Upland burning and grazing as strategies to offset climate-change effects on wetlands

McKenna, Owen P.; Renton, David A.; Mushet, David; DeKeyser, Edward S.

doi:10.1007/s11273-020-09778-1

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Both grazing and burning can reduce the vegetative structure that could lead to increases in runoff in grassland catchments thereby reducing pond losses during the waterfowl breeding season (McKenna et al. 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is evidence that upland management practices can increase water inputs during dry years, especially when precipitation events are delivered more frequently as extreme events. Both grazing and burning can reduce the vegetative structure that could lead to increases in runoff in grassland catchments thereby reducing pond losses during the waterfowl breeding season (McKenna et al 2021). These shifts in timing of precipitation and wetland ponding can also have impacts on the spatial and temporal synchrony between migratory animals and their available habitat (Koenig and Liebhold 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PHyLiSS is a mechanistic model that has been used to explore the effects of climate and land‐use change on depressional wetland ecosystems (McKenna et al. 2019, 2021). PHyLiSS was developed using Stella Professional (v. 1.4) software and is publicly available (McKenna et al.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach has been validated by McKenna et al. (2021) for wetlands and ponded wetland basins for southern North Dakota, USA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The majority of the wetlands sampled by Gleason and Tangen (2008) were embedded within grassland uplands, so all of the generalized class III wetlands in our study also had grassland catchments. PHyLiSS is a mechanistic model that has been used to explore the effects of climate and land-use change on depressional wetland ecosystems (McKenna et al 2019(McKenna et al , 2021. PHyLiSS was developed using Stella Professional (v. 1.4) software and is publicly available (McKenna et al 2018).…”

Section: Mechanistic Modeling Of Wetland Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate

McKenna

Mushet

Kucia

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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Grasslands, and the depressional wetlands that exist throughout them, are endangered ecosystems that face both climate and land‐use change pressures. Tens of millions of dollars are invested annually to manage the existing fragments of these ecosystems to serve as critical breeding habitat for migratory birds. The North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) contains millions of depressional wetlands that produce between 50% and 80% of the continent’s waterfowl population. Previous modeling efforts suggested that climate change would result in a shift of suitable waterfowl breeding habitat from the central to the southeast portion of the PPR, an area where over half of the depressional wetlands have been drained. The implications of these projections suggest a massive investment in wetland restoration in the southeastern PPR would be needed to sustain waterfowl populations at harvestable levels. We revisited these modeled results indicating how future climate may impact the distribution of waterfowl‐breeding habitat using up‐to‐date climate model projections and a newly developed model for simulating prairie‐pothole wetland hydrology. We also presented changes to the number of “May ponds,” a metric used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to estimate waterfowl breeding populations and establish harvest regulations. Based on the output of 32 climate models and two emission scenarios, we found no evidence that the distribution of May ponds would shift in the future. However, our results projected a 12% decrease to 1% increase in May pond numbers when comparing the most recent climate period (1989–2018) to the end of the 21st century (2070–2099). When combined, our results suggest areas in the PPR that currently support the highest densities of intact wetland basins, and thus support the largest numbers of breeding‐duck pairs, will likely also be the places most critical to maintaining continental waterfowl populations in an uncertain future.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach has been validated by McKenna et al. (2021) for wetlands and ponded wetland basins for southern North Dakota, USA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mechanistic Modeling Of Wetland Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate

McKenna

Mushet

Kucia

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

Self Cite

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Climate change causes declines and greater extremes in wetland inundation in a region important for wetland birds

Londe,

Davis,

Loss

et al. 2023

Ecological Applications

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Wetland ecosystems are vital for maintaining global biodiversity, as they provide important stopover sites for many species of migrating wetland‐associated birds. However, because weather determines their hydrologic cycles, wetlands are highly vulnerable to effects of climate change. Although changes in temperature and precipitation resulting from climate change are expected to reduce inundation of wetlands, few efforts have been made to quantify how these changes will influence the availability of stopover sites for migratory wetland birds. Additionally, few studies have evaluated how climate change will influence interannual variability or the frequency of extremes in wetland availability. For spring and fall bird migration in seven ecoregions in the south‐central Great Plains of North America, we developed predictive models associating abundance of inundated wetlands with a suite of weather and land cover variables. We then used these models to generate predictions of wetland inundation at the end of the century (2069–2099) under future climate change scenarios. Climate models predicted the average number of inundated wetlands will likely decline during both spring and fall migration periods, with declines being greatest in the eastern ecoregions of the southern Great Plains. However, the magnitude of predicted declines varied considerably across climate models and ecoregions, with uncertainty among climate models being greatest in the High Plains ecoregion. Most ecoregions also were predicted to experience more‐frequent extremely dry years (i.e., years with extremely low wetland abundances), but the projected change in interannual variability of wetland inundation was relatively small and varied across ecoregions and seasons. Because the south‐central Great Plains represents an important link along the migratory routes of many wetland‐dependent avian species, future declines in wetland inundation and more frequent periods of only a few wetlands being inundated will result in an uncertain future for migratory birds as they experience reduced availability of wetland stopover habitat across their migration pathways.

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Wetland occupancy by duck broods in cropland‐dominated landscapes of the United States Prairie Pothole Region

et al. 2022

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The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is globally important for breeding waterfowl but has been altered via wetland drainage and grassland conversion to accommodate agricultural land use. Thus, understanding the ecology of waterfowl in these highly modified landscapes is essential for their conservation. Brood occurrence is the cumulative outcome of key life‐history events including pair formation and territory establishment, nest success, and early brood survival. We applied new technological advances in brood surveying methods to understand brood use of wetlands and how land use and wetland‐specific factors influenced brood use of 413 wetlands in crop‐dominated landscapes in the PPR of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, USA, during summers of 2018–2020. Dynamic occupancy models combining information from 2 visits throughout the year revealed no difference among the 4 states or between private and public lands, resulting in a region‐wide annual wetland occupancy estimate of 0.41 (95% credible interval [CrI] = 0.26, 0.58). We assessed aquatic invertebrate forage availability, wetland and upland vegetation communities, and various water chemistry metrics in a subset (n = 225) of these wetlands to evaluate how landscape and wetland‐specific factors influenced occupancy. The amount of grassland surrounding wetlands was the only variable to influence occupancy at a landscape scale, while wetland size, invertebrates, fish, and vegetation communities influenced occupancy at finer scales. Closer scrutiny of wetland area revealed occupancy was greater in small wetlands after controlling for total wetland area. Our results indicate the greatest constraint on brood occupancy across crop‐dominated landscapes of the PPR in the United States was the occurrence of semipermanent wetlands suitable for brood rearing. Other factors, such as wetland vegetation or surrounding land use, had minor intervening influences on duck brood use and ducks were distributed invariant of wetland ownership or broad spatial processes occurring among states. These results demonstrated wetland conservation and restoration strategies are likely to yield gains in annual duck broods across this vast, altered, and highly modified landscape.

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Upland burning and grazing as strategies to offset climate-change effects on wetlands

Cited by 9 publications

References 43 publications

Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate

Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate

Climate change causes declines and greater extremes in wetland inundation in a region important for wetland birds

Wetland occupancy by duck broods in cropland‐dominated landscapes of the United States Prairie Pothole Region

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