Projects by Region

American Samoa is vulnerable to sea-level rise in part due to the steep terrain of its islands. This terrain requires the majority of the islands’ villages and infrastructure to be located along thin strips of coastal land. The situation is worsened by the recently recognized rapid sinking of the islands, which was triggered by the 2009 Samoa earthquake and is predicted to last for...

Stocking, or raising fish in hatcheries and releasing them into a body of water, is routinely used to supplement or maintain fisheries when natural populations are low or nonexistent. Demand for stocking cool and coldwater fish species that support important fisheries will likely increase as a result of climate change, but fish available for stocking are a limited resource. Consequently...

Natural and cultural resource managers across the country have begun to use a tool known as "scenario planning" to help prepare for climate change effects that may unfold in the future. In this process, scientific projections are used to identify different plausible, relevant, and divergent climate conditions for a particular area, and then through a participatory process, scientists and...

The Prairie Pothole Region is recognized as one of the most critical breeding habitats for waterfowl in North America and is used by an estimated 50–80 % of the continent’s breeding duck population. The ongoing acquisition program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System has conserved approximately 1.3 million hectares of critical breeding-waterfowl habitat...

The Prairie Pothole Region is recognized as one of the most productive areas for waterfowl in North America and supports an estimated 50–80 % of the continent’s duck population. This important habitat is threatened by climate change and continued land-use change. The goal of this research is to establish a framework for assessing future impacts of climate and land-use change on Prairie...

Healthy wetlands provide buffers against drought, flooding, pollution, and other threats to humans and nature. Climate change imperils wetland health, including impacting the connections among wetlands that facilitate movements and prevent extinctions of wetland-dependent wildlife. One wildlife group of considerable conservation concern and vulnerability to climate induced wetland...

Ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves provide an effective first line of defense against coastal hazards and represent a promising nature-based solution to adapt to sea-level rise. In many areas, coral reefs cause waves to break and lose energy, allowing for sediment to accumulate on the inshore portion of reef flats (i.e. the shallowest, flattest part of a reef) and mangroves to...

In the Gulf of Alaska, streams will experience more dramatic low water events, interspersed with larger and potentially more frequent high flow events in the coming decades. Reduced stream flows are likely to occur due to diminished snowpack and seasonal droughts, while higher flow events are likely to occur with more frequent storms and rain-on-snow events. These changes are likely to...

In the Northern Rockies, the annual area burned by wildfires has risen sharply in recent decades and is expected to continue growing. As a result, burned forests increasingly comprise a significant portion of the land base. However, burned areas represent a difficult paradox for land managers, especially in the context of other climate-linked disturbances (e.g., droughts, bark beetle...

Changing climate in the “Ridge-to-Reef" (R2R) and “Icefield-to-Ocean" (I2O) ecosystems of Hawai‘i and Southeast Alaska is expected to influence freshwater resources, extreme precipitation events, intensity of storms, and drought. Changes in these regions will not be uniform, rather they will depend on elevation and watershed location due to their steep-gradient terrains. A better...

Yellow perch and alewife are ecologically, economically, and culturally important fish species in Lake Michigan whose populations support recreational and commercial fisheries. However, both of these species’ populations have been in decline for over 20 years. This project seeks to understand the factors affecting variability in offspring survival of yellow perch and alewife in Lake...

Cold-water adapted Brook Trout were historically widely distributed – ranging from northern Quebec to Georgia, and from the Atlantic Ocean to Manitoba in the north, and along the Appalachian ridge in the south. However, studies show that due to factors associated with climate change, such as increased stream temperature and changing water flow, the number of streams containing Brook...