Patterns of forage production on California annual rangeland s influences an array of critical ecosystem services and functions across almost 50% of the land area in California, including livestock production, soil carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat, among others. Growth of annual grasses and forbs that make up this forage base are particularly sensitivity to changes in amount and timing of precipitation and seasonal variation in temperature. Thus, forage product ion on California rangeland s is expected to change significantly with future changes in climate. We created a model to quantify how climate changes might impact timing and amount of forage production in the mid-century, as well as spatial differences across the state. The broad objectives of this project are to quantify how future changes in temperature and precipitation may alter the timing and amount of forage production on California annual rangeland s and evaluate how the changes may vary either spatially (e.g. by major land resource area or ecoregion) or vary as a function of historical climatic conditions (e.g. to sites with lower historical precipitation vs. higher historical precipitation). We have integrated three main sources of data, historical weather data for California, a 30m data product that takes a partitioned 16-day Net Primary Productivity (NPP) dataset and uses an equation based on mean annual temperature to separate belowground from aboveground NPP and is available through the Rangeland Analysis Platform, and projections of future climate. The model was created using back-casting to obtain a statistically significant model. Model(s) will be used to predict future changes in NPP in both timing and amount. Models can then be used by land managers to make decisions on how to best prepare for future scenarios under different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to determine impacts to forage production, wildlife, and carbon sequestration.
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