Northeast

The nursery industry grows, markets, and sells plants for ecological restoration as well as urban and suburban landscaping. The Northeast U.S. is a patchwork of small, mostly private land holdings, where the choices of nursery professionals influence the composition of current and future ecosystems. Unfortunately, the nursery industry focuses predominantly on non-native plants. This...

High elevation red spruce forests are among the most iconic and visited natural communities in the High Alleghenies of the Central Appalachian Mountains. These ecosystems provide many services such as clean water and carbon sequestration, as well as habitat for species of high conservation concern, i.e., the eastern brook trout, the northern goshawk, and the northern flying squirrel...

The State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) are proactive planning documents, known as “comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies.” SWAPs assess the health of each state’s wildlife and habitats, identify current management and conservation challenges, and outline needed actions to conserve natural resources over the long term. SWAPs are revised every 10 years, with the last revision in...

Society makes substantial investments in federal, Tribal, state, and private programs to supplement populations of valued species such as stocking fish, planting trees, rebuilding oyster reefs, and restoring prairies. These important efforts require long-term commitment, but climate change is making environmental conditions less predictable and more challenging to navigate. Selection of...

Natural & cultural resource managers are facing a slew of new challenges for managing public lands stemming from climate change and human-driven stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and new resource uses. In some cases, the very landscapes and species they are managing are changing in significant ways, transforming from one set of conditions to another. As a result, previously...

Salt marshes are grassy wetlands that form along sheltered coastlines. These areas provide crucial habitats for many species of birds and other animals, in addition to recreational activities and economic opportunities. Marshes also protect the coast from storms and filter runoff from the landscape, ensuring cleaner and healthier coastal waters. As climate change causes sea levels to...

There are significant investments by states and resource agencies in the northeast U.S. for invasive aquatic species monitoring and management. These investments in jurisdictional waters help maintain their use for drinking, industry, and recreation. It is essential to understand the risks from invasive species, because once established, species can be costly to society and difficult or...

As climate change is impacting water resources and aquatic ecosystems, there is a great need for natural resource managers to assess adaptation measures in a holistic manner. This can be done by integrating model predictions of climate, hydrology, and ecosystems with observational data to better refine estimates of conditions on-the-ground; however, it can be challenging to combine these...

Studying the impacts of climate on important ecological responses is a recent priority of monitoring programs throughout the Northeast. Established sampling protocols for data collection, whether to inform estimates of species abundance or occupancy, were designed to evaluate the effects of non-climate stressors (e.g., habitat conversion) and related management actions. Traditional...

Coastal resource and infrastructure managers face rapidly mounting environmental challenges. Increases in sea levels, decaying or outdated infrastructure, compound flooding from ocean storm surges and river runoff, and temperature and moisture extremes are all increasing the vulnerability of natural habitats, public, private, and commercial infrastructure, and community health and...

Wetland plants are important to Wabanaki people in Maine and are central to Houlton Band of Maliseet Indian (HBMI) identity. HBMI peoples have harvested culturally important plants within the Meduxnekeag watershed for generations. Basket making and medicinal plant harvesting are forms of cultural preservation that are also important to Tribal economies. Projections for climate change in...

Actionable science has evolved rapidly over the last decade, and the Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) network has established itself as a leader in the field. The practice of actionable science is generally described as user-focused, action-oriented science that addresses pressing real-world climate adaptation challenges. It is also sometimes referred to as usable science...