Brian W Miller, Ph.D.
Dr. Brian Miller is a Research Ecologist with the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, one of the nine regional centers that form the National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) network.
The USGS CASC program teams scientists with natural and cultural resource managers and local communities to help fish, wildlife, water, land, and people adapt to a changing climate. Brian focuses on developing and applying scenario planning, ecological simulation modeling, and related tools to help partners navigate climate change impacts and adaptation options. Brian has an interdisciplinary background studying human-environment interactions. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he also worked at the Carolina Population Center.
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. in Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 20
Filter Total Items: 62
From flowering to foliage: Accelerometers track tree sway to provide high-resolution insights into tree phenology From flowering to foliage: Accelerometers track tree sway to provide high-resolution insights into tree phenology
Trees are bioindicators of global climate change and regional urbanization, but available monitoring tools are ineffective for fine-scale observation of many species. Using six accelerometers mounted on two urban ash trees (Fraxinus americana), we looked at high-frequency tree vibrations, or change in periodicity of tree sway as a proxy for mass changes, to infer seasonal patterns of...
Authors
Deidre Jaeger, A. Looze, M. Raleigh, Brian Miller, Jonathan Friedman, C. Wessman
Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks
The impacts of climate change (CC) on natural and cultural resources are far-reaching and complex. A major challenge facing resource managers is not knowing the exact timing and nature of those impacts. To confront this problem, scientists, adaptation specialists, and resource managers have begun to use scenario planning (SP). This structured process identifies a small set of scenarios...
Authors
Brian Miller, Gregor Schuurman, Amy Symstad, Amber Runyon, Brecken Robb
Increasing the uptake of ecological model results in policy decisions to improve biodiversity outcomes Increasing the uptake of ecological model results in policy decisions to improve biodiversity outcomes
Models help decision-makers anticipate the consequences of policies for ecosystems and people; for instance, improving our ability to represent interactions between human activities and ecological systems is essential to identify pathways to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, use of modeling outputs in decision-making remains uncommon. We share insights from a...
Authors
Sarah Weiskopf, Zuzana Harmáčková, Ciara Johnson, Maria Londono-Murcia, Brian Miller, Bonnie Myers, Laura Pereira, Maria Arce-Plata, Julia Blanchard, Simon Ferrier, Elizabeth Fulton, Mike Harfoot, Forest Isbell, Justin A. Johnson, Akira Mori, Ensheng Weng, Isabel M.D. Rosa
A new approach for representing agent-environment feedbacks: Coupled agent-based and state-and-transition simulation models A new approach for representing agent-environment feedbacks: Coupled agent-based and state-and-transition simulation models
ContextAgent-based models (ABMs) and state-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) have proven useful for understanding processes underlying social-ecological systems and evaluating practical questions about how systems might respond to different scenarios. ABMs can simulate a variety of agents (autonomous units, such as wildlife or people); agent characteristics, decision-making...
Authors
Brian Miller, Leonardo Frid
PS3: The Pheno-Synthesis software suite for integration and analysis of multi-scale, multi-platform phenological data PS3: The Pheno-Synthesis software suite for integration and analysis of multi-scale, multi-platform phenological data
Phenology is the study of recurring plant and animal life-cycle stages which can be observed across spatial and temporal scales that span orders of magnitude (e.g., organisms to landscapes). The variety of scales at which phenological processes operate is reflected in the range of methods for collecting phenologically relevant data, and the programs focused on these collections...
Authors
Jeffrey Morisette, Katharyn Duffy, Jake Weltzin, Dawn Browning, Lee Marsh, Aaron Friesz, Luke Zachmann, Kyle Enns, Vincent Landau, Katharine Gerst, Theresa Crimmins, Katherine Jones, Tony Chang, Brian Miller, Tom Maiersperger, Andrew Richardson
Divergent, plausible, and relevant climate futures for near- and long-term resource planning Divergent, plausible, and relevant climate futures for near- and long-term resource planning
Scenario planning has emerged as a widely used planning process for resource management in situations of consequential, irreducible uncertainty. Because it explicitly incorporates uncertainty, scenario planning is regularly employed in climate change adaptation. An early and essential step in developing scenarios is identifying “climate futures”—descriptions of the physical attributes of...
Authors
David Lawrence, Amber N. Runyon, John Gross, Gregor Schuurman, Brian Miller
Climate change scenario planning for resource stewardship at Wind Cave National Park Climate change scenario planning for resource stewardship at Wind Cave National Park
This report explains scenario planning as a climate change adaptation tool in general, then describes how it was applied to Wind Cave National Park as the second part of a pilot project to dovetail climate change scenario planning with National Park Service (NPS) Resource Stewardship Strategy development. In the orientation phase, Park and regional NPS staff, other subject-matter experts...
Authors
Amber N. Runyon, Gregor Schuurman, Brian Miller, Amy Symstad, Amanda Hardy
It’s complicated…environmental DNA as a predictor of trout and char abundance in streams It’s complicated…environmental DNA as a predictor of trout and char abundance in streams
The potential to provide inferences about fish abundance from environmental (e)DNA samples has generated great interest. However, the accuracy of these abundance estimates is often low and variable across species and space. A plausible refinement is the use of common aquatic habitat monitoring data to account for attributes that influence eDNA dynamics. We therefore evaluated the...
Authors
Adam Sepulveda, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Matthew Laramie, Kyle Crapster, Ladd Knotek, Brian Miller, Alexander Zale, David Pilliod
Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management
Natural resource managers are coping with rapid changes in both environmental conditions and ecosystems. Enabled by recent advances in data collection and assimilation, short-term ecological forecasting may be a powerful tool to help resource managers anticipate impending near-term changes in ecosystem conditions or dynamics. Managers may use the information in forecasts to minimize the...
Authors
John Bradford, Jake Weltzin, Molly McCormick, Jill Baron, Zack Bowen, Sky Bristol, Daren Carlisle, Theresa Crimmins, Paul C. Cross, Joe DeVivo, Mike Dietze, Mary Freeman, Jason Goldberg, Mevin Hooten, Leslie Hsu, Karen Jenni, Jennifer Keisman, Jonathan G. Kennen, Kathy Lee, David Lesmes, Keith Loftin, Brian Miller, Peter Murdoch, Jana Newman, Karen Prentice, Imtiaz Rangwala, Jordan Read, Jennifer Sieracki, Helen Sofaer, Steve Thur, Gordon Toevs, Francisco Werner, C. White, Timothy White, Mark Wiltermuth
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Science Synthesis, Analysis and Research Program, Contaminant Biology, Environmental Health Program, Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) Program, Central Plains Water Science Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Kansas Water Science Center, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Water Science Center, National Wildlife Health Center, New Jersey Water Science Center, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center
Report on the workshop ‘Next Steps in Developing Nature Futures’ Report on the workshop ‘Next Steps in Developing Nature Futures’
The workshop ‘New Narratives for Nature: operationalizing the IPBES Nature Futures Scenarios’ was organised by the IPBES task force on scenarios and models and hosted by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), with support from the research team on “Predicting and Assessing Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services through an Integrated Social-Ecological Systems Approach...
Authors
Machteld Schoolenberg, Sana Okayasu, Rob Alkemade, Amanda Krijgsman, Ana Dutra de Aguiar, Shizuka Hashimoto, Carolyn Lundquist, Laura Pereira, Garry Peterson, Dolors Armenteras, William Cheung, Mariteuw Diaw, America Duran, Maria Gasalla, Ghassen Halouani, Paula Harrisson, Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, HyeJin Kim, Jan Kuiper, Brian W. Miller, Yasuo Takahashi, Ramon Pichs
Do empirical observations support commonly-held climate change range shift hypotheses? A systematic review protocol Do empirical observations support commonly-held climate change range shift hypotheses? A systematic review protocol
Background Among the most widely anticipated climate-related impacts to biodiversity are geographic range shifts, whereby species shift their spatial distribution in response to changing climate conditions. In particular, a series of commonly articulated hypotheses have emerged: species are expected to shift their distributions to higher latitudes, greater elevations, and deeper depths...
Authors
Madeleine Rubenstein, Sarah Weiskopf, Shawn Carter, Mitchell Eaton, Ciara Johnson, Abigail Lynch, Brian Miller, Toni Morelli, Mari Rodriguez, Adam Terando, Laura Thompson
A draft decision framework for the National Park Service Interior Region 5 bison stewardship strategy A draft decision framework for the National Park Service Interior Region 5 bison stewardship strategy
The Department of the Interior Bison Conservation Initiative calls for its bureaus to plan and implement collaborative American bison conservation and to ensure involvement by tribal, state, and local governments and the public in that conservation. Four independently managed and geographically separated National Park Service (NPS) units in Interior Region 5 (IR5) preserve bison and...
Authors
Amy Symstad, Brian Miller, Tanya Shenk, Nicole Athearn, Michael Runge
Non-USGS Publications**
Miller, B. W. 2015. Using geospatial analysis to assess the influence of land-use change and conservation on pastoralist access to drought resources. Nomadic Peoples 19(1): 120-145.
Miller, B. W., Leslie, P. W., McCabe, J. T. 2014. Coping with natural hazards in a conservation context: resource-use decisions of Maasai households during recent and historical drought. Human Ecology 42(5): 753-768.
Miller, B. W., & Doyle, M. W. 2014. Rangeland management and fluvial geomorphology in northern Tanzania. Geomorphology 214: 366-377.
Miller, B. W., Caplow, S. C., Leslie, P. W. 2012. Feedbacks between conservation and social-ecological systems. Conservation Biology 26(2): 218-227.
Miller, B. W., Breckheimer I., McCleary, A. L., Guzmán-Ramirez, L., Caplow, S. C., Jones-Smith, J. C., Walsh, S. J. 2010. Using stylized agent-based models for population-environment research: a case study from the Galápagos Islands. Population and Environment 31(6): 401-426.
Walsh, S. J., Miller, B. W., Breckheimer, I., McCleary, A. L., Guzman-Ramirez, L., Caplow, S. C., Jones-Smith, J. C. 2009. Complexity Theory and Spatial Simulation Models to Assess Population-Environment Interactions in the Galápagos Islands. In: M. Wolff and M. Gardener (eds.), Proceedings of the Galápagos Science Symposium, Charles Darwin Foundation, Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador. Pp 145-148.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 20
Filter Total Items: 62
From flowering to foliage: Accelerometers track tree sway to provide high-resolution insights into tree phenology From flowering to foliage: Accelerometers track tree sway to provide high-resolution insights into tree phenology
Trees are bioindicators of global climate change and regional urbanization, but available monitoring tools are ineffective for fine-scale observation of many species. Using six accelerometers mounted on two urban ash trees (Fraxinus americana), we looked at high-frequency tree vibrations, or change in periodicity of tree sway as a proxy for mass changes, to infer seasonal patterns of...
Authors
Deidre Jaeger, A. Looze, M. Raleigh, Brian Miller, Jonathan Friedman, C. Wessman
Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks
The impacts of climate change (CC) on natural and cultural resources are far-reaching and complex. A major challenge facing resource managers is not knowing the exact timing and nature of those impacts. To confront this problem, scientists, adaptation specialists, and resource managers have begun to use scenario planning (SP). This structured process identifies a small set of scenarios...
Authors
Brian Miller, Gregor Schuurman, Amy Symstad, Amber Runyon, Brecken Robb
Increasing the uptake of ecological model results in policy decisions to improve biodiversity outcomes Increasing the uptake of ecological model results in policy decisions to improve biodiversity outcomes
Models help decision-makers anticipate the consequences of policies for ecosystems and people; for instance, improving our ability to represent interactions between human activities and ecological systems is essential to identify pathways to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, use of modeling outputs in decision-making remains uncommon. We share insights from a...
Authors
Sarah Weiskopf, Zuzana Harmáčková, Ciara Johnson, Maria Londono-Murcia, Brian Miller, Bonnie Myers, Laura Pereira, Maria Arce-Plata, Julia Blanchard, Simon Ferrier, Elizabeth Fulton, Mike Harfoot, Forest Isbell, Justin A. Johnson, Akira Mori, Ensheng Weng, Isabel M.D. Rosa
A new approach for representing agent-environment feedbacks: Coupled agent-based and state-and-transition simulation models A new approach for representing agent-environment feedbacks: Coupled agent-based and state-and-transition simulation models
ContextAgent-based models (ABMs) and state-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) have proven useful for understanding processes underlying social-ecological systems and evaluating practical questions about how systems might respond to different scenarios. ABMs can simulate a variety of agents (autonomous units, such as wildlife or people); agent characteristics, decision-making...
Authors
Brian Miller, Leonardo Frid
PS3: The Pheno-Synthesis software suite for integration and analysis of multi-scale, multi-platform phenological data PS3: The Pheno-Synthesis software suite for integration and analysis of multi-scale, multi-platform phenological data
Phenology is the study of recurring plant and animal life-cycle stages which can be observed across spatial and temporal scales that span orders of magnitude (e.g., organisms to landscapes). The variety of scales at which phenological processes operate is reflected in the range of methods for collecting phenologically relevant data, and the programs focused on these collections...
Authors
Jeffrey Morisette, Katharyn Duffy, Jake Weltzin, Dawn Browning, Lee Marsh, Aaron Friesz, Luke Zachmann, Kyle Enns, Vincent Landau, Katharine Gerst, Theresa Crimmins, Katherine Jones, Tony Chang, Brian Miller, Tom Maiersperger, Andrew Richardson
Divergent, plausible, and relevant climate futures for near- and long-term resource planning Divergent, plausible, and relevant climate futures for near- and long-term resource planning
Scenario planning has emerged as a widely used planning process for resource management in situations of consequential, irreducible uncertainty. Because it explicitly incorporates uncertainty, scenario planning is regularly employed in climate change adaptation. An early and essential step in developing scenarios is identifying “climate futures”—descriptions of the physical attributes of...
Authors
David Lawrence, Amber N. Runyon, John Gross, Gregor Schuurman, Brian Miller
Climate change scenario planning for resource stewardship at Wind Cave National Park Climate change scenario planning for resource stewardship at Wind Cave National Park
This report explains scenario planning as a climate change adaptation tool in general, then describes how it was applied to Wind Cave National Park as the second part of a pilot project to dovetail climate change scenario planning with National Park Service (NPS) Resource Stewardship Strategy development. In the orientation phase, Park and regional NPS staff, other subject-matter experts...
Authors
Amber N. Runyon, Gregor Schuurman, Brian Miller, Amy Symstad, Amanda Hardy
It’s complicated…environmental DNA as a predictor of trout and char abundance in streams It’s complicated…environmental DNA as a predictor of trout and char abundance in streams
The potential to provide inferences about fish abundance from environmental (e)DNA samples has generated great interest. However, the accuracy of these abundance estimates is often low and variable across species and space. A plausible refinement is the use of common aquatic habitat monitoring data to account for attributes that influence eDNA dynamics. We therefore evaluated the...
Authors
Adam Sepulveda, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Matthew Laramie, Kyle Crapster, Ladd Knotek, Brian Miller, Alexander Zale, David Pilliod
Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management
Natural resource managers are coping with rapid changes in both environmental conditions and ecosystems. Enabled by recent advances in data collection and assimilation, short-term ecological forecasting may be a powerful tool to help resource managers anticipate impending near-term changes in ecosystem conditions or dynamics. Managers may use the information in forecasts to minimize the...
Authors
John Bradford, Jake Weltzin, Molly McCormick, Jill Baron, Zack Bowen, Sky Bristol, Daren Carlisle, Theresa Crimmins, Paul C. Cross, Joe DeVivo, Mike Dietze, Mary Freeman, Jason Goldberg, Mevin Hooten, Leslie Hsu, Karen Jenni, Jennifer Keisman, Jonathan G. Kennen, Kathy Lee, David Lesmes, Keith Loftin, Brian Miller, Peter Murdoch, Jana Newman, Karen Prentice, Imtiaz Rangwala, Jordan Read, Jennifer Sieracki, Helen Sofaer, Steve Thur, Gordon Toevs, Francisco Werner, C. White, Timothy White, Mark Wiltermuth
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Water Resources Mission Area, Science Synthesis, Analysis and Research Program, Contaminant Biology, Environmental Health Program, Science Analytics and Synthesis (SAS) Program, Central Plains Water Science Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Kansas Water Science Center, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Water Science Center, National Wildlife Health Center, New Jersey Water Science Center, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center
Report on the workshop ‘Next Steps in Developing Nature Futures’ Report on the workshop ‘Next Steps in Developing Nature Futures’
The workshop ‘New Narratives for Nature: operationalizing the IPBES Nature Futures Scenarios’ was organised by the IPBES task force on scenarios and models and hosted by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), with support from the research team on “Predicting and Assessing Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services through an Integrated Social-Ecological Systems Approach...
Authors
Machteld Schoolenberg, Sana Okayasu, Rob Alkemade, Amanda Krijgsman, Ana Dutra de Aguiar, Shizuka Hashimoto, Carolyn Lundquist, Laura Pereira, Garry Peterson, Dolors Armenteras, William Cheung, Mariteuw Diaw, America Duran, Maria Gasalla, Ghassen Halouani, Paula Harrisson, Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, HyeJin Kim, Jan Kuiper, Brian W. Miller, Yasuo Takahashi, Ramon Pichs
Do empirical observations support commonly-held climate change range shift hypotheses? A systematic review protocol Do empirical observations support commonly-held climate change range shift hypotheses? A systematic review protocol
Background Among the most widely anticipated climate-related impacts to biodiversity are geographic range shifts, whereby species shift their spatial distribution in response to changing climate conditions. In particular, a series of commonly articulated hypotheses have emerged: species are expected to shift their distributions to higher latitudes, greater elevations, and deeper depths...
Authors
Madeleine Rubenstein, Sarah Weiskopf, Shawn Carter, Mitchell Eaton, Ciara Johnson, Abigail Lynch, Brian Miller, Toni Morelli, Mari Rodriguez, Adam Terando, Laura Thompson
A draft decision framework for the National Park Service Interior Region 5 bison stewardship strategy A draft decision framework for the National Park Service Interior Region 5 bison stewardship strategy
The Department of the Interior Bison Conservation Initiative calls for its bureaus to plan and implement collaborative American bison conservation and to ensure involvement by tribal, state, and local governments and the public in that conservation. Four independently managed and geographically separated National Park Service (NPS) units in Interior Region 5 (IR5) preserve bison and...
Authors
Amy Symstad, Brian Miller, Tanya Shenk, Nicole Athearn, Michael Runge
Non-USGS Publications**
Miller, B. W. 2015. Using geospatial analysis to assess the influence of land-use change and conservation on pastoralist access to drought resources. Nomadic Peoples 19(1): 120-145.
Miller, B. W., Leslie, P. W., McCabe, J. T. 2014. Coping with natural hazards in a conservation context: resource-use decisions of Maasai households during recent and historical drought. Human Ecology 42(5): 753-768.
Miller, B. W., & Doyle, M. W. 2014. Rangeland management and fluvial geomorphology in northern Tanzania. Geomorphology 214: 366-377.
Miller, B. W., Caplow, S. C., Leslie, P. W. 2012. Feedbacks between conservation and social-ecological systems. Conservation Biology 26(2): 218-227.
Miller, B. W., Breckheimer I., McCleary, A. L., Guzmán-Ramirez, L., Caplow, S. C., Jones-Smith, J. C., Walsh, S. J. 2010. Using stylized agent-based models for population-environment research: a case study from the Galápagos Islands. Population and Environment 31(6): 401-426.
Walsh, S. J., Miller, B. W., Breckheimer, I., McCleary, A. L., Guzman-Ramirez, L., Caplow, S. C., Jones-Smith, J. C. 2009. Complexity Theory and Spatial Simulation Models to Assess Population-Environment Interactions in the Galápagos Islands. In: M. Wolff and M. Gardener (eds.), Proceedings of the Galápagos Science Symposium, Charles Darwin Foundation, Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador. Pp 145-148.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.