Climate Change Impacts on Western Pacific Northwest Prairies and Savannas

Bachelet, Dominique; Johnson, Bart R.; Bridgham, Scott D.; Dunn, Pat V.; Anderson, Hannah E.; Rogers, Brendan M.

doi:10.3955/046.085.0224

Cited by 35 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…These findings have implications for understanding species range distributions under future climates, and in a parallel demography experiment, we are actively assessing population projections for these and six additional species across this gradient. Furthermore, these findings confirm the importance of considering climate change when attempting to select proper seed sources for rare species restoration and recovery (Havens et al, ) and when selecting which species to include in restoration projects (Bachelet et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Prairie plant phenology driven more by temperature than moisture in climate manipulations across a latitudinal gradient in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Reed

Pfeifer‐Meister

Roy

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Plant phenology will likely shift with climate change, but how temperature and/or moisture regimes will control phenological responses is not well understood. This is particularly true in Mediterranean climate ecosystems where the warmest temperatures and greatest moisture availability are seasonally asynchronous. We examined plant phenological responses at both the population and community levels to four climate treatments (control, warming, drought, and warming plus additional precipitation) embedded within three prairies across a 520 km latitudinal Mediterranean climate gradient within the Pacific Northwest, USA. At the population level, we monitored flowering and abundances in spring 2017 of eight range‐restricted focal species planted both within and north of their current ranges. At the community level, we used normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) measured from fall 2016 to summer 2018 to estimate peak live biomass, senescence, seasonal patterns, and growing season length. We found that warming exerted a stronger control than our moisture manipulations on phenology at both the population and community levels. Warming advanced flowering regardless of whether a species was within or beyond its current range. Importantly, many of our focal species had low abundances, particularly in the south, suggesting that establishment, in addition to phenological shifts, may be a strong constraint on their future viability. At the community level, warming advanced the date of peak biomass regardless of site or year. The date of senescence advanced regardless of year for the southern and central sites but only in 2018 for the northern site. Growing season length contracted due to warming at the southern and central sites (~3 weeks) but was unaffected at the northern site. Our results emphasize that future temperature changes may exert strong influence on the timing of a variety of plant phenological events, especially those events that occur when temperature is most limiting, even in seasonally water‐limited Mediterranean ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Prairie plant phenology driven more by temperature than moisture in climate manipulations across a latitudinal gradient in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Reed

Pfeifer‐Meister

Roy

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

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“…This shift now encompasses some areas that are currently classified as semiarid or desert in the Inland Pacific Northwest and is consistent with most global circulation models that project in this region a small but systemic increase in precipitation during the winter and spring and a slight decrease in summer (IPCC, ). This shift in climate has prompted considerations of adopting new winter crops within the dryland dropping system in the Inland Pacific Northwest (Stöckle et al, ) and new conservation strategies for Pacific Northwest prairies and oak savannas (Bachelet et al, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Asynchronicity of Precipitation and Potential Evapotranspiration in Mediterranean Climates

Feng

Thompson

Woods

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Recent climate change has contributed to shifts in the seasonal interplay between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, which have in turn increased droughts and reduced freshwater availability in Mediterranean climate regions. To overcome limitations in existing indices for comparing these seasonal hydroclimatic drivers at the global scale, we introduce an information theory-based, nonparametric asynchronicity index that captures both the temporal alignment and relative magnitudes of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. We use this asynchronicity index to first identify Mediterranean climates around the world. We then apply the asynchronicity index over two Mediterranean climate regions and show that their boundaries have shifted between 1960 and 2018, resulting in a regional expansion in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and a contraction in southwestern Australia. These results highlight the need for globally consistent measures of seasonal climatic water supply and demand for diagnosing potential changes in water resources and ecosystem responses within Mediterranean climate regions. Plain Language Summary Climate change is likely to change the boundaries of what aretypically considered Mediterranean climate regions, which have dry summers and mild, wet winters. To analyze how these regions' water availability may be influenced by climate change, we introduce a metric for quantifying the mismatch in the timing and amount of precipitation relative to atmospheric water demand. This new metric is able to identify the boundaries of Mediterranean climate regions more effectively than other existing indices and can be used to analyze how these boundaries shift over time.

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“…Understanding how Garry oak responds to future climate scenarios at scales relevant to land managers is an important planning tool for conservation managers providing the opportunity to identify temporally connected migration corridors (areas where climate remains continuously suitable over time), as well as additional areas that are expected to be necessary to maintain Garry oak populations over the next century. Climate Change scenarios (Bachelet et al 2011) and a down-scaled bioclimatic envelope model (Pellatt et al 2012) have been used to identify areas projected to maintain climatic suitability over time. Pellatt et al (2012) generated scenarios that examine temporally connected areas that persist throughout the twenty-first century for Garry oak, and the extent of overlap between these temporally connected regions and existing protected areas.…”

Section: Garry Oak Extent Climate Suitability and Conservation Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They felt that the future challenges to be tackled by the management and scientific community include the reestablishment of prescribed burning, aboriginal plant harvest techniques (i.e., Camas bulbs), the need for climate change models that addressed Garry oak ecosystem adaptation at a scale relevant to land managers, and the selection of sites for restoration based on knowledge of their natural range of variability while being cognisant of the emergence of novel ecosystems. The role of climate change on these ecosystems has also been examined (Bachelet et al 2011;Pellatt et al 2012), highlighting the importance of securing habitat that will be suitable for Garry oak ecosystems in the future if they are to persist amongst a populated, fragmented landscape, but it may be that more interventionist measures will be required to assist with Garry oak ecosystem migration. Nested in these conservation and scenario-based activities, there is a need to understand the natural range of variability of ecosystems, ecological trajectories, and why an understanding of historical ecology and paleoecology is necessary for the longterm success of conservation and ecological restoration efforts (Delcourt and Delcourt 1997;Bjorkman and Vellend 2010;Dunwiddie et al 2011;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental change in Garry oak (Quercus garryana) ecosystems: the evolution of an eco-cultural landscape

Pellatt

Gedalof

2014

Biodivers Conserv

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Globally, colonialism resulted in the suppression of aboriginal land management practices, abetted by the concept of terra nullius, ''belonging to no one''; the belief that aboriginal people had little influence on or ownership of the land. Until recently, this ideology was entrenched in resource management and policy. Traditional ecological knowledge, historical ecology, archaeology, and palaeoecological research have shown these assumptions to be wrong. In this paper we take a multidisciplinary approach (biogeography, paleoecology, dendrochronology, and bioclimatic envelope modeling) to better understand the role of climate and fire in the formation of eco-cultural landscapes. We synthesize results from pollen and charcoal analysis in Garry oak ecosystems that indicate there were continuous and frequent prescribed burning events, with more severe fires occurring every 26-41 years in southwest British Columbia throughout the Anthropocene (*last 250 years) that substantially altered forest structure and composition. These results are consistent with stand age reconstructions in BC and Washington with Garry oak establishment beginning *1850 AD, corresponding with modern fire exclusion, aboriginal population decline, and end of the Little Ice Age. Douglas-fir recruitment has been continuous since *1900, with succession of oak woodland to closed conifer forest at most sites. These findings indicate that the structure of many Garry oak ecosystems have been profoundly influenced by eco-cultural practices. Overwhelming evidence indicates that in many cases these ecosystems are dependent on prescribed fire for their open structure. In

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Climate Change Impacts on Western Pacific Northwest Prairies and Savannas

Cited by 35 publications

References 52 publications

Prairie plant phenology driven more by temperature than moisture in climate manipulations across a latitudinal gradient in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Prairie plant phenology driven more by temperature than moisture in climate manipulations across a latitudinal gradient in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Quantifying Asynchronicity of Precipitation and Potential Evapotranspiration in Mediterranean Climates

Environmental change in Garry oak (Quercus garryana) ecosystems: the evolution of an eco-cultural landscape

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