Modeling Impacts of Climate Change on Regional Landscapes and Populations

Two of the most important questions facing conservation today are: how will climate change impact biodiversity and what actions can protect ecological systems and populations in light of those impacts? Any attempt to address these questions should incorporate important ecological processes that drive responses, both climate-driven and anthropogenic. We present a modeling approach to assess impacts of climate and landscape change on forested regions and wildlife populations across the eastern U.S. Our approach links climate, ecosystem, landscape, and population models to project future landscape conditions under various climate-change scenarios and evaluate impacts on the viability of regional wildlife populations.  We incorporate climate data into an ecosystem model to predict tree species establishment and early growth.  A dynamic landscape model uses tree establishment to model future forests based on processes such as succession, harvest, and natural disturbance in addition to human activities such as conservation actions and urbanization.  We link dynamic population viability models to these forest projections to assess growth and risk of wildlife populations given changes in climate and habitat. This integration of models has already produced valuable insight into the potential changes to regionals forests and how wildlife populations will respond to conservation actions.  Forest landscape modeling revealed declines in sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and increases in shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) over the next century in response to climate warming.  Population viability models for focal bird species predicted direct effects of climate warming on populations and demonstrated how restoring forested habitat in the Central Hardwoods could restore declining populations of prairie warbler (Dendroica discolor) and wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), but only if restoration was strategically targeted on protected areas. These complexities in the results have been common and underscore the value of integrating ecological and demographic processes that appropriately capture the important components and complexity of system responses.