It’s Not The Heat, It’s the Water Regime

Today is the second day in a US Geological Survey amphibian two-fer. If you like your wildlife moist and federally researched, you’ve come to the right place.

Scientists have long suspected that climate change is an important factor in amphibian declines, a US Geological Survey press release notes, and resource managers are asking whether conservation measures might help species persist or adapt in a changing climate. Three recent U.S. Geological Survey studies offer some insight into the issue.

The studies were conducted by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, or ARMI.

One study found that it’s not the heat, it’s the precipitation that will drive amphibian’s response to climate change. That is, the alternating droughts and deluges that are predicted to worsen as climate change increases, will hurt amphibian populations as they struggle to adapt to ever-changing water levels. Read that paper in the journal Biology.

Another study confirmed that drought hurts populations of mole salamanders, at least over the short term. The study was important because the mole salamanders are similar to the federally threatened flatwoods salamander, and the finding implies that climate change will be yet another stressor to the threatened species. Read the paper in the journal Wetlands.

The third study showed U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wetlands Reserve Program is effective in increasing the species richness of frogs and toads on farms in the program. Creating permanent, or at least long-lasting, water sources seems to be the primary reason. Learn more in the paper in the journal Restoration Ecology.

You can read a more detailed summary of these three studies in the USGS press release, here.

Photo: Black-bellied salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) was found in the Citico Creek Wilderness, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee. Not sure what it has to do with these studies, but it’s cute. Photo by Alan Cressler, courtesy USGS.

It’s Official: National Wildlife Climate Policy

You’ve probably heard about the drafts (since it was called for by Congress four years ago), but now the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Policy has officially been announced.

The big news appears to be a plan to create wildlife corridors so wildlife can more easily move in response to climate change. It also urges wildlife managers to plan for a changing climate, not just current conditions.

The strategy (or Strategy, as it is called in materials) appears to come with neither regulatory teeth nor funding.

Read a Los Angeles Times article, here.
Find the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaption Strategy website, here. (Follow links to summaries and frequently asked questions.)

And I just have to say that maybe next time “wildlife” will already be understood to include both fish and plants, and perhaps invertebrates as well.

Lizards and Climate Change

Two papers in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography* outline two threats that the increased local temperature aspect of climate change makes on lizards.

The first paper is about lizards in South America, but North American reptiles might experience something similar. Bearing live young allowed lizards to occupy colder climates, the paper says, but those species are now limited to those climates. As temperatures rise, those species will be forced either closer to the pole(s) or to higher elevations — severely limiting available habitat.

Read the paper The evolution of viviparity opens opportunities for lizard radiation but drives it into a climatic cul-de-sac, here. (Fee or subscription needed for full article.)
Read the University of Exeter press release on EurekAlert, here.

Another paper in the journal took data on the body temperature of lizards and compared it to the temperature of their environments. It found that it was the temperature of the environment, not the species’ body temperature, that correlated most closely (either positively or negatively) with important life-history factors such as clutch size and longevity.

Because environmental temperature seems to play a bigger role than body temperature (and therefore the lizards’ ability to compensate for environmental temperature), the paper says, climate change can have a “profound influence on lizard ecology and evolution.”

Read the paper Are lizards feeling the heat? here. (Fee or subscription required for full article.)

*In this case it is a coincidence that I ran two items from this journal on consecutive days. I received alerts on these papers from two different sources. Go figure. I’ll try to make next week lizard- and biogeography free.

Photo: The viviparous North American species the short-horned lizard, courtesy of the National Park Service.

Moose of “Special Concern” in Minn.

The the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ list of endangered, threatened and special concern species is due to get its first update since 1996, a DNR press release reports. While 302 Minnesota species will be affected, moose are getting all the attention.

The iconic north woods animal is proposed for listing as a species of special concern. The designation reflects a 50 percent decline in the number of moose in the state since 2005, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. There are now about 4,000 moose in the state.

What is causing the rapid decline is still a bit of a mystery, but a combination of disease, parasites and a warming climate appear to be the causes, the Star-Tribune notes.

CBC News reports University of Minnesota Duluth biologist Ron Moen as saying that wildlife managers in Ontario should keep an eye out for their own moose. The southern part of western Ontario shares a border with Minnesota.

As for why the gray wolf’s delisting in the other direction, from special concern to not on the list, is not receiving much attention, that’s because this year’s wolf hunting season (and the federal delisting) packed more punch than this proposed delisting.

Read the Star-Tribune article here.
Read the Minn. DNR press release here.
Get more details about the list changes, here.

Photo: Moose, courtesy MN DNR

Moose Decline

Warmer temperatures and more parasites may be the causes of a sharp decline in moose in Montana, Wyoming and Minnesota, says an article in the Billings Gazette. The decline has been noted for at least 30 years, the article says, but just recently has the matter been studied in-depth.

Montana hired Rich Deceasre as a full-time moose biologist with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks just two months ago, the article says. Deceasre will conduct an eight- to ten-year study of moose. The protocol will be the same as for a recent Idaho study, so that the data can be compared.

Much more info, including an overview of the Minnesota moose decline, is in the Billings Gazette article. Read it here.

Photo by Alan Briere, courtesy NH Fish & Game

When the Weather is for the Birds

The Black Vulture has expanded its range northward and now occurs in parts of Massachusetts where the minimum winter temperature is similar to that in Baltimore, Maryland in 1975. Photo by Liz Malyszek

Citizen scientists noticed the impact of a mild winter in the United States and Canada this year, reflected in the species composition of the birds tallied during the Great Backyard Bird Count, reports an article in ScienceNow, the online news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). You can also read the press release from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

However, birds are not responding quite so quickly to overall climate trends, says a paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology (fee or subscription required to view entire article). It’s more work from the Cornell Lab of O, but this time the press release is from Cornell University.

Climate Vulnerability of Taxa at the State Level

Usually it is hard enough figuring out what’s stressing species right now to figure out which may need protection. Predicting the future — such as how land uses might change — adds another level of complexity. Figuring out the impact of climate change, with its assortment of predictive models, is more complex still.

A team from PRBO Conservation Science, a non-profit bird ecology research organization, took on the challenge of predicting the vulnerability of California’s bird species to climate change at the behest of the California Department of Fish and Game. The results were released by the science journal PLoS ONE last week.

Instead of applying existing, national models of species vulnerability, the research team developed their own framework. They were able to do this because of the abundance of data unique to California, the paper says.

“What’s most exciting about the study is that our unique approach is one that other scientists and resource managers can duplicate to help them conserve wildlife in the face of climate change,” said Tom Gardali, an ecologist with PRBO Conservation Science and the paper’s lead author, in a press release issued jointly by PRBO and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Read the PLoS ONE paper here. (Open access.)
Read the California Fish and Game release here. (It includes a link to a complete list of vulnerability ratings, by taxa.)

What do the paper’s findings mean on the ground, for California’s birds? Wetland taxa are the most vulnerable, notes a KQED climate blog, and many of the birds found to be vulnerable are found in San Francisco Bay.

The KQED Climate Watch blog says:

“That’s primarily because of sea level rise and also because there are already so many imperiled species that use that habitat in the bay,” says Tom Gardali…

Photo: The clapper rail is one of the at-risk birds identified by the climate change study. Photo courtesy California Fish and Game

Where Trout Is In Doubt

Girl, dad and rainbow trout

A paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week says that climate change is bad news for all the trout species in the northern Rocky Mountains, with an average 47 percent decline in total suitable habitat in 70 years. That, the paper says, is because it’s not just the temperature that is changing. How much water flows in rivers and when is changing, as will greater problems from invasive species, such as those that are already keeping native cut-throat trout out of its native range.

The paper’s lead author is with Trout Unlimited, with other authors hailing from the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado State University,  U.S. Geological Survey Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, and the University of Washington, Seattle.

Read the synopsis of the paper on Science Now, here.

Read a newspaper article from the Idaho Statesman, here. And this blog entry on the Idaho Statesman Web site.

And finally, read the paper itself (open access) from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, here.

Photo: Rainbow trout are expected to suffer the least from reductions in suitable habitat due to climate change. Photo by Carl Zitzman, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Climate change and bird feeders

Even when bird feeders are readily available, some species of birds head for warmer climes, says a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Animal Ecology. The scientists, who are affiliated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch, studied 18 bird species that are common at bird feeders in the northeastern US and found that some species of birds did not stick around over the winter in spite of there being plenty to eat at bird feeders.

They also found that the birds that stayed north in winter were more likely to visit a bird feeder during a cold snap. Finally, the scientists found that for species that tolerate urban life, such as house sparrows, the abundant bird feeders in developed areas provide a winter refuge. Species that find urban life stressful, such as downy woodpeckers, are less likely to stay in developed areas during winter.

The scientists note that when predicting how climate change will influence a bird species, these other factors, such as tolerance to urbanization, need to be considered as well.

You can find the paper here, and a simple summary of the work on the Project FeederWatch blog.

Photo: I say it’s a nuthatch, although admittedly not the nuthatch species in this study. So don’t look too closely at the bird, just look at the bird feeder and the pretty green background, OK?