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Featured Publication

How can managers respond to changing ecosystems? Check out this exposition of the Resist-Accept-Direct framework.

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Featured Publication

Northwest CASC-supported researchers developed a new framework to assess how a wide variety of species may adapt to climate change.

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Featured Publication

National CASC Scientists co-authored an article in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment documenting species range shifts under climate change.

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Since its inception in 2008, CASC-funded research projects have generated over 2,000 publications in academic journals across the sciences, including articles in high-impact journals such as Science and Nature. Browse a selection of publications from CASC-funded projects below. For a complete list of our scientific projects, publications, and data, explore our Project Explorer database.

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CASC Network Annual Reports

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The CASC network develops an annual report each year to highlight successful and interesting activities from across the network over the past year. Explore past network reports.

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Regional CASC Annual Reports

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On an annual basis, each regional CASC produces a report documenting the activities of the host university and consortium institutions. Explore past reports from each CASC.

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Filter Total Items: 491

Divergent, plausible, and relevant climate futures for near- and long-term resource planning

Scenario planning has emerged as a widely used planning process for resource management in situations of consequential, irreducible uncertainty. Because it explicitly incorporates uncertainty, scenario planning is regularly employed in climate change adaptation. An early and essential step in developing scenarios is identifying “climate futures”—descriptions of the physical attributes of plausible
Authors
David J. Lawrence, Amber N. Runyon, John E. Gross, Gregor W. Schuurman, Brian W. Miller
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Climate impacts on the Gulf of Maine ecosystem: A review of observed and expected changes in 2050 from rising temperatures

The Gulf of Maine has recently experienced its warmest 5-year period (2015–2020) in the instrumental record. This warming was associated with a decline in the signature subarctic zooplankton species, Calanus finmarchicus. The temperature changes have also led to impacts on commercial species such as Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and American lobster (Homarus americanus) and protected species includi
Authors
Andrew J. Pershing, Michael A. Alexander, Damian C. Brady, David Brickman, Enrique N. Curchitser, Anthony W. Diamond, Loren McClenachan, Kathy Mills, Owen Nichols, Daniel Pendleton, Nicholas Record, James Scott, Michelle Staudinger, Yanjun Wang
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Ontogenetic trait shifts: Seedlings display high trait variability during early stages of development

Characterizing variation in plant functional traits is often key to understanding community-level processes and predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change. Trait-based ecology has focused on interspecific trait variation, but sources and consequences of within-species ontogenetic trait variation, particularly during early stages of development, remain understudied.Using a manipulative
Authors
Caroline Ann Havrilla, Seth M. Munson, Charles Yackulic, Bradley J. Butterfield
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Southwest Biological Science Center

Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate

Grasslands, and the depressional wetlands that exist throughout them, are endangered ecosystems that face both climate and land-use change pressures. Tens of millions of dollars are invested annually to manage the existing fragments of these ecosystems to serve as critical breeding habitat for migratory birds. The North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is a region that contains millions of de
Authors
Owen P. McKenna, David M. Mushet, Samuel R. Kucia, Elyssa Christina Mcculloch-Huseby
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Climate change is creating a mismatch between protected areas and suitable habitats for frogs and birds in Puerto Rico

Climate change is altering the spatial distribution of many species around the world. In response, we need to identify and protect suitable areas for a large proportion of the fauna so that they persist through time. This exercise must also evaluate the ability of existing protected areas to provide safe havens for species in the context of climate change. Here, we combined passive acoustic monito
Authors
Marconi Campos-Cerqueira, Adam Terando, Brent Murray, Jaime A. Collazo, Mitchell Aide
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Cooperative Research Units

The spatial-temporal relationship of blue-winged teal to domestic poultry: Movement state modeling of a highly mobile avian influenza host

1. Migratory waterfowl facilitate long distance dispersal of zoonotic pathogens and are increasingly recognized as contributing to the geographic spread of avian influenza viruses (AIV). AIV are globally distributed and have the potential to produce highly contagious poultry disease, economically impact both large-scale and backyard poultry producers, and raise the specter of epidemics and pandemi
Authors
John M. Humphreys, David C. Douglas, Andrew M. Ramey, Jennifer M. Mullinax, Catherine Soos, Paul T. Link, Patrick Walther, Diann Prosser
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Eastern Ecological Science Center

A global dataset of inland fisheries expert knowledge

Inland fisheries and their freshwater habitats face intensifying effects from multiple natural and anthropogenic pressures. Fish harvest and biodiversity data remain largely disparate and severely deficient in many areas, which makes assessing and managing inland fisheries difficult. Expert knowledge is increasingly used to improve and inform biological or vulnerability assessments, especially in
Authors
Gretchen L. Stokes, Abigail Lynch, Simon Funge-Smith, John Valbo-Jørgensen, T. Douglas Beard, Benjamin S. Lowe, Jesse P. Wong, Samuel J. Smidt
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

The ten steps to responsible Inland fisheries in practice: Reflections from diverse regional case studies around the globe

Inland fisheries make substantial contributions to food security and livelihoods locally, regionally, and globally but their conservation and management have been largely overlooked by policy makers. In an effort to remedy this limited recognition, a cross-sectoral community of scientists, practitioners, and policy makers from around the world convened a high-level meeting in 2015 at the Food and
Authors
Steven J. Cooke, Elizabeth A. Nyboer, Abigail Bennett, Abigail J. Lynch, Dana M. Infante, Ian G. Cowx, Douglas Beard, Devin Bartley, Craig Paukert, Andrea J. Reid, Simon Funge-Smith, Edith Gondwe, Emmanuel Kaunda, John D. Koehn, Nicholas J. Souter, Gretchen L. Stokes, Leandro Castello, Nancy J. Leonard, Christian Skov, Soren Berg, William W. Taylor
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Toward climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale

Climate change uncertainty poses serious challenges to conservation efforts. One emerging conservation strategy is to identify and conserve climate change refugia: areas relatively buffered from contemporary climate change that enable persistence of valued resources. This management paradigm may be pursued at broad scales by leveraging existing resources and placing them into a tangible framework
Authors
Cathleen Balantic, Andrea Adams, Shana Gross, Rachel Mazur, Sarah Sawyer, Jody Tucker, Marian Vernon, Claudia Mengelt, Jennifer Morales, James Thorne, Timothy Brown, Nicole Athearn, Toni Lyn Morelli
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Twenty-five essential research questions to inform the protection and restoration of freshwater biodiversity

Freshwater biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. Freshwater conservationists and environmental managers have enough evidence to demonstrate that action must not be delayed but have insufficient evidence to identify those actions that will be most effective in reversing the current trend.Here, the focus is on identifying essential research topics that, if addressed, will contribute di
Authors
Meagan Harper, Hebah S. Mejbel, Dylan Longert, Robin Abell, T. Douglas Beard, Joseph R. Bennett, Stephanie M. Carlson, William Darwall, Anthony Dell, Sami Domisch, David Dudgeon, Jörg Freyhof, Ian Harrison, Kathy A. Hughes, Sonja C. Jähnig, Jonathan M. Jeschke, Richard Lansdown, Mark Lintermans, Abigail Lynch, Helen M. R. Meredith, Sanjay Molur, Julian D. Olden, Steve J. Ormerod, Harmony Patricio, Andrea J. Reid, Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, Michele Thieme, David Tickner, Eren Turak, Olaf L. F. Weyl, Steve J. Cooke
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Optimizing preservation for multiple types of historic structures under climate change

Cultural resources in coastal parks and recreation areas are vulnerable to climate change. The US National Park Service (NPS) is facing the challenge of insufficient budget allocations for both maintenance and climate adaptation of historic structures. Research on adaptation planning for cultural resources has predominately focused on vulnerability assessments of heritage sites; however, few studi
Authors
Xiao Xiao, Erin Seekamp, Junyu Lu, Mitchell Eaton, Max Post van der Burg
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers

Managing for RADical ecosystem change: Applying the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework

Ecosystem transformation involves the emergence of persistent ecological or social–ecological systems that diverge, dramatically and irreversibly, from prior ecosystem structure and function. Such transformations are occurring at increasing rates across the planet in response to changes in climate, land use, and other factors. Consequently, a dynamic view of ecosystem processes that accommodates r
Authors
Abigail Lynch, Laura Thompson, Erik A. Beever, Augustin C. Engman, Cat Hawkins Hoffman, Stephen T. Jackson, Trevor J. Krabbenhoft, David J Lawrence, Douglas Limpinsel, Robert T. Magill, Tracy Melvin, John M. Morton, Robert Newman, Jay Peterson, Mark T. Porath, Frank J. Rahel, Gregor Schuurman, Suresh Sethi, Jennifer L. Wilkening
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Cooperative Research Units, Alaska Science Center