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FY2014Although the future of sage grouse depends on the future of sagebrush, we have limited ability to anticipate impacts of climate change on sagebrush populations. Current efforts to forecast sagebrush habitat typically rely on species distribution models (SDMs), which suffer from a variety of well-known weaknesses. However, by integrating SDMs with complementary research approaches, such as historical data analysis and mechanistic models, we can provide increased confidence in projections of habitat change. Our goal is to forecast the effect of climate change on the distribution and abundance of big sagebrush in order to inform conservation planning, and sage grouse management in particular, across the Intermountain...
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We will apply indices of sagebrush ecological integrity, developed by WAFWA, to hierarchical population models of sage-grouse population rates of change over multiple decades to facilitate comprehensive understanding of the links between sagebrush ecosystem health and sagebrush obligate species from the lens of the Conservation Design Strategy. This research will investigate application of core area habitat concepts as it relates to sage-grouse population performance to manage lands within the sagebrush biome. The analysis framework and science deliverables developed from this study can be used as a basis to investigate the population performance of additional species of concern, beyond sage-grouse, in relation...
A number of modeling approaches have been developed to predict the impacts of climate change on species distributions, performance and abundance. The stronger the agreement from models that represent different processes and are based on distinct and independent sources of information, the greater the confidence we can have in their predictions. Evaluating the level of confidence is particularly important when predictions are used to guide conservation or restoration decisions. We used a multi-model approach to predict climate change impacts on big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), the dominant plant species on roughly 43 million hectares in the western United States and a key resource for many endemic wildlife species....
Understanding how annual climate variation affects population growth rates across a species’ range may help us anticipate the effects of climate change on species distribution and abundance. We predict that populations in warmer or wetter parts of a species’ range should respond negatively to periods of above average temperature or precipitation, respectively, whereas populations in colder or drier areas should respond positively to periods of above average temperature or precipitation. To test this, we estimated the population sensitivity of a common shrub species, big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), to annual climate variation across its range. Our analysis includes 8175 observations of year-to-year change in...
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Sagebrush ecosystems continue to undergo widespread degradation due partly to climate change and human development. Effective management must consider how to best conserve and restore habitats to balance support for multiple declining species given finite resources. However, limited tools exist to help address such management questions, especially when also considering how to rapidly restore sagebrush habitats. There is a need for such tools to help guide conservation efforts and ensure they are effective at meeting desired outcomes and goals.We will develop optimization problems based on species abundance, habitat features, predicted future risk (invasive grasses, pinyon juniper encroachment, development, wildfire,...
This publication identifies areas where big sagebrush populations are most and least vulnerable to climate change and demonstrates where continued investment in sagebrush conservation and restoration could have the most impact.
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There is a critical science need of identifying costs, amortized into the future, associated with prioritizing invasive annual grass management as fuels management to prevent costs of further wildland fire in high priority core areas. An invasive annual grass economic assessment will increase awareness of the resource needs and cost-effectiveness based on an evaluation of return on investment through a spatially prioritized approach for implementation. Realistic estimates for costs and ecological outcomes from allocation scenarios will define resources needed stepped down from a conservation design of Defend and Grow the Core Sagebrush Areas. This information will directly inform programmatic implementation levels...
On November 4, 2016, Dr. Peter Adler, Utah State University, discussed how sagebrush sensitivity to climate change varies across the region and the strengths and weaknesses of various climate modeling approaches. Healthy big sagebrush habitat is essential for the persistence of many high value conservation species across the western US. To gain confidence in predictions of climate change impacts on existing populations of big sagebrush, a research team from Utah State University compared output from four modeling approaches, each based on very different data and assumptions. These models largely agree that rising temperatures will decrease sagebrush cover and biomass in the warmest portions of the region, but increase...
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The Conservation Efforts Database (CED) is a web-based data portal collecting information from federal and non-federal partners on management actions that benefit sagebrush ecosystems and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat. This project leverages the existing hierarchical population modeling framework and modifies it to identify when significantly declining populations of sage-grouse have recovered to reflect broader-scale trends, and whether that recovery can be linked to conservation actions that occurred across the geographic range of sage-grouse aimed at improving habitat conditions or mitigating environmental stressors. Outcomes of the project will include peer-reviewed scientific evidence...
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We will use recently-developed models (see Hanser et al. 2011a) mapping the occurrence or abundance of six sagebrush obligate or near-obligate species of conservation concern (four songbirds, one reptile, and one mammal). We will evaluate how important habitats for each species overlap with similarly developed sage-grouse habitat occurrence models (Hanser et al. 2011b), as well as how sage-grouse priority habitats overlap with biodiversity hotspots for the other sagebrush species. This project will evaluate the degree to which sage-grouse conservation can act as an umbrella for other sagebrush dependent species within the Wyoming Basins ecoregion, the Utah-Wyoming-Rocky Mountain ecoregions in their entirety and...
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Understanding current and future threat of invasive annual grasses (invasives) in the sagebrush ecosystem is a critical need for resource and wildfire management, biological planning and conservation design for this imperiled ecosystem. Many land managers are challenged with selecting the most appropriate invasives dataset or tool for their planning efforts due to difficulties in understanding dataset attributes (e.g., scale, resolution, sensitivity) and lining them up with management objectives. This project will: (1) develop an annotated bibliography of recent, peer-reviewed literature for three invasive annual grass species of highest concern (cheatgrass, medusahead, and ventenata); (2) review all geospatial...
    map background search result map search result map Forecasting Changes in Sagebrush Distribution and Abundance Under Climate Change: Integration of Spatial, Temporal, and Mechanistic Models Evaluating biodiversity of sagebrush-dependent species within sage-grouse habitat: an example from the Wyoming Basin Land Manager Guidance for Invasive Annual Grass Risk Assessment Datasets and Tools Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation actions directed for greater sage-grouse using hierarchical models and the Conservation Efforts Database Understanding greater sage-grouse population trends from the lens of the WAFWA Conservation Design Strategy: implications for management of impacted, core, and growth opportunity areas within the sagebrush biome Sagebrush Biome Invasive Annual Grass Economic Assessment Gunnison Sage-grouse Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET) Gunnison Sage-grouse Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET) Land Manager Guidance for Invasive Annual Grass Risk Assessment Datasets and Tools Evaluating biodiversity of sagebrush-dependent species within sage-grouse habitat: an example from the Wyoming Basin Forecasting Changes in Sagebrush Distribution and Abundance Under Climate Change: Integration of Spatial, Temporal, and Mechanistic Models Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation actions directed for greater sage-grouse using hierarchical models and the Conservation Efforts Database Understanding greater sage-grouse population trends from the lens of the WAFWA Conservation Design Strategy: implications for management of impacted, core, and growth opportunity areas within the sagebrush biome Sagebrush Biome Invasive Annual Grass Economic Assessment