Southeast

Climate and land use change will strongly affect tropical island ecosystems and trust species (like migratory birds and threatened and endangered species). The risks of significant negative impacts are likely to be higher in these island systems than in many temperate regions of the world because of the limited size of their land masses, high numbers of species that only exist in narrowly defined

In this proposal we investigate how tree selection at the local scale affects biodiversity and ecosystem services (Obj. 1). We then look regionally to determine the extent to which trees in cities can be used to predict heat-related threats to rural forests (Obj. 2). We will leverage ongoing investigations of heat-related stress and pest outbreaks in urban and rural forests to develop management r

The Southeast is currently undergoing high rates of population growth, urbanization, and land use change while also experiencing climatic changes. These changes are and will continue to threaten wildlife and their habitats. Most existing conservation programs and activities, however, focus on maintaining systems in their current condition, or returning them to a historic state, rather than enablin

Climate change doesn’t just threaten our natural resources—it threatens our cultural resources, too. Cultural resources represent evidence of past human activity, such as archeological sites, or are of significance to a group of people traditionally associated with the resource, such as Native American ceremonial sites. Climate change is challenging the long-term persistence of many cultural res

The Caribbean Landscape Conservation Cooperative (CLCC) Steering Committee (SC) recently made two landmark decisions providing direction for collaborative conservation efforts. The SC agreed to pursue landscape conservation design (LCD) as a major emphasis of collaborative work and they agreed to adopt a values-focused, structured decision-making (SDM) process to guide conservation design developm

To better understand the impacts of climate change, ecological studies are increasingly addressing the different effects of temperature on organisms and ecosystems. To measure air temperature at biologically relevant scales in the field, ecologists often use small, portable temperature sensors. These sensors must be shielded from solar radiation to provide accurate temperature measurements, but a

View this webinar to learn more about climate-related changes taking place in the Central Basin of Tennessee.

The New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is the only native rabbit species in New England. Over the past 50 years, the cottontail’s range has been reduced by more than 80% as a result of habitat loss from maturing forests and land-use change, resulting in major population declines and concerns for the long-term prospects of this iconic species and other wildlife dependent on young f

Estimates of water flows in streams are critical to inform natural resource managers of water availability for both human and ecological needs. Monitoring flow in the stream using a streamgage provides information about the amount and timing of surface water resources. However, not every stream has a streamgage and decisions about water resources may need to be made in a watershed where there is n

Recent estimates of the magnitude of species’ range shifts, extinctions, and changes in ecosystem processes resulting from climatic change are alarming. Estimates of extinction rates and population losses attributable to climatic change are often based on studies of modeled biogeographic distributions, which rely on simple relationships between present-day distributions of species and climate vari

The objective of this project was to provide scientists and the general public with access to information about the existence and operation of programs that monitor the effects of global change processes, such as climate and land use change, on important air, land, and water resources. This was a public service project intended to support both education and decision making by providing comprehensi

The purpose of this grant was to provide research opportunities to students and staff working with the Southeast Climate Science Center (SE CSC) with a focus on decision analysis and science communication. Research activities occured primarily within the framework of existing SE CSC-funded projects. Student research supported project activities associated with the development and use of science-ba