MEADOW refugia

Montane meadows are important ecosystems occurring at higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada. Occupying valleys and flats within the Sierra Nevada’s matrix of rugged topography and coniferous forests, montane meadows affect watershed function, plant biodiversity, and offer critical wildlife habitat for many species, including the California state-endangered Willow Flycatcher and the Great Gray Owl. Identifying and protecting the meadows that are likely to serve as climate change refugia may improve the chances of conserving a wide diversity of valued flora and fauna, such as wetland-obligate plants, the federally-threatened Yosemite toad, Belding’s ground squirrel, meadow voles, and several species of bats and raptors. 

Human activity can accelerate and multiply the threats climate change poses to montane meadows. To support refugial meadows, managers may mitigate human impacts by removing packstock, rerouting recreational trails that undermine meadow hydrological and ecological function, implementing restoration approaches that explicitly consider meadow hydrology, and exploring conservation strategies that consider habitat connectivity and migration corridors of valued meadow species. 

Focal Species identified at November 8, 2019 workshop:

• Yosemite toad (Anaxyrus canorus)

• Belding’s ground squirrel (Urocitellus beldingi)

• Meadow Voles 

• Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa)

• Willow Flycatcher (Empidonax traillii)

• Raptors 

• Bats

• Wetland obligate plants

Potential Management Actions:

Based on the focal resources, workshop participants identified potential management actions such as:

• Rerouting trails, removing packstock, and directing funding towards existing identified projects in those areas 

  • Example: Management Tools and Framework for Pack Stock Use and Meadow Monitoring in Yosemite Wilderness

  • Example: Reroute and Restore: Tuolumne’s Ranger Meadow

• Restoration targeted at refugial meadows and their hydrology 

  • Example: Lukens Meadow Ecological Restoration Project

  • Example: Restore Lyell Canyon: Meadow Habitat and John Muir Trail 

• Facilitating connectivity or even assisted migration of species to refugial meadows 

  • Connectivity in refugial meadows: Maher et al. 2017 

  • Example of assisted migration (not meadow-specific): Pacific Fisher Assisted Migration 

• Protection of meadows from extreme events - slow down the water/dissipate the energy through actions

• Beaver reintroduction and beaver dam analogs

  • Example from Rocky Mountain National Park: Simulated Beaver Structures

  • Research justification: Using beaver dams to restore incised stream ecosystems; Beaver dams without beavers

Longer-term actions may ultimately include targeted monitoring and adaptive management. 

Data Gaps:

• Occupancy data

• Life history data (plasticity; thresholds that trigger population collapse)

• Species distribution models 

• Thresholds (“tipping points for species and in terms of meadow hydrological function”)

• Groundwater and subsurface flows 

• Current condition of meadows 

Occupancy and distribution data for some of the prioritized species may be available at GBIF, iNaturalist, eBird, and the USGS Gap Analysis Project. 

Current efforts, data, and partnerships to identify and map meadow refugia: 

• UC Davis Sierra Nevada Meadows Clearinghouse - maps, assessments, projects, and reports relevant to montane meadows

• Sierra Meadow Prioritization Tool

  • This tool can be used to inform decision-making about which meadows to prioritize for restoration, protection, or conservation actions. 

  • Contains a comprehensive user guide

  • Datasets associated with the Sierra Meadow Prioritization Tool can also be found here

• Sierra Meadows Partnership - a group dedicated to Sierra meadow restoration, protection, and conservation 

• American Rivers’ watershed-wide assessment data

• Refugial meadow map produced by Maher et al. 2017 from UC Berkeley and collaborators.  Authors mapped a dataset of 17,000+ meadows across the Sierra Nevada, identifying those that may be able to serve as climate change refugia to promote population persistence of valued species, based on areas that show minimal change from historic conditions. This provides a method that can be used as a tool to prioritize places for climate adaptation.

National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Data (e.g., YOSE)

relevant rrc Publications

Thorne et al. 2020. Vegetation refugia can inform climate‐adaptive land management under global warming. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2208

Maher, SP, Morelli, TL, Hershey, M, Flint, AL, Flint, LE, Moritz, C, & Beissinger, SR. 2017. Erosion of refugia in the Sierra Nevada meadows network with climate change. Ecosphere, 8(4), e01673. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1673