Biodiversity Using Prediction
November 2009 - May 2013
The objectives of this project are to develop the knowledge necessary to make accurate predictions of the response of species and their ecosystems to climate change. These predictions are necessary to inform natural resource managers on how to appropriately adapt conservation strategies for a changing future, and both Federal and Florida state agencies have identified the understanding of global climate change impacts as priority issues. This project is a subset of a larger project with the USGS Southeast Ecological Science Center and Florida State Universitiy that will used downscaled climate predictions from coupled Atmospheric-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) to peninsular Florida, and then use existing hydrologic models for each basin to predict how the changes in climate will influence water flow and stage in the systems. Our part of the project will then link floral and faunal responses of particular indicator species (an endangered vole and small mammal, raptor, and fish communities) to those predicted changes in water availability using empirical analyses of both newly collected and existing data and population models for each taxon.