Past Meetings

 Past NPS NER meetings

This project is being coproduced.

Conserving climate change refugia for climate adaptation in the northeast stakeholder workshop

On March 16 and 19th, 2020, scientists and managers from the National Park Service, USGS, and elsewhere came together through an online conference to begin building a climate change refugia conservation strategy for the northeastern landscape, with a focus on National Park Service lands. They developed a preliminary short list of species, ecosystems, and cultural resources on which to focus refugia identification and conservation. They identified opportunities to apply existing data and modeling results into ongoing local conservation efforts in order to optimize limited resources. This work is part of a broader framework of climate adaptation that also considers transition and resilience strategies.

These workshops are a result of a collaboration between NPS and USGS, with funding from Natural Resource Preservation Program, and will contribute to broader Climate Change Refugia Conservation plans.

More information on Northeast Climate Refugia can be found here.


Conserving Climate Change Refugia for Climate Adaptation in the Northeast - with a focus on New England and New York (March 16, 2020) and the Mid-Atlantic Region (March 19, 2020)

Agenda

[PDF Download]

9:00-9:45 Introductions: Background on climate change refugia conservation - Toni Lyn Morelli (USGS)

9:45-11:00 Presentations by researchers and managers on refugia maps and data:

·       NPS I&M - Aaron Weed (NPS) 

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·       Coastal Resources [Part 1] [Part 2] - Amanda Babson & Sara Stevens (NPS)

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·       Amphibians/Vernal Pools - Evan Grant (USGS)

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·       Vernal Pool Refugia - Jennifer Cartwright & Toni Lyn Morelli (USGS)

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·       Stream Habitat/Brook Trout - Ben Letcher (USGS)

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·       Coldwater Refugia in Shenandoah National Park - Evan Childress (NPS)

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·       Case study Acadia NP - Abraham Miller-Rushing (NPS)

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·       New England Forests - Matthew Duveneck (Harvard Forest)

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·       Species Climate Refugia - Ethan Plunkett (UMass)

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11:00-11:30 (Virtual) Breakout groups: What should we map refugia for? (top 3)

11:30-12:00 Group Discussions: Preliminary short list of priority focal resources

12:00-1:00 Break/ Lunch

1:00-2:00 (Virtual) Breakout groups 2 - Focal Resource: Address the following questions:

  1. What is your specific resource focus?

  2. How to apply climate change refugia results for ongoing or future management actions?

  3. What data and partnerships are a) available b) needed?

2:00-3:00 Report out

3:00-4:00 Wrap-up and next steps

March 16 meeting.jpg

For both meetings, participants identified priority focal species for which to map refugia. Additionally, participants described important data, research, and partnerships that could be used to formulate refugia maps to conserve prioritized species and ecosystems, and discussed potential management actions. 

To identify focal resources for the workshop, after introductory presentations and discussions, each group entered their top three priorities for refugia mapping and conservation via Mentimeter, forming a word cloud.  The entire group discussed the entries and each participant then entered their top 3 priorities which are listed below (with their updated title, developed through internal group discussion), separated by each workshop date. 

 

March 16, 2020 Workshop Focal Resources:

  1. Estuarine Marsh

2. Submerged Marine (including Seagrasses)

3. Coldwater Streams

4. Northern Forest Types

5. Cultural Resources

6. Freshwater Wetlands

 

March 19, 2020 Workshop Focal Resources:

  1. Coldwater Streams

2. High Elevation Plants

3. Salt marsh / Intertidal

4. Boreal Communities

5. Plant Diversity (this topic was agreed to be considered under the other categories)

The next step is to host video conferences to facilitate discussion regarding data available for refugia mapping, and what actions should be conducted based on these refugia maps. 

In the interim, University of Massachusetts Amherst student Sara Wisner will write her Master’s thesis based on these workshops, and will create refugia maps for NPS units. These ideas will be used in federal and state grant proposals. 

The long-term goal is to carry out an adaptive management project focusing on specific NPS units, mapping refugia for – and monitoring the response to – climate change, and tracking impact of management plans that were created as an outcome of this project.


preliminary results workshop

On March 16 and March 19, scientists, and managers from the National Park Service, USGS, and elsewhere came together on Zoom with a focus on climate change adaptation to begin building a climate change refugia conservation strategy for the Northeastern landscape. The March 16 and 19th, 2020 full workshop reports can be found here.

Together we developed a preliminary short list of species, ecosystems, and cultural resources on which to focus refugia identification and conservation. We identified opportunities to apply existing data and modeling results into ongoing local conservation efforts to optimize limited resources.

From these workshops we were able to develop climate change refugia products that will be essential in conservation strategy for the National Park Service (NPS). The goal of this meeting is to get valuable feedback from a variety of different perspectives, to create the most useful products for the National Park Service to promote management plans in the face of climate change.     

We joined together once again via Zoom on September 25, 2020 to discuss our collaborative work and analyze our preliminary results on this ongoing research.

These workshops are a result of a collaboration between NPS and USGS, with funding from the Natural Resource Preservation Program, and will contribute to broader Climate Change Refugia Conservation plans (climaterefugia.org).

Agenda

[PDF Download]

(VIA ZOOM)

2:00-2:20      Introductions

                        Background on climate change refugia conservation and the project to-

date – Toni Lyn Morelli (USGS)

2:20-3:20       Presentations by researchers and managers on Northeast refugia maps and data:

                      Northeast Wildlife Refugia – Ethan Plunkett

                      Northeast Forest Refugia – Matthew Duveneck

                      Northeast Coldwater Refugia – Ben Letcher and Jeff Walker

3:20-3:55     Breakout groups

3:55-4:00     Wrap-Up and next steps