From the GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY and the Department of the “galactically stupid” comes this new spin coupled with a new buzzword – “climate connectivity”. Authors of the study claim a need for creating “climate corridors” for plants and animals to use to flee to cooler areas.“We studied what could happen if we were to provide additional connectivity that would allow species to move across the landscape through climate corridors…” . Riiiight. I’m sure the deer, chipmunks, salamanders, and pine trees can read signs and access these “corridors” assuming of course, whatever fool that tried to build them could secure all the land rights, permits, etc. And, as we all know, animals just don’t like warmer environments, like UHI infested cities, so we have to build corridors around them. Oh, wait.
Of course, it’s all built on a model, as they say: “We see a lot of species’ distributions really start to wink out after about 50 years, but it is tricky to look at future predictions because we will have a lot of habitat loss predicted using our models…”. Yes, Yogi Berra said it best: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
The stupid, it burns.
Eastern US needs ‘connectivity’ to help species escape climate change
For plants and animals fleeing rising temperatures, varying precipitation patterns and other effects of climate change, the eastern United States will need improved “climate connectivity” for these species to have a better shot at survival.
Western areas of the U.S. provide greater temperature ranges and fewer human interruptions than eastern landscapes, allowing plants and animals there to move toward more hospitable climates with fewer obstacles. A new study has found that only 2 percent of the eastern U.S. provides the kind of climate connectivity required by species that will likely need to migrate, compared to 51 percent of the western United States.
The research, reported June 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for the first time quantifies the concept of climate connectivity in the United States. The paper suggests that creating climate-specific corridors between natural areas could improve that connectivity to as much as 65 percent nationwide, boosting the chances of survival by more species. The issue is especially critical in the Southeast, which could provide routes to cooler northern climates as temperatures rise.
“Species are going to have to move in response to climate change, and we can act to both facilitate movement and create an environment that will prevent loss of biodiversity without a lot of pain to ourselves,” said Jenny McGuire, a research scientist in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “If we really start to be strategic about planning to prevent biodiversity loss, we can help species adjust effectively to climate change.”
Creating and maintaining connections between natural areas has long been thought critical to allowing plants and animals to move in search of suitable climate conditions, she explained. Some species will have to move hundreds of kilometers over the course of a half-century.
McGuire and her collaborators set out to determine the practicality of that kind of travel and test whether these human initiatives could improve migration to cooler areas. Using detailed maps of human impact created by David Theobald at Conservation Partners in Fort Collins, Colorado, they distinguished natural areas from areas disturbed by human activity across the United States. They then calculated the coolest temperatures that could be found by moving within neighboring natural areas.
Co-authors Tristan Nuñez from the University of California Berkeley, Joshua Lawler from the University of Washington, Brad McRae from the Nature Conservancy and others created a program called Climate Linkage Mapper. They then used this program to find the easiest pathways across climate gradients and human-disturbed regions to connect natural areas.
“A lot of these land areas are very fragmented and broken up,” McGuire said. “We studied what could happen if we were to provide additional connectivity that would allow species to move across the landscape through climate corridors. We asked how far they could actually go and what would be the coolest temperatures they could find.”
With its relatively dense human population and smaller mountains, the eastern part of the United States fell short on climate connectivity. The western part of the country – with its tall mountains, substantial undisturbed natural areas and strict conservation policies – provided much better climate connectivity.
Improving connectivity would require rehabilitating forests and planting natural habitats adjacent to interruptions such as large agricultural fields or other areas where natural foliage has been destroyed. It could also mean building natural overpasses that would allow animals to cross highways, helping them avoid collisions with vehicles.
Not only will animals have to move, but they’ll also need to track changes in the environment and food, such as specific prey for carnivores and the right plants for herbivores. Some birds and large animals may be able to make that adjustment, but many smaller creatures may struggle to track the food and climate they need.
“A lot of them are going to have a hard time,” said McGuire. “For plants and animals in the East, there is a higher potential for extinction due to an inability to adapt to climate change. We have a high diversity of amphibians and other species that are going to struggle.”
The negative impacts of climate change won’t affect all species equally, McGuire said. Species with small ranges or those with specialist diets or habitats will struggle the most.
“Not all plants and animals will have to move,” she explained. “There is a subset of them that will be able to hunker down where they are. There will be some species that are really widespread and will end up just having some population losses. But especially for species that have smaller ranges, there will be some loss of biodiversity as they are unable to jump across agricultural fields or major roadways.”
The Southeast, especially the coastal plains from Louisiana through Virginia, could create a bottleneck for species trying to move north away from rising temperatures and sea levels. “The Southeast ends up being a really important area for a lot of vertebrate species that we know are going to have to move into the Appalachian area and even potentially farther north,” she added.
In future work, the researchers hope to examine individual species to determine which ones are most likely to struggle with the changing climate, and which areas of the country are likely to be most impacted by conflicts between humans and relocating animals.
“We see a lot of species’ distributions really start to wink out after about 50 years, but it is tricky to look at future predictions because we will have a lot of habitat loss predicted using our models,” McGuire said. “Change is perpetual, but we are going to have to scramble to prepare for this.”
###
The research was supported by the U.S. National Park Service and by the Packard Foundation.
CITATION: Jenny L. McGuire, Joshua J. Lawler, Brad H. McRae, Tristan Nuñez, and David Theobald, “Achieving climate connectivity in a fragmented landscape,” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016).
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Anyone who has driven across the E. US should know that there is forest everywhere and fields. The idea that a highway or corn field prevents any animal and most plants from migrating is simply absurd. All animals will cross fields and only a handful of amphibians will be unable to cross a road. Invading plants have spread across huge regions with no help from man, including trees. So all mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and plants are free to move. A handful of amphibians and a very few poor-dispersing plants have a problem, maybe. They also make an absurd assumption that organisms must move or perish–not true. Eventually they need to move to stay competitive. You can plant most plants from E. US in Florida or even Rio and they are happy.
Actually, alien weeds thrive along roads.
Bridges have allowed the armadillo to migrate out of Texas by giving them a way to cross rivers that used to be natural boundaries.
In California they are already obsessed with corridors. They have connected the natural habitat so much that cities like Riverside are strangled by it. Great job there.
IIRC, the “Agenda for the 21st Century” included a Corridors Map, where the end state would be us nasty humans crammed into Population Control Centers (also known as “Sustainable Cities”), stacked like cord wood in tiny, cramped living accommodations – with access to the next Population Control Center via State-controlled Mass Transit (trains or the like). The balance of the “Natural Corridors” – where no human interaction with the land or animals is allowed – is strictly off-limits to agriculture, recreation (hunting, fishing, joy-riding your ATV, etc.), sightseeing, and/or that roadside pit stop to relieve oneself. Verboten, I say!
This seems to be the first feeler of the latest attempt to sway the masses into accepting this sort of change…maybe if they promise free stuff along with this, it will be acceptable to the younger generation of voters…..
MCR
This is not new . . . and while it’s nice to see awareness building, the competition is way, way ahead of the game in terms of getting it done.
Yes, it’s about the Wildlands Project . . . although that’s now the Wildlands Network, whose website is located at http://wildlandsnetwork.org/.
As you can see from the map in the article, the western U.S. is pretty well sewed up, at least conceptually. So now we have the “need” to sew up the east, where most are blissfully unaware of the Wildlands Network, hence the “scientific” push to gin up the Great Impending Eastern Biodiversity Catastrophe (If we Fail to Immediately Hemorrhage Trillions of Bucks Out of the Productive Economy) campaign. Hmmm . . . make that “scientism” instead of “scientific” and we are likely closer on target.
It’s not quite all the way into Deep Ecology . . . unless you factor in a planet slouching zombie-like toward WW-III. It’s certainly deeply mired in conservation biology, though. You can learn more about conservation biology at http://consbio.org/, the Conservation Biology Institute’s website.
It’s no accident that the federal dollars for this study came from the National Park Service (NPS). NPS is part of the Department of Interior (DOI). DOI agencies have been given the lead for climate change adaptation via connectivity and corridors. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is another DOI agency, and it took up the corridor game several years ago using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) bludgeon as its primary tool. More recently, the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) put its draft revision to its Big Planning Rule In the Sky, 43 CFR Part 1600 out for comment. The comment period is now closed, but the key point is that the proposed revision moves all of BLM’s federal lands management planning from being jurisdiction based to landscape based . . . and landscape based planning is necessary for corridor establishment. Landscape planning blurs or removed geopolitical boundaries from the planning picture. The kicker there is that land management planning for all other federal agencies will have to be consistent with the BLM’s planning process.
One of the larger land management agencies is the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) U.S. Forest Service (USFS). There are a lot of National Forests in the east.
Another recent study found that the most effective wildlife corridors are those that follow riparian zones (river systems.) This brings the Department of Defense (DOD) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) into the framework . . . which means that they will be acting with their buddies at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on the Clean Water Act.
What’s already in play that “needs” a boost, though?
The formal establishment of the Eastern Wildway.
Focused on the Appalachian spine, more specifically on the Appalachian Trail, the Eastern Wildway is envisioned to connect the Acadian forests of Canada’s Maritimes to the Everglades in Florida. A more complete description of it is located on the Wildlands Network website at http://wildlandsnetwork.org/wildways/eastern-wildway.
Now, following the federal dollar trail, how do you get there?
Well, there are several National Parks and other NPS units along the way, coupled with a bunch of National Forests. These all “need” to be connected with one another. There’s the Appalachian Trail itself, which is part of the NPS National Scenic Trail system. (NPS is “partnered” with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for that one.) The only break in that corridor base is from North Georgia to the Everglades.
The Appalachian Trail would be the center of the Eastern Wildway’s core. Wildway cores need huge buffers to be considered effective. The Clean Water Act (EPA, USACE) and the ESA (USFWS) work well to help establish and build those, particularly using keystone predators (red wolf in the southeast, gray wolf subspecies everywhere else) and other wide-ranging endangered or threatened species (bat species being hammered by white nose syndrome throughout the designated Eastern Wildway) do the trick there.
Add to all of this the establishment of national monuments (also managed by the DOI’s agencies) through strokes of the Executive Pen, and you can see where the Georgia Tech study logically leads.
Nothing new. Already happening.
I look forward to “Slow – Children at Play” signs being replaced with “Slow – Climate Connectivity Corridor” signs.
Climate Science is late to the party though, Social sciences has been way ahead with the creation of “Safe Places”.
We have one or more sign posters in my community. A favorite is “drive like your children live here.” Recently, someone has posted signs saying “slow down, turtle crossing.” I have lived here since 1977 and have never seen a turtle cross the road where the signs are posted.
Plant species that have a narrow ranges are typically due to soil content and conditions. Many plant species require acidic soils and many plant species require alkaline soils. the natural ranges for those plants stop abuptly when the soil content changes.
maybe the climate scientists should concentrate on creating corridors for soils to move in order to mitigate a warming climate.
A series of safe-spaces would need to be designated in this situation. The mammals’ identity need to be respected, no-predatory zones designated & the right to perform bodily functions without regard to other mammals territory guaranteed.
Plants’ safe-spaces must give those which feel threatened by the presence of some kinds of insects the option to avoid any interaction. All contact between parties must be done within the context of affirmative consent to each phase of interaction. Ripe fruit bearing plants shall be deemed to have impaired faculties when approached by an insect due to fermentable soluble sugar phloem content.
Insects with parasitic relationship to another insect that has entered a safe-space along the corridor is obliged to refrain from parasitizing activity for the duration of it’s host insect stay.
Host insects in a safe-space must be provided with counselling for traumatic stress and given appropriate comfort.
Micro-organisms with relationships to both plants & mammals, whether external or internal, once in a safe-space shall not be profiled based on whether they are beneficial or pathogenic symbionts. Furthermore discrimination based on phages in any microbe will be prevented by not categorizing any phage propensity.
Virus are not to be induced toward any expression of virulence while in safe-spaces. As such all social media shall be monitored & Viro-phobia avoided so self-virulence never happens.
Decree to be valid in all parts of the globe under punishment by loss of virtue signalling, void where prohibited by tribal warlords…..//
Whoa, there’s a good sized chunk of Maine that is colored gray (never succeed) That’s the Allagash Wilderness. Trees, no roads, lakes, no roads, rivers, no roads, and lots more trees. You can’t even get there easily to study it.
I don’t understand the “never succeed” unless it means any critter that goes in there is going to freeze to death before it comes back out.
… and the white area of the map is designated as … what?
Essentially the study shows that we need to focus our regulatory efforts on the west, ’cause that’s where we can be successful.
Personally, I would like to see corridors for the expansion of Carolina dog habitat; reintroduction of viable wolf populations along the entire eastern seaboard (along with the necessary connecting corridors); and on site mitigation of the lost wetland areas throughout Washington DC (along with the necessary corridors to allow for natural re-population with native species). Of course the people that live in those areas would like to see corridors and their associated impacts located/expanded in other areas….
The west is already highly overregulated, and doesn’t need more federal “help” than it has already been subjected to.
I wouldn’t be over-worried about the wolves. Left to themselves, they will continue expanding to occupy the entirety of their former ranges without any additional assistance. There will, of course, be the usual snarlygusting that will inevitably arise whenever they move into new territory and suburban/exurban homeowners start losing their kitties and doggies to the wolves. Livestock owners will also need to be compensated for their losses, and children will be further isolated from their natural surroundings because their parents won’t let them out of their yards.
Are you sure that’s what you want?
There’s really no need for large predators in human environments. We fill that niche just fine, and frankly we don’t need wolves attacking livestock or people.
He did say “Eastern Seaboard”.
IE, inflict on those easterners the same treatment they have been inflicting on the rest of us.
Norm … you are right. My point being that I would like to see an equal standard of government harassment. The best way to get rid of a bad law, regulation, or policy is to enforce it equally across the (eastern sea) board.
Joel … “… no need for large predators in human environments….”
I would need a definition of “non-human environment” before commenting further.
‘I would need a definition of “non-human environment” before commenting further.’
I thought my statement was pretty straightforward. Predators are ecologically necessary where game animals overpopulate. That’s not the case in areas of human population.
Agenda 21 anyone?
And as always, the real threat of Climate Change is what people will try and do about it. You can’t exorcize a demon that isn’t there, but you sure can mess up the patient trying.
Ugh. I’ve never been embarrassed to be a Tech alum.
Until now.
Just think what would happen if we actually built a wall?
Caribou move? Who knew? Can’t they model that?
An Ancient Strategy and the Test of Time
So….what’s with all the turbines clogging the “connectivity corridors”? This is as stupid as the plan to move the migratory corridors for birds to accommodate the wind industry. Who comes up with this crap and why do we fund it??!!
I can’t help wondering if the authors of this paper were at least partially inspired by the efforts of Bolivia to have the UN adopt human rights for birds, bees, and trees.
Then again, they might also have been inspired by “peer reviewed” material contained in the (then) new Journal of Animal Ethics. As I had noted a few weeks later, in their maiden editorial, the editors (a theologian and a philosopher) had declared that:
And to think we have the chutzpah to be concerned that there are some who damn us with the D-word!
Amazing, eh?!
Well we have the roads now but will there be any fossil fuels for homo sapiens to use them? As for the animals they can easily adapt like the polar bears learning to fly but it’s every exploding schoolchild for themselves I’m afraid.