Jennifer Davison

Publications (6) View all

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  Available from: Jennifer Davison

  Article: Approaches to evaluating climate change impacts on species: a guide to initiating the adaptation planning process.

  Erika L Rowland, Jennifer E Davison, Lisa J Graumlich
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  ABSTRACT: Assessing the impact of climate change on species and associated management objectives is a critical initial step for engaging in the adaptation planning process. Multiple approaches are available. While all possess limitations to their application associated with the uncertainties inherent in the data and models that inform their results, conducting and incorporating impact assessments into the adaptation planning process at least provides some basis for making resource management decisions that are becoming inevitable in the face of rapidly changing climate. Here we provide a non-exhaustive review of long-standing (e.g., species distribution models) and newly developed (e.g., vulnerability indices) methods used to anticipate the response to climate change of individual species as a guide for managers grappling with how to begin the climate change adaptation process. We address the limitations (e.g., uncertainties in climate change projections) associated with these methods, and other considerations for matching appropriate assessment approaches with the management questions and goals. Thorough consideration of the objectives, scope, scale, time frame and available resources for a climate impact assessment allows for informed method selection. With many data sets and tools available on-line, the capacity to undertake and/or benefit from existing species impact assessments is accessible to those engaged in resource management. With some understanding of potential impacts, even if limited, adaptation planning begins to move toward the development of management strategies and targeted actions that may help to sustain functioning ecosystems and their associated services into the future.
  Environmental Management 01/2011; 47(3):322-37. · 1.74 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Jennifer Davison

  Article: Phenological Characterization of Desert Sky Island Vegetation Communities with Remotely Sensed and Climate Time Series Data

  Willem J.D. Van Leeuwen, Jennifer E. Davison, Grant M. Casady, Stuart E. Marsh
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  ABSTRACT: Climate change and variability are expected to impact the synchronicity and interactions between the Sonoran Desert and the forested sky islands which represent steep biological and environmental gradients. The main objectives were to examine how well satellite greenness time series data and derived phenological metrics (e.g., season start, peak greenness) can characterize specific vegetation communities across an elevation gradient, and to examine the interactions between climate and phenological metrics for each vegetation community. We found that representative vegetation types (11), varying between desert scrub, mesquite, grassland, mixed oak, juniper and pine, often had unique seasonal and interannual phenological trajectories and spatial patterns. Satellite derived land surface phenometrics (11) for each of the vegetation communities along the cline showed numerous distinct significant relationships in response to temperature (4) and precipitation (7) metrics. Satellite-derived sky island vegetation phenology can help assess and monitor vegetation dynamics and provide unique indicators of climate variability and patterns of change.
  Remote Sensing. 01/2010; 2(2):388-415.
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  Available from: Henry D. Adams

  Article: Vegetation synchronously leans upslope as climate warms.

  David D Breshears, Travis E Huxman, Henry D Adams, Chris B Zou, Jennifer E Davison
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 09/2008; 105(33):11591-2. · 9.68 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Jennifer Davison

  Article: Leveraging modern climatology to increase adaptive capacity across protected area networks

  Jennifer E. Davison, Lisa J. Graumlich, Erika L. Rowland, Gregory T. Pederson, David D. Breshears
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  ABSTRACT: Human-driven changes in the global environment pose an increasingly urgent challenge for the management of ecosystems that is made all the more difficult by the uncertain future of both environmental conditions and ecological responses. Land managers need strategies to increase regional adaptive capacity, but relevant and rapid assessment approaches are lacking. To address this need, we developed a method to assess regional protected area networks across biophysically important climatic gradients often linked to biodiversity and ecosystem function. We plot the land of the southwestern United States across axes of historical climate space, and identify landscapes that may serve as strategic additions to current protected area portfolios. Considering climate space is straightforward, and it can be applied using a variety of relevant climate parameters across differing levels of land protection status. The resulting maps identify lands that are climatically distinct from existing protected areas, and may be utilized in combination with other ecological and socio-economic information essential to collaborative landscape-scale decision-making. Alongside other strategies intended to protect species of special concern, natural resources, and other ecosystem services, the methods presented herein provide another important hedging strategy intended to increase the adaptive capacity of protected area networks. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
  Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions. 22(1):268-274.
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  Available from: Jennifer Davison

  Article: Bringing indices of species vulnerability to climate change into geographic space: an assessment across the Coronado national forest

  Jennifer E. Davison, Sharon Coe, Deborah Finch, Erika Rowland, Megan Friggens, Lisa J. Graumlich
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  ABSTRACT: Indices that rate the vulnerability of species to climate change in a given area are increasingly used to inform conservation and climate change adaptation strategies. These species vulnerability indices (SVI) are not commonly associated with landscape features that may affect local-scale vulnerability. To do so would increase their utility by allowing managers to examine how the distributions of vulnerable species coincide with environmental features such as topography and land use, and to detect landscape-scale patterns of vulnerability across species. In this study we evaluated 15 animal species that had been scored with the USDA-Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station's system for assessing vulnerability of species to climate change. We applied the vulnerability scores to each species' respective habitat models in order to visualize the spatial patterns of cross-species vulnerability across the biologically diverse Coronado national forest, and to identify the considerations of spatially referencing such indices. Across the study extent, cross-species vulnerability was higher in higher-elevation woodlands and lower in desert scrub. The results of spatially referencing SVI scores may vary according to the species examined, the area of interest, the selection of habitat models, and the method by which cross-species vulnerability indices are created. We show that it is simple and constructive to bring species vulnerability indices into geographic space: landscape-scale patterns of vulnerability can be detected, and relevant ecological and socioeconomic contexts can be taken into account, allowing for more robust conservation and management strategies.
  Biodiversity and Conservation. 21(1):189-204.