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Cindy *Cindy A. Williams* *Fish & Aquatic Conservation Program, AIS & FIS Program Coordinator* *US Fish & Wildlife Service* *1875 Century Blvd, 4th Floor* *Atlanta, GA 30345* 404-679-4148-direct 404-679-4180- fax [log in to unmask] *Working toward delivering the best science**. >}}}}}}}}(> * *<*),,^^^^^^,,^-,-<* *"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts" - Eleanor Roosevelt* >)))))))(> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Goldberg, Jason <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 7:57 AM Subject: [WR_CoP] Climate Adaptation: News You Can Use To: FWS National Climate Team <[log in to unmask]>, Forest Ecology Working Group <[log in to unmask]>, Water Resources Impacts <[log in to unmask]> (Please feel free to share this within FWS. Click on the titles to be directed to the appropriate website. If you know of anyone outside FWS who might be interested, please let me know as I send out a slightly edited version to other audiences. As always, feedback or suggestions of news / research to include are welcome!) *News * NOVA: Rise of the Superstorms <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/rise-of-the-superstorms.html> This isn't directly related to wildlife conservation, but as we continue through the 2018 hurricane season, you might want to take a look back at the events of last year, if just as a reminder that we need to be prepared to assist in mitigating the damage from such storms and responding afterward. In this well-done documentary, NOVA takes you inside the 2017 superstorms and the cutting-edge research that will help society deal with hurricanes in the future. *Webinars and Meetings * Climate Change in America's National Parks Webinar Series: Future Park Leaders of Emerging Change <https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1732037970292086785> September 13, 2pm EDT | 11am PDT The Future Park Leaders of Emerging Change program builds a pathway for exemplary students in higher education to apply cutting-edge skills and knowledge to various park management issues while gaining valuable work experience, exploring career options, and developing leadership skills. The program assists parks in meeting the complex real-world challenges posed by global drivers of change. Learn more about some of this year's student experiences and learn how parks can apply to host an intern next summer through the Future Park Leaders of Emerging Change program. *2018 Great Lakes Adaptation Forum <http://glisa.umich.edu/GLAF18>* September 24-26, 2018 | Ann Arbor, Michigan The 3rd Great Lakes Adaptation Forum will bring together practitioners and scholars from across the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States for 3 days of sharing climate adaptation and resilience solutions and products in an engaged learning program. Exciting, high energy sessions will include speakers, working groups, panel discussions, and many opportunities for interaction and collaboration. The final registration deadline is Friday, September 14. *Connectivity for Climate Change: Assessing Threats and Identifying Conservation Actions <https://casc.usgs.gov/webinar/costanza_connectivity>* Thursday, September 20, 3 pm ET Modeling habitat connectivity for wildlife species often results in a mapped network of linkages between habitat patches. A critical next step is to determine which of those linkages are priorities for conservation under climate change, and which conservation actions should be taken on those linkages. This webinar will present a framework for identifying priority conservation actions for linkages based on information on their degree of climate change threat, their importance to the overall habitat network, and projected threats from other stressors. Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center researchers applied this framework to the connectivity networks of three species in the Southeastern U.S.: Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, black bear, and timber rattlesnake. *Climate Visuals Workshop <https://www.climatevisuals.org/events/climate-visuals-workshop-time-new-visual-language-climate-change-washington-dc-september-21>* September 21, 2018, 2:30 - 6:30 pm | Washington, D.C. Hosted by the World Resources Institute Global Climate Change Program, this workshop is for communications professionals (from NGOs and commercial organisations), journalists, social science researchers and photographers who want to develop a more diverse visual language for climate change. *Research * *Landscape Change in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge <http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/8/1305/pdf>* (Thanks to Scott Covington for sharing this one.) The research summarizes changes to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The most common changes were wildfire and postfire succession, shrub and tree increase in the absence of fire, river erosion and deposition, and ice-wedge degradation. The paper estimates that 18% of the Refuge has changed over the last 50 years. The paper does note that it found little evidence for increasing rates of change over the course of the study, even though the recent interval of the study coincided with a period of increased climate warming in northern Alaska, though the methodology can be used to continue tracking changes in the future. *Improved fisheries management could offset many negative impacts of climate change <http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaao1378/tab-pdf>* The paper explores how improvements in fishery management can offset the negative consequences of climate change and finds that the answer hinges on the current status of stocks. The poor current status of many stocks combined with potentially maladaptive responses to range shifts could reduce future global fisheries yields and profits even more severely than previous estimates have suggested. The paper shows that the future of global fisheries could actually be more prosperous than today, but only if management reforms addressing current mismanagement and looming challenges from climate change are implemented in the near future across a wide range of fisheries. An example of the media coverage the research received can be found here. <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180829153902.htm> *Opportunities for climate‐risk reduction through effective fisheries management* <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14390> The paper's findings highlight that most species and communities in the world oceans have high risk of impacts from climate change and fishing under “business‐as‐usual” climate change scenario and status quo fishing by the 2050s. However, the effects of improvement (or degradation) in fisheries management can play a key role in affecting the global‐average climate‐fishing risk of impacts. The work emphasizes the importance of eliminating overfishing and other measures, such as habitat restoration, as an adaptation measure to reduce extinction risk from climate change. A news summary of the article can be found here. <https://phys.org/news/2018-08-effective-fisheries-extinction-marine-fish.html> *Vulnerability of global terrestrial ecosystems to climate change <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14327>* Recent attempts to quantify such impacts focus on measuring exposure to climate change but largely ignore ecosystem resistance and resilience, which may also affect the vulnerability outcomes. In this study, the relative vulnerability of global terrestrial ecosystems to short-term climate variability was assessed by simultaneously integrating exposure, sensitivity, and resilience at a high spatial resolution (0.05°). The results show that vulnerable areas are currently distributed primarily in plains. Responses to climate change vary among ecosystems and deserts and xeric shrublands are the most vulnerable biomes. *Cracking the Code of Biodiversity Responses to Past Climate Change <https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(18)30165-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534718301654%3Fshowall%3Dtrue>* How individual species and entire ecosystems will respond to future climate change are among the most pressing questions facing ecologists. In this review, the authors discuss the mechanisms by which biodiversity responds to environmental change and identify gaps of knowledge on the role of range shifts and tolerance. The study shows that local adaptation to new conditions seems to have played a key role in the way species survived. *Reducing risk in reserve selection under Modern Portfolio Theory: Coastal planning under sea level rise <https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2664.13190>* The research extends the capability of previous work that used Modern Portfolio Theory (adopted from the finance sector) to address uncertainty in conservation planning. The work allowed the authors to identify optimal properties to preserve while maintaining connectivity for landward migration of wetlands and accounting for risk. They conclude that diversifying site selection for spatial planning through Modern Portfolio Theory can ensure the supply of ecosystem services by reducing the risk of failure across sea‐level rise scenarios. *Effects of warming temperatures on boreal forests <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0399-1.pdf>* The research shows that, for boreal vegetation, warmer temperatures extend vegetation activity, however the failure to cue to photoperiod led to precocious green-up and a premature loss of frost hardiness, which suggests that vulnerability to spring frost damage will increase in a warmer world. Vegetation strategies that have evolved to balance tradeoffs associated with phenological temperature tracking may be optimal under historical climates, but these strategies may not be optimized for future climate regimes. *And Finally... * As students return to school, educators are looking for entertaining ways to highlight important issues. The "Game of Floods <https://www.marincounty.org/depts/cd/divisions/planning/csmart-sea-level-rise/game-of-floods>" was developed by the County of Marin (California) as a public education activity on sea level rise adaptation, including traditional flood protection measures, green infrastructure approaches, and policy/zoning changes. Four to six participants are tasked with developing a vision for ‘Marin Island 2050,’ a hypothetical landscape that highlights the conditions that will be experienced in Marin in coming years with sea level rise and increased storm impacts causing the loss or deterioration of homes, community facilities, roads, agricultural land, beaches, wetlands, lagoons, and other resources. -- Jason Goldberg U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Science Applications Ph: 703-358-1866 Cell: 240-687-8213 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= To view the FWFjobs archives or Join/Leave the list go to: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/fwfjobs.html