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What do polar bears, hummingbirds, clams, bowhead whales and invasive plant species have to do with Earth science spacecraft orbiting overhead 24/7? Soon observations from NASA's Earth-observing satellites of our planet's climate will be brought to bear on understanding how different species and ecosystems respond to climate changes and developing tools to better manage wildlife and natural resources.
NASA has joined with the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Smithsonian Institution to initiate new research and applications efforts that will bring the global view of climate from space down to Earth to benefit wildlife and key ecosystems.
This is the first time NASA has targeted research investigating the intersection of climate and biological studies. The projects are sponsored by the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
The wildlife species to be studied include polar bears in Greenland, bowhead whales in the Arctic Ocean, and migratory birds and waterfowl in the United States. Other studies will focus on species of commercial interest such as clams, oysters and other bivalves in U.S. coastal waters, and Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico.
To learn more about climatic effects on plants, researchers will focus on the loss of cordgrass marshes in coastal wetlands of the southeastern states. They also will examine the stresses to native tree species, many of commercial value, across the western states and Canada.
"We know very little about how the majority of species and ecosystems will respond to environmental changes related to changing climates," said Woody Turner, manager of NASA's Ecological Forecasting program in Washington. "These projects bring together NASA's global satellite data of the physical environment with ground-based data on specific species and ecosystems and computer modeling to detect and understand biological responses to climate."
The studies will use long-term observations of Earth from space, including data on sea surface temperature, vegetation cover, rainfall, snow cover, sea ice and the variability in the microscopic marine green plants that form the base of ocean food chains.
Below are the 15 new projects and their principal investigators:
Bird
Populations and Extreme Climate Events
Patricia
Heglund, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, La Crosse, Wisconsin
Project
title: "Effects of extreme climate events on avian demographics: The role
of refugia in mitigating climate change"
Bowhead
Whales
Elizabeth
Holmes, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Fisheries Service, Seattle, Wash.
Project
title: "Forecasting changes in habitat use by bowhead whales in response
to Arctic climate change"
Clams,
Oysters and Other Bivalves
David
Wethey, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Project
title: "Physiological impacts of climate change using remote sensing: An
integrative approach to predicting patterns of species abundance and
distribution and thresholds of ecosystem collapse"
Coastal Salt Marshes
Ilka
Feller, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, Md.
Project
title: "Sensitivity of coastal zone ecosystems to climate change"
Website: http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/animal_plant_interaction/Trail/VirtualTour.html
Elk
and Caribou
Mark
Hebblewhite, University of Montana, Missoula
Project
title: "Global population dynamics and climate change: Comparing
species-level impacts on two contrasting large mammals"
Global
Biodiversity of Land Vertebrates
Walter
Jetz, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Project
title: "Integrating global species distributions, remote-sensing
information and climate station data to assess recent biodiversity response to
climate change"
Habitat
Modeling
Jeff
Morisette, U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins (Colo.) Science Center
Project
title: "Using the U.S. Geological Survey's 'Resources for Advanced
Modeling' to connect climate drivers to biological responses"
Website: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/RAM/
Hummingbird
Diversity
Catherine
Graham, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, N.Y.
Project
title: "Combining remote-sensing and biological data to predict the
consequences of climate change on hummingbird diversity"
Website: http://www.hummonnet.org/index.html
Migratory
Species
Gil
Bohrer, Ohio State University, Columbus
Project
title: "Discovering relationships between climate and animal migration
with new tools for linking animal movement tracks with weather and land surface
data"
Website: http://www.movebank.org
Migratory
Fish Habitat
Mitchell
Roffer, Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Services, Inc., Melbourne, Fla.
Project
title: "Management and conservation of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus
thynnus) and other highly migratory fish in the Gulf of Mexico under International
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change scenarios: A study using regional
climate and habitat models"
Website: http://www.roffs.com/NASA_NMFSBluefinTuna.html
Native
Tree Species
Richard
Waring, Oregon State University College of Forestry, Corvallis
Project
title: "Mapping of stress on native tree species across the western United
States and Canada: Interpretation of climatically induced changes using a
physiologically based approach"
Website: http://www.pnwspecieschange.info/
Plants,
Prey and Predators
David
Mattson, U.S. Geological Survey Colorado Plateau Research Station, Flagstaff, Ariz.
Project
title: "Spatial responses to climate across trophic levels: Monitoring and
modeling plants, prey, and predators in the intermountain western United
States"
Polar
Bears
Kristin
Laidre, University of Washington, Seattle
Project
title: "Climate change, sea ice loss, and polar bears in Greenland"
"WhaleWatch"
Helen
Bailey, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, Md.
Project
title: "WhaleWatch: A tool using satellite telemetry and remote-sensing
environmental data to provide near real-time predictions of whale occurrence in
the California Current System to reduce anthropogenic impacts"
Wildlife
and Ecosystem Management
Andrew
Hansen, Montana State University, Bozeman
Project
title: "Using NASA resources to inform climate and land use adaptation:
Ecological forecasting, vulnerability assessment, and evaluation of management
options across two U.S. Department of Interior Landscape Conservation
Cooperatives"