This presentation, “Breaking Traditional Barriers to Model Climate Change and Land Use Impacts on Freshwater Mussels”, is a part of the Climate Change Science and Management Webinar Series from the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the FWS National Conservation Training Center.
Webinar: Breaking Traditional Barriers to Model Climate Change and Land Use Impacts on Freshwater Mussels
Check out this webinar to learn more about anthropogenic reasons for the decline in freshwater mussels.
Date Recorded
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Summary
Global declines in the abundance and diversity of freshwater mussels have been attributed to a wide array of human activities that cause pollution, water-quality degradation, and habitat destruction. These anthropogenic effects interact with aquatic environments and their inhabitants at multiple spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. Those dynamics that act at broad scales are complex and difficult to study, understand, and inform conservation and management of aquatic resources. Climate change and watershed land use alterations are two human impacts that cannot be approached statically in time, space, or functionally and require breaking barriers in geography, discipline, politics, and conceptual framework to further understanding. These timely, global issues present urgent challenges for the conservation of aquatic habitats and biota that require new information to address. In response, we initiated research to combine the expertise and resources of multiple scientists, agencies, and universities and build on our past findings to integrate climate change induced vulnerability and risk assessment data into regional watershed and instream biological response models for the protection and conservation of imperiled freshwater mussels. Our primary objective was to use our newly developed mussel vulnerability and risk threshold data in downscaled watershed and instream regional models to allow federal and state natural resource managers to forecast species responses to climate change over the next 30-50 years and to develop adaptation strategies to mitigate adverse effects. We will present research highlights from several components of this effort and then demonstrate their integration into holistic models that could not have been developed by any single investigator or institution. This research example is exceptional in including multiple investigators from complementary backgrounds, expertise, and affiliations; combining laboratory, field, and modeling approaches utilizing existing data and gathering new empirical information; spanning broad spatial, temporal, and organizational scales; supporting the education of future natural resource professionals; and contributing to the science and conservation of the most imperiled fauna in the world as affected by climate change. We conclude that the significant information needs required for future conservation and management of freshwater mussels in response to global change compel breaking traditional barriers to advance science.
Resources
Transcript -- Kwak 3.26.13
Learn more about this project here.
View this webinar here
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
This presentation, “Breaking Traditional Barriers to Model Climate Change and Land Use Impacts on Freshwater Mussels”, is a part of the Climate Change Science and Management Webinar Series from the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the FWS National Conservation Training Center.
Check out this webinar to learn more about anthropogenic reasons for the decline in freshwater mussels.
Date Recorded
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Summary
Global declines in the abundance and diversity of freshwater mussels have been attributed to a wide array of human activities that cause pollution, water-quality degradation, and habitat destruction. These anthropogenic effects interact with aquatic environments and their inhabitants at multiple spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. Those dynamics that act at broad scales are complex and difficult to study, understand, and inform conservation and management of aquatic resources. Climate change and watershed land use alterations are two human impacts that cannot be approached statically in time, space, or functionally and require breaking barriers in geography, discipline, politics, and conceptual framework to further understanding. These timely, global issues present urgent challenges for the conservation of aquatic habitats and biota that require new information to address. In response, we initiated research to combine the expertise and resources of multiple scientists, agencies, and universities and build on our past findings to integrate climate change induced vulnerability and risk assessment data into regional watershed and instream biological response models for the protection and conservation of imperiled freshwater mussels. Our primary objective was to use our newly developed mussel vulnerability and risk threshold data in downscaled watershed and instream regional models to allow federal and state natural resource managers to forecast species responses to climate change over the next 30-50 years and to develop adaptation strategies to mitigate adverse effects. We will present research highlights from several components of this effort and then demonstrate their integration into holistic models that could not have been developed by any single investigator or institution. This research example is exceptional in including multiple investigators from complementary backgrounds, expertise, and affiliations; combining laboratory, field, and modeling approaches utilizing existing data and gathering new empirical information; spanning broad spatial, temporal, and organizational scales; supporting the education of future natural resource professionals; and contributing to the science and conservation of the most imperiled fauna in the world as affected by climate change. We conclude that the significant information needs required for future conservation and management of freshwater mussels in response to global change compel breaking traditional barriers to advance science.
Resources
Transcript -- Kwak 3.26.13
Learn more about this project here.
View this webinar here
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
This presentation, “Breaking Traditional Barriers to Model Climate Change and Land Use Impacts on Freshwater Mussels”, is a part of the Climate Change Science and Management Webinar Series from the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the FWS National Conservation Training Center.
This presentation, “Breaking Traditional Barriers to Model Climate Change and Land Use Impacts on Freshwater Mussels”, is a part of the Climate Change Science and Management Webinar Series from the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the FWS National Conservation Training Center.