Other Landscapes

Climate and land use change are affecting many aquatic species throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The objective of this project is to understand and plan for the changes in distribution of aquatic species considered “Regional Species of Greatest Conservation Need” (RSGCN) in the mid-Atlantic region. Working with state and federal partners, this project will...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages the largest area of public lands in the United States. Decision-making on BLM lands is complex because managers have to balance diverse, sometimes conflicting, resources, uses, and values. Land managers are more likely to achieve long-term land management goals and balance multiple desired uses and values across public landscapes when their...

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...

Vegetation transformations after wildfires are a growing issue for forest and shrubland managers in the Inland Pacific Northwest. Severe fires combined with persistent drought and invasive species can slow or prevent the recovery of burned forests and shrublands to their pre-fire states, resulting in ecological, economic, and cultural losses. Forests may be converted to shrub fields or...

Project Overview Climate change threatens keystone plant communities and insects that make up the base of functional food webs, but restoration practitioners struggle to factor climate considerations into restoration projects for a number of practical reasons. Researchers supported by this National CASC project will create a trait-based plant vulnerability assessment to guide restoration

Climate change is contributing to an increase in wildfire activity in the western United States, including the Blue Mountains and Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills of the Inland Northwest. Some forest ecosystems are changing from forest to non-forest because of severe fires, a hot and dry climate, and/or the absence of a viable seed source. On sites impacted by wildfire, managers are...

Hawaiʻi is often referred to as the endangered species capital of the world, with hundreds of species at risk. While Hawaiian forest birds have garnered attention in the global conservation community as they face imminent extinction due to climate change, climate also poses serious challenges to hundreds of other Hawaiian species. Although traditional recovery plans provide meaningful...

Extreme weather events (such as floods, ice storms, tropical cyclones, and tornadoes) are increasing in frequency and causing severe consequences throughout the U.S. and particularly in Louisiana. These natural disasters are especially devastating for farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the environment. Most climate research and extension outreach focus on large-scale farmers and tend...

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...

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...

The Southeastern United States has vast underground ecosystems where temperatures vary little throughout the year and humidity is always near 100%. These cave and karst ecosystems provide many services to people, such as recreational opportunities, revenue from tourism, and groundwater storage. Caves also provide habitats for important and endangered species, like bats that eat...

Climate change presents new and compounding challenges to natural resource management. With shifting climate patterns, managers are confronted with difficult decisions on how to minimize climate impacts to habitats, infrastructure, and wildlife populations. Further, managers lack the information needed to make proactive management decisions. To address this problem, this project will...