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USGS Releases Two New Reports on Identification of Sensitive Ecosystems in the Southeast

August 15, 2016

Montane grass and heath bald. Alan Cressler
Montane grass and heath bald. Alan Cressler

The USGS released two reports on August 11th, stemming from a project backed by the Southeast Climate Science Center. The project, Assessing climate-sensitive ecosystems in the southeastern United States, was a cross-collaborative effort between all six southeast Landscape Conservation Cooperativess, and was led by Dr. Jaime Collazo and Dr. William J. Wolfe.
Photo: Adam Cressler

These two new reports represent the culmination of the project’s main objectives, identifying a number of important considerations, including potential for changes in hydrology, disturbance regimes, and interspecies interactions, across 19 diverse ecosystems. By highlighting key gaps in scientific understanding and suggesting priorities for future research, these studies help create a foundation for ecosystem-level analysis of climate-change vulnerability to support effective biodiversity conservation in the southeastern United States.
In the words of Jennifer Costanza, SECSC PI and lead author of the first report,
“From the mountains to the coast, the southeastern U.S. contains ecosystems that harbor incredible biodiversity. Many of those ecosystems are already highly at risk from urbanization and other human land-use change. Identifying the ecosystems at risk from climate change will help inform conservation and management to ensure we don’t lose that biodiversity.”

View Products:

[column col=”1/3″]Factsheet 1 [/column][column col=”1/3″]First Report 1 [/column][column col=”1/3″]Second Report 2 [/column]

Media Coverage:
ClimateWire:  http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060041586
Yubanet: http://yubanet.com/enviro/ecosystems-in-the-southeastern-u-s-are-vulnerable-to-climate-change/
Eureka Alert: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-08/ugs-eit081116.php
Circle of Blue: http://www.circleofblue.org/2016/federal-water-tap/federal-water-tap-august-15-u-s-district-court-upholds-carbon-accounting-rules/Ecological Society of America Policy News: http://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-policy/august-24-2016-2/