Science Tools for Managers

Despite the pandemic, Future of Fire postdoc Dr. Nina Fontana developed and contributed to a range of projects with cultural fire practitioners from 2021-2023. This funding will provide her an additional year to complete and grow projects started with partners as a Future of Fire fellow. Fontana’s work focuses on two broad areas: (1) improving best practices in teaching and learning...

Cold-water fish species such as trout and salmon are highly valued components of many stream ecosystems in Michigan and the Great Lakes region and are sensitive to rising stream temperatures. For example, the timing of spawning and development rates of these species are affected by stream temperature from late fall through spring. Historically, stream temperature modeling has focused on...

Project Overview State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) guide state-level wildlife conservation, yet recent plans have largely lacked information on how climate change may affect vulnerable species and habitats. With support from the Southeast and South Central CASCs, scientists are providing climate summaries, future projections, and synthesized vulnerability information to SWAP...

The prairie grasslands of the Midwest and Great Plains provide important habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals, clean drinking water, and space for outdoor recreation and have experienced an over 99% loss of prairie grasslands due to a variety of factors including climate change. Land managers that are working to restore prairie grasslands would like to make them resilient to...

Plant species are at risk under climate change because their slow dispersal rates limit their ability to shift their spatial distribution in response to rapidly changing conditions. Conservation managers seek to maintain resilient plant communities by planting more native species that are adapted to future climates. However, managers rarely have enough information about which native...

Loko iʻa, Hawaiian fishponds, are part of a rich history of indigenous aquaculture dating back to the 1400s. These unique ecosystems serve as key models of food sustainability across Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region. Hawaiʻi, among the most geographically isolated regions throughout the world, currently faces many challenges including environmental uncertainties, increasing urbanization, a...

Drought is a common consequence of climate variability in the south-central U.S., but they are expected to occur more often and become more intense with climate change. Natural resource managers can improve their planning efforts with advance warnings of impending drought. Using input from resource managers in the Chickasaw Nation, this research team previously created models that...

Increasing temperatures, decreasing rainfall, and more intense droughts and storms are threatening the health and wellbeing of ecosystems and communities across Hawai‘i and the Pacific Islands. Future rainfall and temperature projections provide some insight into future change, but uncertainty remains in when, where, and how impacts will manifest, presenting daunting challenges to...

Federal and state agencies gather information; work with partners, stakeholders, and others; and then write planning documents that guide their natural and cultural resource management. These planning documents are most useful when they reflect current and anticipated conditions, including information about climate change. However, there has been little research about what climate...

Large, hot, fast-moving wildfires are an increasing threat to communities and to the watersheds they rely upon. Forest managers work to reduce the risk from these fires using forest thinning and prescribed burning to reduce the amount of fuel in the forest. However, these activities are expensive, and it can be challenging to identify which acres of forest should be targeted with...

Climate change threatens to damage historical sites and disrupt cultural practices in communities around the world, including the South-Central United States. Researchers are now paying greater attention to the impact of climate change on these cultural resources, but currently little guidance exists for decision makers who are interested in protecting them. Because communities value and...

The amount of water flowing through a stream is an important driver of aquatic habitat, but scientists don’t often measure streamflow in the small stream networks that feed larger rivers. Monitoring smaller streams is especially important as climate change is causing them to (a) flood more often and more intensely, and (b) lose habitat as drought events and water temperatures increase. A...