Climate & Land Use
Climate & Land Use
Changing land use is placing increasing pressure on wildlife resources and requires more complicated analyses to identify potential consequences and trade-offs of management alternatives. Couple that with global climate change, and resource managers face unprecedented challenges in the management of natural resources. NOROCK works with managers in the northern Rockies and elsewhere to evaluate these changes and predict their impacts on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
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Glacier Research
Climatic warming since the end of the Little Ice Age has resulted in substantial glacier ice loss around the world. Most glaciers have undergone thinning and many exhibit retreat at their margins. Glacier loss triggers a cascade of hydrological and ecological effects that impact plants, animals and can create human hazard and economic hardship. USGS scientists are using a variety of methods and...
Developing a mechanistic understanding between recent climate patterns and Aquatic Vital Signs in the Greater Yellowstone Network
The National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring program was established to provide park managers with a broad understanding of the status of park resources using the best available science. This program acknowledges that NPS managers are confronted with complex challenges associated with the management of dynamic landscapes responding to multiple, interacting drivers of change. To provide tools...
Identification of Fire Refugia in Rocky Mountain Ecosystems of the U.S. and Canada: Development and Application of the Refugium Concept for Biodiversity Conservation over Large Spatial and Temporal Scales
We described the climate space of fire regimes in northwestern North America (Whitman and others 2015), and we are refining an approach to identify fire refugia – areas that do not burn or burn with lower severity through multiple fire events. We continue our collaboration to test the function of refugia for biodiversity conservation under current and future climate and fire scenarios. We continue...
Impacts of climate change on habitat quality: plant phenology interactions with animal use and fitness
Weather and climate impact terrestrial wildlife habitat through their influences on plant productivity. Plant phenology – the timing of life-history events such as green-up, flowering and senescence – provides one indicator of the timing and magnitude of productivity. Changes and variability in plant phenology in space and time are indicators of habitat quality, which is a driver of fitness for...