Northwest

Climate responses of sagebrush are needed to inform land managers of the stability and restoration of sagebrush ecosystems, which are an important but threatened habitat type. We evaluated climate responses of sagebrush using two approaches: (1) experimental manipulations of temperature and precipitation for natural plants in the field, and (2) assessment of how climate adaptation and...

The Northwest Climate Conference (formerly called the Pacific Northwest Climate Science Conference) is the premier climate science event for the region, providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to share scientific results and discuss challenges and solutions related to the impacts of climate change on people, natural resources, and infrastructure in the Northwest. Conference

Climate change is already affecting species in many ways. Because individual species respond to climate change differently, some will be adversely affected by climate change whereas others may benefit. Successfully managing species in a changing climate will require an understanding of which species will be most and least impacted by climate change. Although several approaches have been...

The overarching project goal was to develop overlapping conceptual models of environmental and community health indicators in reference to climate forecasts. The sensitivity of species and habitats to climate was cross-walked with recently developed Coast Salish community health indicators (e.g., ceremonial use, knowledge exchange, and physiological well-being) in order to demonstrate...

The Yurok Ancestral Territory, which spans northwestern California from the coastal redwood-spruce rainforest to inland forests and prairies, has provided the Yurok Tribe with an abundance of food and cultural resources for millennia. The Yurok Tribe maintains stewardship responsibility for their Ancestral Lands, which include the Yurok Reservation, and is concerned about the potential...

Many fish species, including mountain whitefish and bull trout, need a variety of habitat types throughout their different life stages that include appropriate water temperatures, flows, refugia from predators, and adequate food. Key to a fish finding and using these different habitats is the connectivity between them. Changing conditions in the future, including increased air and water

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of population and habitat fragmentation combined with inadequate regulatory mechanisms to control development in critical areas. In addition to the current threats to habitat, each 1 degree celsius increase in temperature due to climate change is expected to result in an...

The Oregon Water Science Center provided the scientific, bibliographic, and administrative support needed to prepare a Science Agenda for the Northwest Climate Science Center (NW CSC). The Science Agenda is the basis for guiding the science program of the NW CSC.

Climate change has been implicated in the range shifts and population declines of many species, but the confounding of climate change with other variables, particularly landscape change, hampers inference about causation. Climate envelope models have been used to predict population trends and future distributions, but the reliability of such predictions remains relatively unknown...

The objective of this study was to determine why certain stream insects tend to be found in certain temperature ranges. Many federal, state and local agencies use stream insects to monitor the health of freshwater ecosystems. While the temperature ranges for some insects are often inferred from the temperature of the waters where they were collected, this inference is coarse at best and

Resource managers, policymakers, and scientists require tools to inform water resource management and planning. Information on hydrologic factors – such as streamflow, snowpack, and soil moisture – is important for understanding and predicting wildfire risk, flood activity, and agricultural and rangeland productivity, among others. Existing tools for modeling hydrologic conditions rely...

Cheatgrass began invading the Great Basin about 100 years ago, changing large parts of the landscape from a rich, diverse ecosystem to one where a single invasive species dominates. Cheatgrass dominated areas experience more fires that burn more land than in native ecosystems, resulting in economic and resource losses. Therefore, the reduced production, or absence, of cheatgrass in...