Birds
Birds
Featured News
NCASC Research Identifies Future Research Topics to Improve Land Acquisition Decisions for Migratory Bird Conservation
NCASC Research Identifies Future Research Topics to Improve Land Acquisition Decisions for Migratory Bird Conservation
Featured Project
Informing Climate-Adaptive Forest Management for Breeding Bird Habitat in the Southern Appalachians
Informing Climate-Adaptive Forest Management for Breeding Bird Habitat in the Southern Appalachians
Birds play a crucial role in many ecosystems and their conservation depends on a clear understanding of how environmental factors affect their survival and reproduction. CASC scientists are working to understand the connection between environmental factors and climate variables to help birds adapt to a changing climate. Explore our science on birds below.
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Climate Adaptation in Northeastern Forests to Support Birds of Conservation Concern and Ecosystem Services
Climate change, invasive species, and diseases are threatening Northeastern forests, with consequences for bird populations and carbon storage. Researchers supported by this Northeast CASC project will evaluate whether already-implemented climate adaptation strategies in the region have been effective at protecting bird habitat and what the implications of carbon storage have been. The...
Climate-Informed Disease Threat Assessment for Montana’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need
Project Overview Infectious disease poses a growing threat to wildlife and human health, and managing disease threats is complicated by climatic changes that can change levels of disease risk. Researchers supported by this North Central CASC project will co-develop a method to rank wildlife disease threats under climate change, providing critical useable information to Montana’s wildlife...
Forecasting Changes in Avian Biodiversity Under Changing Climate
Infrastructure development and climate change pose significant threats to migratory bird populations by altering their distributions and habitat. This Northeast CASC-supported research team will use citizen-science and structured monitoring data to identify current and future areas that are important for migratory bird species across the Northeastern US. Researchers will produce high...
Identifying Past and Future Climate Change Refugia for Midwestern Birds
Project Overview In the Midwest, climate change is forcing birds to shift their ranges, raising concerns about how well protected areas provide refuge for vulnerable bird species. Researchers supported by this Midwest CASC project will use two decades of bird monitoring data to evaluate how protected areas in the Upper Great Lakes region support birds now and in the future under changing...
Using Changing Bird Migration Patterns to Connect Indigenous Hawaiian and Alaskan Communities
Project Overview Climate change is altering the timing of natural seasonal events (phenology). This is manifesting in many ways including altering patterns of bird migration between Molokaʻi and southcentral Alaska. Researchers supported by this Pacific Islands CASC project will combine Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and conventional science to track these phenological shifts...
Advancing Wildlife Monitoring to Improve Management of Endangered Hawaiian Birds in a Changing Climate
Mosquito-borne disease is the biggest threat to Hawai‘i’s remaining native forest birds, of which more than half are threatened or endangered. Currently, disease-carrying mosquitoes are unable to move into colder high-elevation forests, but as the islands warm due to climate change, mosquitoes are steadily moving into the last native bird strongholds. Mosquito suppression efforts are...
Developing a Next-Generation Climate Change Vulnerability Index in Support of Climate-Informed Natural-Resource Management
Project Overview Climate change threatens plants and animals across the US, making it important to have tools that can efficiently assess species’ vulnerabilities. In this project, CASC scientists and NatureServe are collaborating to update a popular Climate Change Vulnerability Index to include the latest scientific data, improved metrics, and new user-friendly technology. The tool will...
What Will Grassland Bird Communities Look Like Under a Changing Climate?
Over the last half-century, grassland bird populations have declined far more than any other bird group in North America. This is because native grasslands were largely replaced with croplands, and many remaining prairies are degraded. Land managers and conservation organizations are racing to preserve and restore these ecosystems to stem further loss of grassland birds. Given limited...
Assessing Vulnerability of Vegetation and Wildlife Communities to Post-Fire Transformations to Guide Management of Southwestern Pine Forests and Woodlands
Wildfire is a natural and essential process in forest ecosystems, but characteristics of fire regimes that have shaped these landscapes over long time scales are changing with climate change and human activities. In some places, changes in fire size, frequency, and severity threaten to degrade essential ecosystem services that produce clean air and water, fertile soil for crop and wood...
Climate Adaptability and Ecological Connectivity of Wildlife Communities in Multi-Use Sagebrush-Steppe Landscapes
Sagebrush steppe ecosystems provide livelihoods for humans and essential habitats for wildlife, and thus management actions in these systems to promote wildlife persistence must strike a balance between human needs with those of wildlife. Across the western U.S., these landscapes have been heavily altered or lost through human activities, and climate change is expected to cause further...
Climate-Driven Connectivity Between Prairie-Pothole and Riparian Wetlands in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed: Implications for Wildlife Habitat and Water Quality
Wetland conservation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) is a priority for Federal, State, NGO, and Tribal land managers to support migratory bird habitat in Minnesota and Iowa. These wetlands, known as depressional wetlands, also provide ecosystem services associated with flood water storage and enhancing down-stream water quality by storing and processing nutrients...
Creating a Decision Support Tool for Setting Sustainable Raptor Take Limits in a Changing Climate
Raptor populations are already seeing the effects of climate change through impacts on migration biology and vital rates (i.e. changes in the size and composition of a population). However, the decision framework used by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to estimate population trends and set allowable take limits from commercial and recreational activities does not take into account...