HR: 10:50h
AN: GC12A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Assessing the Uncertainty of Future Climate Change Impacts on Terrestrial Wildlife Habitats
AU: * Joyce, L A
EM: ljoyce@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA FS Rocky Mountain Research Station, 240 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, United States
AU: Flather, C H
EM: cflather@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA FS Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2150 Centre, Fort Collins, CO 80526, United States
AU: Koopman, M
EM: marnikoopman@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA FS Rocky Mountain Research Station, 240 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, United States
AU: Coulson, D P
EM: dpcoulson@fs.fed.us
AF: Anadarko Industries, 240 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, United States
AU: Knowles, M
EM: mknowles@fs.fed.us
AF: Anadarko Industries, 240 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, United States
AB: The consensus about climate change among scientists is that the global climate is now undergoing a period of rapid change. Because the wildlife management paradigm in the United States places primary responsibility of wildlife resources with individual states, state agencies are in need of information on the magnitude of projected climate change impacts on wildlife habitat and tenable options for ameliorating those impacts. Our research develops that information through reviews of the climate change literature and the State Wildlife Action Plans, and a series of empirical studies that quantify the biodiversity risk associated with changes in wildlife habitat (based on projections from global climate models and dynamic vegetation models). Our index of biodiversity risk attributable to climate change includes climate stress (temperature, precipitation), habitat type and area shifts, changes in habitat quality (via productivity estimates), and proportions of terrestrial vertebrates that are of conservation concern. The index will be used identify ‘hot spots' by ranking areas across the US from high to low biodiversity risk. One of the challenges with addressing the potential climate change impacts on habitat is incorporating an understanding of the uncertainty from the analyses into consequent recommendations. We assess uncertainty by using several climate change projections of temperature, precipitation, productivity and habitat area and developing a synthetic index across these projections, including their variance. The results indicate areas of greatest stress across the US and where variance of the index is minimal, some agreement across the metrics. Using this synthetic index, we identify selected "hotspots" of risk where habitat types and associated wildlife species are at greatest risk from climate change impacts. At this finer scale, we will add to our index the impact of current wildlife movement constraints (land use and cover). From this analysis, we will identify proposed management prescriptions for habitats that have been established in the published literature and compare them with proposed management actions identified in the Wildlife Action Plans. Finally, we will make recommendations to modify proposed actions or identify additional management options that will help minimize climate change impacts to habitat and species.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 1626 Global climate models (3337, 4928)
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting