Get reliable rangeland science

PREDICTING CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON SAGEBRUSH POPULATIONS: MODEL COMPARISON GIVES REASON FOR HOPE.
Author
Adler, Peter B.
Renwick, Katie
Curtis, Caroline
Kleinhesselink, Andrew R.
Schlaepfer, Daniel
Aldridge, Cameron
Bradley, Bethany
Poulter, Ben
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2017
Body

Healthy big sagebrush habitat is essential for the persistence of many high value conservation species across the Western U.S. To gain confidence in predictions of climate change impacts on existing populations of big sagebrush, we compared output from four modeling approaches, each based on different data and assumptions. The models consistently predicted that rising temperatures will decrease sagebrush cover and biomass only in the warmest portions of the region, but will have neutral or even positive effects on sagebrush across much of its current distribution. All locations where our models agree on negative impacts fall within areas classified as having low resistance and resilience to plant invasions and fire. These results indicate that climate change will not undermine investments in sagebrush conservation and restoration except in the warmest and least resilient portions of the region. An important caveat is that our models do not consider how climate change will interact with the invasive grass-fire cycle, which is a high priority for future research.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM St. George, UT
Collection
SRM Annual Meeting Abstracts