We examined potential impacts of climate change over the next century on eight mammal species of conservation concern in western Washington State, under four warming scenarios.
Climate change is a poorly understood, emerging threat to many amphibian species. One of the ways climate change is likely to affect amphibians is through increased recruitment failure associated with more frequent climatic extremes.
Over the 20th century, surface water temperatures have increased in many lake ecosystems around the world, but long-term trends in the vertical thermal structure of lakes remain unclear, despite the strong control that thermal stratification exerts on the biological response of lakes to climate change.
Physiological tolerance of environmental conditions can influence species-level responses to climate change. Here, we used species-specific thermal tolerances to predict the community responses of ant species to experimental forest-floor warming at the northern and southern boundaries of temperate hardwood forests in eastern North America.
Using forests to sequester carbon in response to anthropogenically induced climate change is being considered across the globe. A recent U.S. executive order mandated that all federal agencies account for sequestration and emissions of greenhouse gases, highlighting the importance of understanding how forest carbon stocks are influenced by wildfire.
During the 21st century, climate-driven changes in fire regimes will be a key agent of change in forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW).
The “pyroclimatic hypothesis” proposed by F. Biondi and colleagues provides a basis for testable expectations about climatic and other controls of fire regimes. This hypothesis asserts an a priori relationship between the occurrence of widespread fire and values of a relevant climatic index.
Plant communities on infertile soils may be relatively resistant to climatic variation if species in these communities have "stress-tolerant" functional traits that limit their ability to respond to climate.
Global climate change has the potential to affect future wildfire activity, particularly in south-western USA ponderosa pine forests that have been substantially altered by land-use practices and aggressive fire suppression.
Understanding effects of changes in ecological disturbance regimes on soil properties, and capacity of soil properties to resist disturbance, is important for assessing ecological condition.