How an FIA adjunct inventory can
be used to assess climate change
impacts on species distributions
John Morton
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
"Not everything that
can be counted
counts, and not
everything that
counts can be
counted."
- Albert Einstein (18791955)
“… resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific
information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change
on the federal resources they oversee. [They] generally lack
detailed inventories and monitoring systems to provide them with
an adequate baseline understanding of the plant and animal
species that currently exist on the resources they manage.
For example, at the Chugach National Forest, managers told us that
without accurate baseline inventory data of the plants and
animals in the forest, it is difficult to determine whether changes
to species populations are within the normal range of variability.”
GAO Aug 2007
Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for
Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources
“Few DOI land management units have complete
biological inventories of species. Additionally, DOI has
no cohesive, systematic program for monitoring
change over time in the distribution of species and
communities. Inventories will be critical to assessing
climate change impacts and to developing
management responses to those impacts…”
DOI Climate Change Task Force
Feb 2008 Pre-decisional draft
“The USFWS has an extensive inventory and monitoring
program…However, inventory and monitoring plans often have little
programmatic or geographic integration. The effects of climate
change on Alaska flora and fauna are predicted to be far-reaching,
and the Service’s ability to modify its management objectives and
strategies in response to these changes may require a
reconsideration of current inventory and monitoring efforts… “
USFWS R7 Climate Change Forum
Inventory & Monitoring Breakout Group, Feb 2007
SOLUTION?
Long Term Ecological Monitoring Program
on
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
Assessing biodiversity at the landscape
level in cooperation with the Forest
Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program
ENLIGHTENED MANDATE!
To conserve fish & wildlife populations and
habitats in their natural diversity….”
fish and wildlife = any member of the animal
kingdom including without limitation any mammal,
fish, bird, amphibian, reptile, mollusk, crustacean,
arthropod or other invertebrate… (ANILCA)
¾
Determine the occurrence and
distribution of selected terrestrial
flora & fauna (inventory)
¾
Assess trends in occurrence and
distribution of selected terrestrial
flora & fauna (monitoring)
¾
Develop explanatory statistical
models to assess effects of physical,
biological, and anthropogenic factors
on distributions
175 FIA points in forests
at 5-km intervals
Another 80 points in
nonforested habitats
LTEMP
255 permanent points
systematically arrayed at
5-km intervals sampled
cooperatively with FIA
2004 MOU designated LTEMP
as FIA adjunct inventory
Data collected in 2004
and 2006
¾
Vascular & nonvascular flora on
nonforested points (modified line
intercept)
¾
Breeding bird densities (VCP)
¾
Insect relative abundance (sweep
nets)
¾
Sound meter readings
¾
Rose galls as disturbance index
LTEMP site 3088
Birds
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
GIS derived data
Vascular flora
Black spruce (IA2F), 40 years old
Elevation = 20 m
Patch size = 57 ha
Nearest stream = 105m
Nearest road = 2725 m
Nearest border = 1119 m
Leq = 46.4 dBa
Rose galls = 0
LTEMP site 3088
Birds
26 species of
vascular plants
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
Vascular flora
Alanus incana
Athyruium filiz-femina
Betula nana
Calamagrostis candadensis
Chamerion angustifolium
Cornus canadensis
Dryopteris expansa
Empetrum nigrum
Equisetum sylvaticum
Equisetum arvense
Gymnocarpium dryopteris
Linnaea borealis
Mertensia paniculata
Picea mariana
Pyrola minor
Ribes glandulosum
Ribes hudsonianum
Ribes triste
Rosa acicularis
Rubus arcticus
Saliz pulchra
Sanguisorba candadensis
Spiraea stevenii
Trientalis europaea
Vaccinium uliginosum
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
LTEMP site 3088
Birds
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
Vascular flora
9 species of
nonvascular plants
and counting
Ptilidium ciliare
Drepanocladus uncinnatus
Stereocaulon alpinum
Aulacomnium palustre
Cladonia umbricola
Parmelia sulcata
Pleurozium schreberi
Rhizomnium nudum
Brachythecium sp.
LTEMP site 3088
7 bird species
Birds
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
Vascular flora
Alder flycatcher
Cliff swallow
Orange crowned warbler
Ruby-crowned kinglet
Swainson’s thrush
White-winged crossbill
Wilson’s snipe
LTEMP site 3088
Birds
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
Vascular flora
Aphidius sp.
Ephedrus lacertosus
Phaenoglyphis sp.
Podabrini
Aphididae
Araneae
Braconidae
Hemerobiidae
Cicadellidae
Culicidae
Diptera
Empididae
Ichneumonidae
Javesella pellucida
Lepidoptera
Melanostoma mellinum
Muscidae
Mycetophilidae
Pseudocalliope sp.
Psyllidae
Simuliidae
Sminthurus A.
22 arthropod taxa
and counting
Alder flycatcher
Cliff swallow
Orange crowned warbler
Aphidius sp.
Ephedrus lacertosus Ruby-crowned kinglet
Swainson’s thrush
Phaenoglyphis sp.
Alanus incana
White-winged crossbill
Podabrini
Athyruium filiz-femina
Wilson’s
snipe
Aphididae
Betula nana
Araneae
Calamagrostis candadensis
Braconidae
Ptilidium ciliare
Chamerion angustifolium
Hemerobiidae
Drepanocladus uncinnatus Cornus canadensis
Cicadellidae
Stereocaulon alpinum
Dryopteris expansa
Culicidae
Aulacomnium palustre
Empetrum nigrum
Diptera
Cladonia umbricola
Equisetum sylvaticum
Empididae
Parmelia sulcata
Equisetum arvense
Ichneumonidae
Pleurozium schreberi
Gymnocarpium dryopteris
Javesella pellucida Rhizomnium nudum
Linnaea borealis
Lepidoptera
Brachythecium sp.
Mertensia paniculata
Melanostoma mellinum
Picea mariana
Muscidae
Pyrola minor
Mycetophilidae
Ribes glandulosum
Pseudocalliope sp.
Ribes hudsonianum
Psyllidae
Ribes triste
Simuliidae Black spruce (IA2F), 40 years old
Rosa acicularis
Sminthurus Elevation
A.
= 20 m
Rubus arcticus
Patch size = 57 ha
Saliz pulchra
Nearest stream = 105m
Sanguisorba candadensis
Nearest road = 2725 m
Spiraea stevenii
Nearest border = 1119 m
Trientalis europaea
Leq = 46.4 dBa
Vaccinium uliginosum
Rose galls = 0
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
LTEMP site 3088
Birds
Arthropods
Nonvascular flora
Vascular flora
647 species to date!
86 birds
333 vascular plants
78 nonvascular plants
44 lichen/fungi
106 arthropods
species assemblages
spatial distribution
temporal change
explanatory models
What makes LTEMP work?
¾
Permanent sampling sites to measure change
¾
Statistically robust sampling frame (systematic) to
survive planned and unplanned habitat changes
¾
Data are representative of the refuge unit
¾
Co-location of biotic & abiotic sampling (modeling)
¾
All sampling methods are passive, nondestructive (to
habitat) and inexpensive
¾
Multi-taxa sampling and interagency cost-share
Multiple approaches to monitoring spatial
and temporal changes in species occurrences
OCCUPANY MODELING
INVENTORY
DATA MINING
GENERAL LINEAR
MODELING
Occupancy as a monitoring metric
Pr (site being occupied)
¾ λ, extinction, colonization rates
¾ Program PRESENCE
¾ detection estimation problematic
¾
Matt Bowser
Modeling and monitoring
terrestrial arthropod diversity on
the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
MS thesis, UAF
Spatially-explicit modeling using GLM approach
focus on explanatory modeling
¾ 60-80% accuracy
¾ computationally intensive
¾ incorporate climate variables
¾ management application
¾
Dawn Magness
Managing the NWRS with climate
change: The interaction of policy
perceptions and ecological
knowledge
PhD dissertation, UAF
Data mining using Random Forests
focus on predictive modeling
¾ >90% accuracy
¾ computationally easy
¾ pixel-by-pixel change analysis
¾
Magness, Huettmann & Morton (In press)
Using Random Forests to provide
predicted species distribution maps as a
metric for ecological inventory & monitoring
programs
In Applications of Computational
Intelligence in Biology (Springer-Verlag)
OCCUPANY MODELING
INVENTORY
DATA MINING
GENERAL LINEAR
MODELING
We strongly recommend developing a national program to inventory and
monitor changes in the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental
health of the NWRS consistent with the 1997 Refuge Improvement Act.
Objectives …would be scaled to detect changes in flora, fauna, and other
metrics at the regional and/or national level. This program would consist of
permanent sampling sites, ideally integrated and cost-shared with existing
national monitoring programs such as the USDA Forest Inventory &
Analysis program… Data resulting from this proposed I&M program can be
used to model spatially-explicit distributions of biota now and into the
future as a result of climate change.”
Four Key Ideas to Guide the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s Response to Climate Change
Feb 2008
10,000 FIA plots on Federal lands
in Alaska!?
Forested
acres
Total
acres
%
forested
BLM
23,950,501
82,101,472
29
NPS
8,037,548
53,354,672
15
USFWS
27,968,227
83,529,052
33
∑
59,956,276 218,985,197