Northeastern United States Modeled Forest Type Group - Year 2010

The forests of the Northeastern United States are home to some of the greatest diversity of nesting songbirds in the country. Climate change, shifts in natural disturbance regimes, and invasive species pose threats to forest habitats and bird species in the northeastern United States and represent major challenges to natural resource managers. Although broad adaptation approaches have been suggested for sustaining forested habitats under global change, it is unclear how effective the implementation of these strategies at local and regional scales will be for maintaining habitat conditions for a broad suite of forest-dependent bird species over time. Moreover, given the diversity in forest stakeholders across the Northeast region, it is unclear if the adaptation science needs for these stakeholders are fully captured by existing adaptation recommendations. The overall goals of this project are to identify the adaptation science needs of federal, state, and tribal stakeholders of forest habitats and to determine the effectiveness of adaptation strategies at sustaining forest-dependent songbird species across the region. Scientists will survey and conduct interviews with these stakeholders to identify these key adaptation science needs as well as model future forest conditions to evaluate how effective different forest adaptation strategies will be at sustaining bird habitat under future climate conditions. This project will identify key research gaps related to forest adaptation science and inform the development of future research on healthy forest management and conservation of forest-dependent wildlife species in the U.S.

美国东北部森林栖息着全美种类最为丰富的筑巢鸣禽种群。气候变化、自然干扰格局的转变以及外来入侵物种，对美国东北部的森林栖息地与鸟类物种构成多重威胁，也给自然资源管理者带来严峻挑战。尽管学界已提出多项适应全球变化的通用策略，以维持森林栖息地健康，但目前尚不明确，在局地与区域尺度推行这些策略，能否长期维持依赖森林的各类鸣禽的栖息地条件。此外，鉴于美国东北部地区森林利益相关者群体的多样性，现有适应建议是否充分覆盖了这些群体的适应科学需求，仍有待厘清。本项目的总体目标为：明确森林栖息地相关联邦、州级及部落级利益相关者的适应科学需求，并评估各类适应策略在维持区域内依赖森林的鸣禽种群方面的有效性。研究人员将通过问卷调查与访谈，梳理上述关键适应科学需求，同时模拟未来森林环境状况，以评估不同森林适应策略在未来气候情境下维持鸟类栖息地的效能。本项目将明确森林适应科学领域的关键研究空白，并为美国未来健康森林管理及依赖森林的野生动物物种保护相关研究提供决策参考。