. From instrument restoration, transport and deployment, through data streaming, recovery and dissemination, this project considered the end to end supports necessary to gather, promote, and serve oceanographic data along Alaska’s Western coast.

Southwest Alaska is one of the fastest warming regions on Earth and its aquatic resources are at distinct risk from changing climate. Previous work has demonstrated that a variety of physical and biological processes are sensitive to changing climate regimes in this region, including those that support wildlife and fisheries that are of substantial importance for subsistence and commercial activities.

The tundra biome is the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of the circumpolar north, and its fate in a rapidly changing climate is of high scientific and socioeconomic concern. One of those concerns is that the majority of caribou herds throughout the circumpolar north are declining, perhaps as a result of climate change. The principal objective of this research is to reveal the connections between soil nutrient cycling, forage quality and caribou habitat selection.

A high spatial resolution storm surge model was developed for the YK Delta area to assess biological impacts of storm surges under current and future climates. Storm surges are expected to be more frequent and more severe in the YK Delta area due to climate change and sea level rise. The biological impacts in the YK Delta due to the changed storm surges could be extreme.

This project resulted in an extensive mapping of coastal change along the entire coastline of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC). The work provides important baseline information on the distribution and magnitude of landscape changes over the past 41 years.

One of the major challenges in understanding changes in coastal processes in western Alaska is the lack of measured ocean data in the region. ​This project leveraged existing human resources, and physical and computational infrastructure to collect and disseminate oceanographic observations in the Bering Sea. From instrument restoration, transport and deployment, through data streaming, recovery and dissemination, this project considered the end to end supports necessary to gather, promote, and serve oceanographic data along Alaska’s Western coast.

Bering Sea storms introduce various environmental conditions that adversely affect human activity and infrastructure in the coastal zone and the ecosystems they depend upon. Storm impacts include interactions with sea ice in all potential states: large floes, shore-fast ice, and incipient sea-ice in frazil or slush state. In particular, sea ice can act to enhance or mitigate the impacts of adverse marine state, even as the event is occurring.

The western coastline of Alaska is highly susceptible to coastal storms, which can cause coastal erosion, flooding, and have other pernicious effects to the environment and commercial efforts. The reduction in ice coverage due to climate change could potentially increase the frequency and degree of coastal flooding and erosion.

This scenario planning decision support tool for the Kankakee River basin as a first case study/proof-of concept.  Hydrology models, both surface water and groundwater, and ecology of the Kankakee River watershed will be combined to evaluate the effects of habitat restoration on water suppy ecosystem services, agricultural irrigation demands, urbanization, and waterfowl habitat, and sportsman and recreational user interests.  Various scenarios for restoration identified with peer input were tested for the watershed.

An important unresolved question is how populations of coldwater-dependent fishes will respond to rapidly warming water temperatures. For example, the culturally and economically important group, Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), experience site-specific thermal regimes during early development that could be disrupted by warming.

The concept of adaptive management provides a set of good business principles to guide strategic habitat conservation, but these principles are only useful if they are put into practice through a complimentary set of business operations.

This project connects scientists and managers from federal, tribal and state agencies and nongovernmental organizations to exchange information and establish common priorities for management of terrestrial wildlife populations. To achieve these goals, we are organizing interactive workshops with partners across the region. In year 2, we will assess the risk posed by climate change and other major stressors to a subset of priority species (as identified by regional partners).

Northern Great Lakes forests represent an ecotone in the boreal–temperate transition zone and are expected to change dramatically with climate change. Managers are increasingly seeking adaptation strategies to manage these forests. We explored the efficacy of two alternative management scenarios compared with business-as-usual (BAU) management: expanding forest reserves meant to preserve forest identity and increase resistance, and modified silviculture meant to preserve forest function and increase adaptive capacity.

The study seeks to provide a retrospective analysis of the relationships among bird abundance and distribution and changes in land cover and climate in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region.  The resultant models will be used to provide spatially explicit forecasts of future avian responses.  Using data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and a hierarchical modeling framework that accounts for imperfect detection during surveys, species distribution and abundance is estimated.  Historic aerial photos are being digitized and classified to measure landscape covariates.  Once

The annual distributions of waterfowl during autumn-winter can influence ecological, environmental, cultural, and economic relationships. We used previously developed Weather Severity Indices (WSI) that explained migration by dabbling ducks in eastern North America and weather data from the North American Regional Reanalysis to develop an open-access internet-based tool (i.e, WSI app) to visualize and query WSI data. We used data generated by the WSI app to determine if the weather known to elicit southerly migration by dabbling ducks had changed, October – April 1979 – 2014.

Within the time frame of the longevity of tree species, climate change will change faster than the ability of natural tree migration. Migration lags may result in reduced productivity and reduced diversity in forests under current management and climate change. We evaluated the efficacy of planting climate-suitable tree species (CSP), those tree species with current or historic distributions immediately south of a focal landscape, to maintain or increase aboveground biomass, productivity, and species and functional diversity.

Natural resource agencies in the Upper Midwest are facing difficult decisions concerning how to effectively support climate change adaptation and prepare managers for current and future stressors. An initial aspect of this project resulted in completion of a report: Management Options for Conservation Lands in an Era of Climate Change, in which the authors examine the current literature on climate change adaptation objectives, strategies, and actions that are feasible to implement in ecosystems of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes.

Within the time frame of the longevity of tree species, climate change will change faster than the ability of natural tree migration. Migration lags may result in reduced productivity and reduced diversity in forests under current management and climate change. We evaluated the efficacy of planting climate-suitable tree species (CSP), those tree species with current or historic distributions immediately south of a focal landscape, to maintain or increase aboveground biomass, productivity, and species and functional diversity.