Science Projects by Science Theme

The SE CASC develops and delivers science-based information to support adaptation decisions by natural and cultural resource managers. In the southeastern United States, our management partners consist primarily of US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and state and Tribal fish and wildlife agencies faced with the impacts of changing climate and land use in the region.

• SE CASC Science Priority 1 – Improve partner understanding of what climate and land use change processes and associated biophysical stressors will look like on the land and water they manage. [Exposure]
• SE CASC Science Priority 2 – Improve partner understanding of ecosystem, habitat, and species impacts of climate and land use change, as well as the understanding of how these changes affect resources of specific concern to resource managers. [Impacts]
• SE CASC Science Priority 3 – Increase partner understanding of, and access to, practical guidance for framing and making smart climate and land use change adaptation decisions. [Adaptation]

Foundational Science area-exposure

Characterizing Climate Change Impacts on Species Ecology to Support Species Status Assessments

In order to inform decisions under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been generating Species Status Assessments (SSA) since 2016. This project aims to provide technical support to SSA teams on the ecology-climate change interactions for a species using the best available science for both the species ecology and the climate information. Reports attempt to capture both the direct and indirect impacts of climate on species ecology.

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Clarifying Science Needs for Southeastern Grasslands

Extensive agriculture, urbanization, and fire suppression have reduced the Southeast\u2019s grasslands by approximately 90% and climate change will impose additional stress on this diverse grassland ecosystem. This project will produce a report that specifies types of data and analysis most needed to help grassland managers restore, conserve, and manage these ecosystems into the future.

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Developing Future Habitat Condition Scenarios for Wildlife in the Imperiled Pine Rockland Ecosystem of South Florida

The pine rockland ecosystem is home to many endangered species, as this area is vulnerable to saltwater intrusion from hurricanes and sea-level rise. Researchers will identify potential future changes in habitat for the rock crowned snake and the key ringneck snake that could result from different management actions and environmental conditions. They will then explore the potential impacts of these habitat condition changes on the species.

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Estimating Future Water Availability and Streamflow in the Southeast

This research developed a method to group watersheds that are gaged with watersheds that are not gaged so that accurate estimates of water availability can be provided regionally. To accomplish this, various models, techniques, and data were used to group watersheds across the southeastern United States.

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Development of the Global Change Monitoring Portal: A Tool for Providing Resource Managers with Global Change Monitoring Data Across the Southeast

This database centralizes and provides access to information about observational networks that collect abiotic or biotic data to monitor the effects of global change processes, such as climate and land use change, on important air, land, and water resources. Users can search for programs and measurement sites by measurement type or geographic criteria.

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Downscaling Climate Projections to Understand Future Temperature and Precipitation Patterns in the Southeast

This project generated a series of datasets that provide projections of climate change at appropriate spatial scales to directly address specific management questions. These climate change projections are the result of downscaling output from global climate models (GCMs) and the datasets include projections of daily temperature and precipitation, in addition to climate variables such as surface winds, humidity, and solar radiation that are needed in hydrologic and ecological modeling.

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Modeling Future Temperature and Precipitation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean

This research project developed a suite of dynamically downscaled, nonhydrostatic climate model projections for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Caribbean region to fill a need for climate change information. The framework provides a unique opportunity to examine climate change impacts on island ecosystems in a region of the global tropics with a highly dynamic climate regime. Research enabled future estimates of likely deviations from known ranges of species\u2019 thermal/moisture optima.

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Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): Assessing Global Change Impacts on Natural and Human Systems in the Southeast

SERAP converted a suite of global models into regional climate projections and developed landscape change datasets that can be used to project the likely changes to the Southeast\u2019s climate and ecosystems. This large-scale project included elements such as downscaling climate projections, estimating relative sea level rise, and assessing impacts on terrestrial and aquatic species as a result of changing habitat.

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Evaluating The Use of Models for Projecting Future Water Flow in the Southeast

The goals of this project were to assess the needs to ecologists in the Southeast for downscaled climate projections, synthesize the information available, and evaluate a selection of downscaled climate projections based upon the needs of the ecological community in the Southeast. The project produced a guide that provides scientific information and guidance to enable resource managers and others to make science-based climate change adaptation decisions.

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Developing Long-Term Urbanization Scenarios for the Appalachian and Gulf Coastal Plain and Ozarks LCCs as Part of the Southeast Regional Assessment Project

Traditional urban growth models are very localized and data-intensive and lack the capability to be applied across large regions, in response to these limitations the North Carolina Cooperative Research Unit began using the USGS SLEUTH urban growth model to develop urbanization scenarios as part of the Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP).

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Evaluating Downscaled Climate Models for Projecting Future Changes in the Southeast

The goals of this project were to assess the needs of ecologists in the Southeast U.S. for downscaled climate projections, synthesize the information available, and evaluate a selection of downscaled climate projections based upon the needs of the ecological community in the Southeast.

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Developing Long-Term Urbanization Scenarios for the Caribbean LCC as Part of the Southeast Regional Assessment Project

This project extends the long-term urbanization modeling already undertaken for the South Atlantic, Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks, and Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperatives as part of SERAP into the footprint of the Caribbean LCC.

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Foundational Science Area-Impacts

Climate Impacts on Rare-plant Biodiversity in the Southeastern U.S.

The goal of the proposed project is to provide rapid, preliminary summaries of climate impacts information for a subset of R-SGCN plants and their habitats. This information is needed by SWAP coordinators and authors of SWAP revisions to meet their objective of using best-available science to support the evaluation and conservation of SGCN. Secondarily, this information may help inform SSAs that are conducted by USFWS for rare, threatened, and endangered plant species.

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Integrating Sea Level Rise Scenarios into Everglades Restoration Planning

This project will work with stakeholders from multiple agencies to (1) identify the restoration questions that need to consider sea level rise,
(2) provide information on how to choose scenarios most relevant to each unique project, and (3) provide the methodology to incorporate chosen sea level rise scenarios into the current planning processes through ecological models. Incorporating sea level rise scenarios into Everglades restoration project planning will better determine whether projects will maintain or improve the Everglades’ ecological integrity.

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Assessment of Water Availability and Streamflow Characteristics in the Southeastern U.S.

To effectively plan for and adapt to future climate and land cover conditions, managers require information on streamflow variability that is gathered from stream gauges. Not every stream has a gage, so hydrologic models can be used to provide estimates of streamflow characteristics. This project will use a modeling approach that will provide more accurate estimates of water availability for all watersheds in the southeastern United States under current and potential climate and land cover conditions.

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Improving Scenarios of Future Patterns of Urbanization, Climate Adaptation, and Landscape Change in the Southeast

This project will build on prior efforts to develop more comprehensive scenarios of future urbanization patterns in the Southeast. The scenarios will consider the increasing redistribution of people from coastal and low-lying areas as they become more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the existing migration flows from other parts of the country into the Southeast.

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Understanding Prescribed Fire Management in the Context of Climate Change and Landscape Transformation

The ability of fire managers to use prescribed fire as a management tool is complicated in the Southeast because of rapid population growth, extensive suburban development, and a changing climate. This project will collect and analyze data from prescribed fire managers across the full historic range of longleaf pine in the Southeast, focusing on the criteria used for prioritizing burn sites within a management unit, current burning practices and restrictions, and expectations for future changes in burning restrictions.

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Science to Inform the Management of Mangrove Ecosystems Undergoing Sea Level Rise at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge

This project will study and forecast future impacts to the mangrove wetlands in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Florida by tracking surface elevation change and responses to sea level rise. Researchers will utilize a process called nutrient loading in which nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, will be added to patches of mangrove forests currently undergoing sea level rise to simulate the eutrophication projected to occur.

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Understanding Impacts on Southeastern Grasslands from Climate Change, Urban Expansion, and Invasive Species

Project researchers convened a workshop with grassland managers and experts from across the Southeast to identify the most pressing science needs to effectively manage and restore grasslands over the coming decades. This project will directly addresses those needs by examining how climate change, invasive species, urbanization, and changing fire dynamics will affect management options, constraints, and opportunities within these ecosystems.

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Impacts of sea level rise and associated salinity changes on at-risk native freshwater mussels and their habitats in Atlantic coastal rivers

This study will assess the vulnerability of the Tidewater Mucket (Leptodea ochracea) by conducting standard sensitivity tests with early life stages of the mussel under controlled laboratory conditions. Researchers will determine the potential effects of natural riverine salinity gradients on adult mussels and develop a risk-based scenario of mussel salinity tolerances in existing occupied habitats by incorporating predictions in sea level rise and projected salinity ranges.

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Analysis and Visualization of Climate Information to Support USFWS Species Status Assessments

This project will develop and test data products that will assist USFWS biologists in their efforts to incorporate climate information into SSAs, including how the climate factors and thresholds that most affect species vary year-to-year, how they are expected to change in the future, and the uncertainties associated with those changes. Researchers will also develop and test the efficacy of using a web-based collection of maps and data layers for interpreting climate vulnerability of wildlife and their habitats.

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Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies

Changing climate conditions could have significant impacts on wildlife health. The goal of this project is to review and synthesize existing information on the impacts of climate change on fish and wildlife health across North America. Researchers will develop a searchable database containing this information, and will use that database to identify gaps in knowledge and unique areas of concern.

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Effects of Urbanization on the Conservation Value of Forests

As urbanized areas expand, they encroach on preserved areas and divide forests into smaller fragments. Forests located next to cities are exposed to high temperatures, pollution, pests, and invasive plants that threaten forest health. However, urban forests support diverse plant and animal life, and could play an increasingly important role in conservation as urbanization continues. This project will synthesize information on how higher temperatures and pollution affect urban forest habitat quality, identify knowledge gaps that impede forest management, and propose future research directions to fill those gaps.

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Communicating Future Sea-Level Rise Scenarios for Gulf Coast National Wildlife Refuge and National Park Lands

Low-lying public lands along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast are vulnerable to sea-level rise. Coastal planners in the region have requested customized information that can concisely communicate the risks. In this project, researchers will develop fact sheets outlining potential sea-level rise scenarios for the region and the potential impacts of these varying amounts of sea-level rise on the missions of national wildlife refuge and national park lands.

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The Vulnerability of Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches to Climate Change in the Southeast

The goal of this project was to produce a vulnerability assessment of coastal habitats representing important nesting grounds for loggerhead and other endangered sea turtles (e.g. Kemp’s ridleys, green turtles, and leatherbacks). It built upon work already being done to develop vulnerability maps under a number of current and future climate scenarios. These maps will provide management guidance and will serve to identify knowledge and data gaps as primary sources of uncertainty.

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Consequences of Urbanization and Climate Change on Human and Ecosystem Health

This project will investigate how tree selection at the local scale affects biodiversity and ecosystem services. Expanding to the regional scale, the study will determine the extent to which trees in cities can be used to predict heat-related threats to rural forests. Ongoing investigations of heat-related stress and pest outbreaks in urban and rural forests will be used to develop management recommendations for both systems. A working group will assess how urban environmental changes and tree cover affect human behavior and health.

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Integrating the Effects of Global and Local Climate Change on Wildlife in North America

We sought to understand the effect of global warming on both beneficial and pest insects of trees. We used urban warming as a proxy for global warming in as much as many cities have already warmed as much, due to heat island effects, as they are expected to warm due to climate change by 2050 or even 2100. We were able to develop good predictive models of how warming influences beneficial and pest insects for cities in the Southeast and across the east coast more generally.

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Forests of the Future: Integrated Assessment of Climate Change and Ecosystem Diversity

Estimates of extinction rates and population losses attributable to climate change are often based on studies of modeled biogeographic distributions, which rely on simple relationships between present-day distributions of species and climate variables to estimate distributions of species under future climate. This work built upon the longest-running, largest-scale forest warming experiment in the world to synthetically consider the effects of warming on diverse taxonomic and functional groups, from fungi and bacteria to herbivores and plant pathogens.

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Tree Eaters: Predicting the Response of Herbivores to the Integrated Effects of Urban and Global Change

This project used urban warming as a proxy for global warming to develop predictive models of how warming influences beneficial and pest insects for cities in the Southeast and across the east coast more generally. The investigators were also able to predict how tree health will respond to these changes in insect communities. Comparing project results to those garnered from herbarium specimens (many insects can be found on herbarium specimens) showed that the effects of urban warming match those of climate change through time.

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Impact of Ocean Warming and Acidification on Growth of Reef-Building Corals

This study identified differences in climate vulnerability among three important reef-building coral species. Coral cores were used to examine variability in ocean temperature and coral growth over the past century. This work was a part of a larger effort to investigate the response of corals to changing ocean conditions in the Florida/Caribbean region and inform resource management decisions regarding reef restoration and species protection policies.

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Ecological Implications of Mangrove Forest Migration in the Southeastern United States

The potential ecological impacts of mangrove forest migration and salt marsh displacement range from important biotic impacts (e.g., coastal fisheries, land bird migration; colonial-nesting wading birds) to ecosystem stability (e.g., response to sea-level rise and drought; habitat loss; coastal protection) to biogeochemical processes (e.g., carbon storage; water quality). This research specifically investigated the impact of mangrove forest migration on coastal wetland soil processes and the consequent implications for coastal wetland responses to sea-level rise and carbon storage.

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Understanding Habitat Connectivity to Inform Conservation Decisions

This project investigated the most common recommended strategy to protect wildlife as climate changes, which is to connect their habitats in order to provide species safe passage as their ranges shift. In partnership with South Atlantic LCC, current and projected connectivity for three species (black bear, Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, timber rattlesnake) that inhabit bottomland hardwoods throughout the southeastern US was assessed. Results show that climate change is likely to decrease connectivity overall in a species-specific manner and may vary by geographic region.

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Gulf of Mexico Avian Monitoring Network: A Forum to Facilitate Integrated and Complementary Data Collection for Avian Populations and Their Habitats

This project is designed to coordinate the broad range of partners and stakeholders across diverse Gulf ecosystems to successfully design and implement a Gulf-wide avian monitoring program, as well as to provide a basis to judge success of Gulf restoration efforts after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Conservation partners representing 20 organizations are working to identify and agree upon a set of core values and fundamental objectives for avian monitoring needs within the Gulf of Mexico.

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Foundational Science Area-Adaptation

Future of Aquatic Flows: Exploring Changes in the Freshwater/Saltwater Interface and Related Impacts to Aquatic Species

This project will inform resource managers on the development of management plans that protect coastal ecosystems and species while accounting for changes in freshwater availability under climate uncertainty. Results will provide actionable information to develop metrics for enhancing coastal resiliency.

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Advancing Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Sensitive Amphibian Species in the U.S. Caribbean

Amphibians in the U.S. Caribbean may be particularly vulnerable to human-caused climate change. This project will identify areas in Puerto Rico that will provide suitable habitat for the most sensitive coqui species, or that could serve as climate change refugia, i.e. habitats that are expected to warm or dry at slower rates than the surrounding region. Second, this project will identify habitats that could be suitable in the future for the endangered plains coqui (E. juanariveroi) to support recovery efforts by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners.

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Improving Support for Regional Conservation Efforts in the Region Managed by the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

This project proposes to address the primary gap in knowledge around viability of regional responses to wildlife conservation initiatives by surveying state agency leadership (at the division chief level) and field biologists from across the SEAFWA states. The research team will address three questions. First, this project will measure which elements of wildlife conservation respondents are willing to engage in at a regional level, and how much they are willing to push for a regional response for each element.  Second, this project will ask respondents what assistance is most valuable for developing regional responses. Third, this project will ask participants to list perceived costs (e.g., interfering with long term data collection for indices) and benefits (e.g., leveraging resources across state borders) associated with regional planning for each element. 

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Developing a Cave Conservation Management Toolbox by Exploring Cave Microclimates and Biodiversity Patterns

The project will bring together scientists and managers from federal, state, and non-governmental organizations across nine southeastern states to perform underground surveys of cave climates and cave-dwelling species. his project will also measure how much cave climates vary between caves under dense forests and caves under lands where forests have been removed. Using insights from new surveys and previously published studies, the team will create a toolbox of possible management actions for conserving cave ecosystems and cave-dwelling species threatened by climate change. 

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Examining Diverse Management Objectives and Broadening Stakeholder Engagement for Climate Adaptation Planning of Historic Structures Within the National Park System

As sea level rise and storm-related flooding and erosion threaten our nation’s cultural heritage, there is a critical need to ensure that climate change adaptation decisions, including what cultural resources will be “let go”, are transparent and informed by the opinion of people whose heritage is tied to those resources. This project aims to enhance an existing decision support framework that supports adaptation planning by the National Park Service at coastal parks. The researchers of this project will focus particularly on Cape Lookout National Seashore.

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Water, Water Everywhere: Adapting Water Control Operations and Floodplain Conservation Planning to Global Change

This project will examine an ongoing collaboration in North Carolina’s Roanoke River basin, a flagship example of conservation in action. Using the Roanoke watershed as a case study, the project team will develop transferable products that can be adapted and applied across river basins.  These products will greatly benefit management decision making and support environmental management initiatives such as land acquisition, land management, and restoration work and water management, as well as support the National SRP process. 

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The Future of Culturally Important Species in North America

Global change is leading to major shifts in the abundance, distribution, and life history of culturally important species to the Indigenous peoples of North America. Using an approach known as climate-analogue mapping, researchers will forecast potential future climate conditions for tribal lands. The team will then conduct a tribal needs assessment listening session to determine which species and phenomena should be studied, at what scale should they be studied, and what management decisions would be most relevant.

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Informing Climate-adaptive Forest Management for Breeding Bird Habitat in the Southern Appalachians

The research team will co-design management scenarios with partners and stakeholders. These forecasts and maps will allow partners to improve their long-term planning by estimating direct and indirect threats to birds under climate change, quantifying the potential for interventions to mitigate those threats, and identifying areas to prioritize for management. 

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Ecosystem Services Mapping Datasets

The objective of this project is to map the supply of ecosystem services (where natural ecosystems have the capacity to provide a certain product or service that could be of use to people) and the demand for those services (where people or other entities that use the product or service exist) at the landscape level across the southeastern United States. The target areas can be used to identify where conservation of natural areas is particularly important to maintain ecosystem services and to communicate with the public by illustrating the local benefits of natural ecosystems.

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Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore

Gulf Islands National Seashore is primarily comprised of barrier islands and faces immediate challenges in managing natural and cultural resources due to these processes. Researchers will implement an existing framework designed to make effective resource adaptation decisions under budget constraints, evaluate the science-based information needs related to sediment dynamics in the region, and explore paths forward for addressing these needs.

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Identifying the Ecological and Management Implications of Mangrove Migration in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Coastal wetland managers need information and tools that will enable them to forecast the ecological impacts mangrove migration. Researchers will leverage a community-curated data network called the Mangrove Migration Network to examine damage and mortality temperature thresholds for several mangrove species that are common to the region. The results of this effort will help land managers better understand what is happening on the lands they manage, and evaluate alternative restoration activities that involve migrating mangroves.

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Informing Management of Waterfowl Harvest in a Changing Climate

This project will lay the theoretical groundwork for incorporating climate change projections into the current adaptive harvest management frameworks used to set U.S. hunting regulations for North American waterfowl. The project team will develop an optimization tool that will allow resource managers to evaluate the potential costs of continuing to use existing models to inform hunting regulations despite evidence of climate change effects on populations.

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Facilitating Accurate and Effective Application of Coastal Marsh Models

This project aims to initiate a paradigm shift in the approach and interpretation of coastal marsh models to enhance natural resource management. Researchers will develop an agreed- upon method for comparing the model outputs to each other and to historical data, generate a common dataset of model inputs, and deliver guidance to managers on how best to utilize the existing marsh tools to inform land management decisions.

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Best Practices for Project Design: Effectively Addressing Natural Resource Management Needs

Previous evaluation studies of actionable science for natural resource management focused on qualitative approaches that are difficult to scale. This project will emphasize quantitative approaches suitable for evaluating larger numbers of projects. Assessment will be based on two criteria: how useful project results are for natural resource managers, and to what degree they advance scientific understanding.

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Strategic Habitat Conservation and Adaptive Strategies for the Conservation of Coqui Frogs in Puerto Rico

This project will characterize the ability of the three representative species, plus the endangered E. juanriveroi, to cope with environmental stresses using a combination of laboratory and field experiments. Researchers will map the genetic structure of these species to learn about connections between different populations and identify centers of genetic diversity and assist agencies in the development of conservation strategies.

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Climate Change Implications for the Conservation of Amphibians in Tropical Environments

Investigators are collecting occupancy data for several amphibian species to quantify the effects of climate on the distribution and persistence of several amphibian species and to serve as ecological input for an optimal decision-making framework for a habitat conservation strategy that ensures the long-term persistence of amphibians and reptiles in Puerto Rico in the advent of climate change.

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Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions

One of the most pervasive problems facing natural resource managers and science communicators is the existence of numerous social and ecological uncertainties. The objective of this project was to provide a synthesis of information that will have practical use as decision support for conservation practitioners and decision makers at various administrative levels.

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Structured Decision Making as a Tool for Coastal Restoration: A Case Study on Ship Island, Mississippi

Under the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program, the US Army Corps of Engineers placed up to 22 million cubic yards of sand to restore the physical integrity of Ship Island. Structured decision making (SDM) was utilized to provide a formal process for analyzing decisions about repairing storm-related damages that may arise during island construction to maximize post-construction sustainability of the restoration effort.

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Protecting Cultural Resources in the Face of Climate Change

Coastal cultural resource management into local and regional decision contexts for climate change planning were the focus of this project. Values-based decision processes that enable evaluations of the vulnerability and uniqueness of resources on a landscape facilitated the prioritization of specific cultural resource management actions. Structured decision-making with the National Park Service (“NPS”) and other key stakeholders were used to assist NPS managers in assessing strategies for managing cultural resources within Portsmouth Village and Lookout Village at Cape Lookout National Seashore.

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Identifying Conservation Objectives for the Gulf Coast Habitats of the Black Skimmer and Gull-billed Tern

Research focused on the Black Skimmer and Gull-billed Tern, two species identified as representative of sustainable gulf habitats and designated as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Species of Conservation Concern and Gulf Coast Joint Venture Priority Species. These two birds are beach and barrier-island nesting birds whose nesting habitats are threatened by sea-level rise. Statistical models linked each bird’s population abundance to habitat characteristics that could be influenced by different management actions and will use this information to identify conservation objectives under different conservation scenarios.

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Enhancing the Adaptive Capacity of Coastal Wetlands in the Face of Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Development

In a recent study, we identified areas where coastal wetlands may adapt via landward migration along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, one of the most sea-level rise sensitive and wetland-rich regions of the world. Here, we will follow-up on that work and produce customized landscape conservation-design products focused on landward migration corridors for coastal wetlands. In broad terms, the aim of the proposed work is to provide scientific information that can be used by environmental managers to enhance the adaptive capacity of coastal wetlands in the face of sea-level rise and coastal development.

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Turning the Science of Connectivity into Action: Finding Model Consistency and Identifying Priority Habitats for Conservation

Habitat loss and fragmentation decrease the amount of suitable habitat available to wildlife species, divide wildlife populations and reduce genetic diversity, and interrupt important migration patterns. Maintaining connectivity between habitats and wildlife populations will be a key management strategy for conserving biodiversity in the Southeast into the future. This project will build on previous work to assess which connections are most important for management actions in the face of climate change.

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Providing Science for the Conservation of Animals in the Southeastern Longleaf Pine Ecosystem

The longleaf pine ecosystem supports several animal species that are a priority to be reviewed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to determine if they are threatened or endangered due to losses or changes in habitat. This project will build on studies related to the gopher tortoise that are already underway by the USGS and will engage collaborations with other partners conducting species assessments to identify conservation actions expected to improve the status of these five priority at-risk species.

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Vital Futures: Conservation Adaptation Planning for Landscape and Climate Change in the Southeast

This project will directly support the development of a Southeastern Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) by assessing the implications of climate change and other drivers of landscape change for existing conservation goals and management objectives. The Southeast is currently undergoing high rates of population growth, urbanization, and land use change and is expected to experience future changes in climate which will add to the above impacts on threatened species, wildlife communities, and habitats.

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Climate Change Adaptation for Coastal National Wildlife Refuges

The SE CASC partnered with the South Carolina Low-Country Wildlife Refuge Complex to engage with local communities, agencies, and organizations to understand shared values and interests, strategies to adapt to current and future changes, and areas of collaboration or possible conflict as stakeholders act to influence their futures. Project goals focused on the production of science, futures for communication, and contributing to the greater understanding and collaborative decision making among those that benefit from and value Cape Romain and the surrounding area.

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Development of a SECAS Conservation Decision Guidance Library

A priority of the SE CASC is to support the planning and implementation of a Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS). This project examined the decision-making context, decision-making process, and management planning associated with the restoration of open pine ecosystems in the Southeast. To better understand the planning practice associated with this system, we assessed the quality of 35 management plans from federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies.

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Understanding Conservation Management Decisions in the Face of Sea-Level Rise Along the U.S. Atlantic Coast

As custodians of ecological goods and services valued by society, coastal National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) have an especially important role to play in helping socio-ecological systems adapt to global-change processes. To help refuges address this challenge, we articulated a two-track decision problem faced by coastal refuge managers.

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Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation

The goal of this project was to develop a decision support system for the iterative selection of conservation actions that leads to a viable landscape supporting the statewide gopher tortoise population and associated species and communities of interest. This work resulted in an integrated system of databases, computer algorithms, and monitoring designs that provides a mostly automated process for decision making under uncertainty and for acquiring information to reduce uncertainty.

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Understanding Habitat Connectivity to Inform Conservation Decisions

This project investigated the most common recommended strategy to protect wildlife as climate changes, which is to connect their habitats in order to provide species safe passage as their ranges shift. In partnership with South Atlantic LCC, current and projected connectivity for three species (black bear, Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, timber rattlesnake) in the southeastern US were assessed. Results show that climate change is likely to decrease connectivity overall in a species-specific manner and may vary by geographic region.

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Dynamic Reserve Design: Informing the Identification of High-Priority Lands for the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge Considering Future Climate and Urbanization

Reserve design is a process that must address many ecological, social, and political factors to successfully identify parcels of land in need of protection to sustain wildlife populations and other natural resources. This study combined a structured decision making framework, optimal solution theory, and output from urbanization models that provide forecasts of population growth that might be expected due to climate change to design optimal configurations for the refuge and help FWS in land acquisition prioritization.

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A Handbook for Resource Managers to Understand and Utilize Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Wetland Models

This project produced a synthesis of the tools and models that have been developed for projecting sea-level rise and its impact on coastal habitats and wildlife. The handbook is designed to be a primer to understanding sea-level rise and a practical synthesis of the current state of knowledge and modeling tools, as a resource guide for coastal land managers, engineers, and scientists.

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