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As wildlife managers brace for unprecedented habitat changes wrought by
a changing climate, they are forming new partnerships with federal and
university scientists to figure out how ecosystems will be altered --
and how to manage them in a warmer world.
Across the country, public lands -- ranging from Arizona's Sonoran
Desert to Maryland's Blackwater Wildlife Refuge -- are already
beginning to undergo biological transformations due to climate change,
scientists and federal land managers said at a three-day workshop
hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Arizona this week.
Plants are blooming more quickly, birds are migrating sooner, and
invasive grasses are thriving in extended growing seasons -- then
drying out more quickly, increasing the risk of unnatural wildfire,
scientists have found. And managers have to begin deciding how to
protect native ecosystems and wildlife in this new era of climatic and
biological change, said Ben Tuggle, Southwest regional director for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which hosted the workshop, held Aug.
18-20 in Tucson.
"There are going to be changes, we know
that," Tuggle said during a press conference midway through the
three-day workshop. "How will we be able to help species adjust? What
management actions will we need to have in place?"
For
instance, in Alaska, oil and gas operations are planned to avoid areas
used by migrating birds during the migration season. But in two
decades, those areas may shift, requiring managers to adjust their
approach to protecting the birds, as well.
"It's trying to
look at some very practical solutions," said Anne Kinsinger, USGS
western regional director. "A lot of what we're talking about is
helping agencies adapt."
To figure out those solutions,
FWS and scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and universities are
collaborating in new ways to share information and address data gaps so
that land and wildlife managers will be able to prepare for a warmer
future. USGS has formed the National Climate Change and Wildlife
Science Center, and is designing a "Climate Effects Network" that will
make it easier for physical and biological scientists to share
information.
"We're starting to see the need to work with managers to help them look at these changes," Kinsinger said during the workshop.
Plugging the data gaps
Before managers can find
solutions, scientists need to get a better handle on just how
ecosystems and wildlife populations are responding to climate change at
various scales, said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the University of
Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth. "A lot of it is
figuring out what the problems are," he said.
Historically,
climate scientists have focused on global models predicting atmospheric
changes and their effects at a large scale, while biologists have
studied ecosystems at a small scale. Determining how climate change
will alter systems on a local or regional level will go a long way
toward giving managers the information they need to adjust their
management approaches accordingly, Tuggle and USGS scientists said.
But
understanding the effects of climate change on that smaller level is
one of the biggest challenges of the new collaborative effort, said Tom
Armstrong, senior adviser for global programs at USGS, in a phone
interview. Climate models are good at projecting changes globally or
continentally, but are less reliable at the smaller regional or local
level due to factors like localized cloud cover, he said.
"We
have great knowledge at the large scale and small scale, but we don't
know much about what's happening at that mid-scale," which is exactly
the scale that public land managers typically deal with, Armstrong said.
But
there is also significant opportunity and need to merge existing data
to figure out how ecosystems will change in the coming years -- and how
they will need to be managed, he said.
For instance, at
FWS's Blackwater Wildlife Refuge, scientists have been able to use data
on sea-level change to determine that nursery grounds for fish and
forage areas for migratory birds will shrink, Armstrong said.
Scientists are now trying to figure out whether the plant communities
that comprise that habitat will be able to move inland, and whether
those communities will change.
But he and Tuggle both
acknowledged that finding the resources to support such an
all-encompassing effort to match scientific data with management needs
will be challenging, despite an increased influx of climate
change-related funding at USGS. The agency received $25 million for its
climate change research program this year.
"I sincerely
think with a problem this large, we're never going to get the kind of
resources we need," Tuggle said. "We're going to have to reach out and
leverage our resources." That means working with partners in the
private and public sector, he said.
"This is definitely a
huge challenge," Armstrong added. "We'll run out of capacity if we try
to do everything." Scientists and managers are trying to prioritize
research and management needs to make sure resources are not spread too
thin, he said.
Conducting adequate monitoring of how
ecosystems and wildlife populations are changing -- and how well
management approaches are working -- is also "crucial," Kinsinger added.
New lawsuit seeks wildlife protection, action on warming
Meanwhile, two new lawsuits aim to wrap the objectives of climate change regulation and wildlife protection into a tidy package.
Conservation
groups filed two lawsuits this week seeking protection for the American
pika, a small, mountain-dwelling rodent that is extremely sensitive to
increases in temperature. The groups, the Center for Biological
Diversity and Earthjustice, hope to win state protection for the pika
under the California Endangered Species Act and federal protection
under the federal Endangered Species Act. The agencies have failed to
make a timely determination on whether the species should be listed
under the laws, the groups contend.
Pika usually live in
cold alpine areas, as they can fatally overheat at 80 degrees
Fahrenheit, making them a species particularly vulnerable to a warming
climate.
As temperatures have risen over the past century,
more than one-third of the historical populations have disappeared, and
those that remain are found only at elevations 900 feet above their
original habitat range, according to the groups' analysis.
In
order to protect the pika, the agencies would have to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions, the groups insist. However, both agencies
have repeatedly said such action falls outside their jurisdiction and
outside the purview of the Endangered Species Act.
This
week's suits mark the second time environmental groups have invoked the
ESA to try to win protections for a species affected by climate change.
A similar suit resulted in a FWS decision to list the polar bear. That
decision has itself prompted lawsuits.
April Reese writes from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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