- So this is Sara Wisner
and she is a graduate student
with the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
And she's gonna be presenting her talk,
Utilizing Climate Change Refugia
for Climate Change Adaptation
and Management in the Northeast.
So I'll turn it over to you, Sara.
- [Sara] Hello everyone, and thank you for coming.
Like Naomi said, today I'll be talking
about Utilizing Climate Change Refugia
for Climate Change Adaptation
and Management in the Northeast.
So just a little background.
Climate change will have significant impacts
in Northeastern United States and its biodiversity.
Future projections show an increase
in frequency of heat waves,
droughts, winter temperatures, severe precipitation events
and a rise in sea levels.
Changes in climate will have devastating ecological effects,
including mismatches of biology, habitat fragmentation,
changes in survival, growth and reproduction rates.
There's likely to be a shift in community composition
as well as the influx of invasive species and disease.
Management plants need to adapt to changing environments
to preserve and protect climate vulnerable species.
These species are susceptible to changes in climate
and often cannot adapt to these changes
in an efficient time.
One of the primary focus of climate change adaptation
could be protecting managing climate change refugia,
which are areas buffered by climate change
and enable the persistence of valued physical,
ecological and cultural resources.
Climate change refugia can also have a role
in transition strategies
as they can remain buffered from climate change
for rain shifting species.
So my research uses a translational ecology approach.
Translational ecology is an approach
which ecologists, stakeholders and decision-makers
work together to develop research
that addresses the sociological, ecological
and political context of an environmental problem.
It can help improve the way that ecologists and stakeholders
communicate about a project
and it allows stakeholders to gain insight
in the whole process and the caliber of research created.
This is key in ensuring the development of science
and ensuring the effective formulation
of policy and decision-making.
Also, because stakeholders are involved
in the decision-making process,
this allows transparency in how things are developed.
Along with a translational ecology approach,
I followed the Climate Change Refugia Conservation Cycle
from Morelli et al. 2016 to accomplish my objectives.
Similar to step one, my first objective
was to identify climate vulnerable species
within the Northeast region of the National Park Service.
My next objectives were to map and calculate
climate change refugia for priority species
within those park units,
that'd be step four of the cycle.
In addition, mapping transition areas,
that would also be step four, and step five through seven,
it would be incorporated in my last objective
of co-producing climate adaptation actions
that the National Park Service staff and partners could use
to protect resources and conserve key species.
So my research was focused on the focal resources
prioritized for the National Park Service staff
in the Northeast region.
This is composed of four imagery and monitoring networks,
or I&M, and those are Northeast Temperate,
the Northeast Coastal & Barrier,
Eastern Rivers & Mountains and the Mid-Atlantic.
The red on the screen is the Northeast National Park Units
and they're considerably smaller
than the rest of the United States.
So the aim of this project was to produce the actual science
and improve management plans
by using this translational ecology approach.
The original intent was to hold these workshops
in the geographic south and north
of the National Parks Service Northeast Region
in order to maximize accessibility
for National Park Service staff.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
both workshops were held entirely via Zoom.
This project, we rely heavily
on interpersonal communication.
And even though I moved to a virtual platform,
I think it was successful in its practice
and also likely increased participation
in both numbers and geographic spread.
Now, although it was challenging, we learned as a team
to adapt to these new conditions
as we need to adapt our management plans to climate change.
We matched our Park Service staff
and other relevant stakeholders on March 16th
and March 19th of 2020 to refine planning and objectives
for this project
and to work with the group to identify a list
of focal species to best support
the parks' management needs.
We initiated the meeting
by starting with brief introductions of all parties present
involved by presentations by experienced researchers
and resource managers.
So during these meetings,
we separate the rambling into break out groups
and asked the question,
"What should we map refugia for?"
After these discussions,
the group entered the top priorities in Mentimeter
forming these word clouds to the right.
As you see, there's a variety of different resources
and priority species in those bubbles.
So the focal resources that received the highest votes
from the Mentimeter are listed to the right
with their updated title
developed through internal group discussion
separated by each workshop date.
The workshop participants were self-distributed
into different breakout groups afterwards
based on one of those focal resource topics.
And they had to answer the following questions:
"What is the specific focus?
How to apply climate change refugia results
to ongoing or future management actions?
And what data and partnerships are available?"
Participants in each group described data
and important researchers, partners
and potential management actions to use
to formulate refugia maps to conserve these species.
During these breakout groups, they also discussed
which species should be models for.
A list of species was formulated and it was finalized
by our National Park Service collaborator, Aaron Weed.
Species in the list were highlighted as priority
from the stakeholders
of climate change refugia map synthesized for,
they were comprised from these three categories:
wildlife refugia, cold-water refugia and forest refugia.
Today, I'll only be talking about wildlife refugia
because that was my incorporation into this project.
And through these workshops,
we're able to accumulate invaluable data partnerships
and available resources.
So the species that I was in charge of modeling
climate change refugia for
were black-throated green warbler,
grasshopper sparrow, blue-spotted salamander,
marbled salamander, Jefferson salamander,
shrubby five-fingers, common bearberry,
highland rush and Bebb's sedge.
So there's a variety of different species
from birds, salamanders and different shrubs.
I gathered currents data from iNaturalist GBIF
and they were between the years of 2000 to 2020.
They only included research-grade observations
with a spatial accuracy of up to 800 meters.
And for my bird species,
I only gathered observations between May to September
to omit for a winter migration.
I use climate data
from Designing Sustainable Landscapes Project,
and I looked for a variety of non-climate data,
such as aspect tree canopy.
Once I knew what my predictor and climate variables
were best for each species and which method will result
in the highest modeling predictability,
I used the SDM package to create
my species distribution models for the year 2010
and then projected them into the future
under two different climate scenarios, RCP 4.5 and 8.5
to get the habitat suitability for the year 2080
for each one of my species.
From there, I looked for areas that had high suitability
from current 2010 to future time,
which would be considered refugia.
Then I looked at areas
that have low habitat suitability in 2010
but became suitable in the future,
those would be transition areas.
Those areas are considered where species are expected
to move outside of the ranges
under the effects of climate change.
So afterwards, I took my refugia maps and tread notes
to the National Park Service's park units
and included a five kilometer buffer north
to make statistical summaries more meaningful
for very small parks.
From that, I also had to break down the Appalachian trail
into different units on the National Park Service
facing down to hock units.
So they're treated differently.
And also it's important to note
that the Appalachian trail range
exceeds outside of the national Northeast region
showing this little area.
I calculated the percentage for each park unit,
the amount of refugia for in that one park.
So I'm gonna be going through several maps,
I won't be going through all my species
just because of time,
but this is for the black-throated green warbler,
and it shows the 2010 habitat suitability map
and the 2080 habitat suitability map for RCP 8.5.
It shows the difference between the two years,
this green one value is considered refugia for the future,
and this white would be a decrease in habitat suitability.
So you can see between the two scenarios,
black-throated green warbler will have
more suitable habitat further north,
and there'll be an absence
of habitat suitability in the south.
This is another view of it,
but isolating refugia and the transition zones
in this gray scale map is habitat suitability of 2010.
So you can kind of see how these species
are moving over time.
This black right here is what used to be suitable habitat,
but no longer is during the year 2080 at RCP scenario 8.5.
You can see that in the coastal region of Maine,
there's a lot of refugia and transition zones,
and there's some also in Massachusetts
in this area as well.
But as you can see that this was once unsuitable habitat
in the Northern-most part of Maine
and it has become a little bit more of a transition
where there will be suitable habitat in the future.
For a grasshopper sparrow, the same principle applies here.
You can see that there's actually gonna be an absence
of suitable habitat in the future.
There's not as much refugia as compared
to the black-throated green warbler,
but there is starting to be more suitable habitat up north.
It's not quite a refugim yet,
but it might be in later scenarios.
Same view, but of just refugia in a transition.
There's not as much refugia compared
to the black-throated green warbler,
but there is a lot of transitional,
especially along the coastal areas
of the Northeast region
and a little bit throughout Maine.
There's also an area over here
that still has a transition zone
and a little bit of refugia.
And as you can see, this whole area to the right
has lost suitability.
So just looking really quickly, these are the park units
within the Northeast region,
and it's just broken down to each species.
There's this five kilometer buffer around.
It's not very clear, but you can see
that there's different refugia within the zone.
Same for blue-spotted salamander.
Just quickly going over it,
you could see that there's refugia more towards the north
and there's an absence of habitat suitability
in the southern region.
And you can see that habitat suitability
has depleted a lot.
Different view, there's a lot of transition,
only a little bit of refugia.
Just trying to go through this really quick.
The most drastic one was from marbled salamander.
There's actually an increased amount of habitat suitability
in the future and increased rate of refugia
compared to the other species.
Again, transition a huge amount and a little bit of,
well, not a little bit, but a lot of refugia.
Sorry, I have to go through these pretty quickly now.
But I just have a variety of species
that you can ask me about later.
So after we complete our data products,
we conducted another workshop
and we showcased all of these products
to their National Parks Service stakeholders
and other researchers.
And they were really, highly happy
with all of the results,
and they wanted to continue on with this work,
and they were very expressive
about continuing communication with one another
in building future partnerships
outside of the national park
where these species are predicted to move.
So it is seen
that translational ecology approaches work well
and they identify data gaps
and they help expand research already,
or expand research practices.
And it is a key action to increase habitat connectivity
for freshwater, terrestrial and marine systems.
Percentages of climate change refugia vary
for each park unit and between RCP scenarios.
There's also an overarching trend of species
moving towards the Northern region
and this could be contributed to colder temperatures
moving more north.
There are certain model limitations.
I did not incorporate biotic interactions,
such as competition and predation.
It also kept these habitats in constants
based on the 2010,
and they also don't incorporate land-use
and human disturbance and invasive species
and disease dynamics.
And oftentimes because of these small parks is...
Sometimes, the view is kind of course,
and the pixels extend outside of the park unit.
So the next steps of my project
would be to implement steps six and seven
of the Climate Change Refugia Conservation Cycle.
Because the cycle is never ending,
it allows revisions to make the most accurate
and dependable science.
In addition, keeping an open line communication
with all partners involved
and package all of that data
and resources that we have created for them to use.
So in conclusion, mapping climate change refugia
could be an important tool in helping preserve
and project species from the effects of climate change.
Likewise, the translational ecology
is an important framework to listed priorities,
engage national research managers
and ultimately implement the best available science
in creation of refugia maps.
This project has allowed the formulation
of climate change refugia maps
that can help the National Park Service
better manage their time
and allocate funds towards projects
that are vital in protecting and preserving
species and resources.
I hope these data products and cooperation
hopefully is a catalyst in pursuing research grants
and other management practices.
In addition, I hope that from this study,
managers and stakeholders are inspired to continue
to build a relationship
in which the best science is created.
So thank you, and if you would like more information,
you can visit climaterefugia.org,
and you can always email me
and I'll be available to take questions now.
- So there's a question in the chat which is,
"Thanks Sara, very interesting.
Are your other maps that we didn't get to see
available on the website?"
- They're not available on the website yet.
This was part of my masters thesis
so I'm gonna be submitting that on Monday,
and we will be uploading everything to that website,
and also it'll be available on the National Park Service
to data storage along with other maps
that I didn't get to present
because there's many, many maps that I've created.
Thank you for that question.
- And the other one is,
"Could you define 'buffered from climate change?'
Use that in your definition of refugia."
- Sure.
So they're areas there are...
I can actually show you real quick.
So this is just a kind of...
I don't think we need to show because of time.
But there're areas that can create
certain micro-climates are canopy-covered,
can create a buffer for local temperatures,
maximums and minimums of the year.
So different tree cover over different rivers
can cause a decrease in temperature
causing cold water to stay cold
or to keep below a certain amount of degrees.
So there're different geographic aspects
that can be sheltering
from different effects of climate change, so different snow.
Complex terrains can decrease the temperature
of around the area because it's harboring more cold air,
things like that.
Sorry if it's unclear.
- [Naomi] We have one more quick question.
We are pretty much out of time,
but, "What SDM did you use,
presence only or presence absence?
Did you use land cover and habitat suitability modeling?"
- [Sara] Sure.
So I only have presence data,
but I did add in pseudo absences into my modeling.
And for each species,
they all had different types of predictor variables.
So I used different products
from the sunny stamina landscapes for my climate,
but for each species, I incorporated...
Some included aspect, some included forest canopy,
it just depended on the actual species
'cause they modeled them
to see which one would be the highest predictors
for each one without having too much collinearity
between the variables,
so it just varied for each species.
I didn't use an LCD, so national land cover data,
but I did look into it.
- [Naomi] Awesome, thank you Sara,
and congratulations on being almost done.
- Thank you.