Understanding and managing the interactions of impacts from nature-based recreation and climate change.

Disturbance to ecosystems in parks and protected areas from nature-based tourism and recreation is increasing in scale and severity, as are the impacts of climate change-but there is limited research examining the degree to which these anthropogenic disturbances interact. In this perspective paper, we draw on the available literature to expose complex recreation and climate interactions that may alter ecosystems of high conservation value such that important species and processes no longer persist. Our emphasis is on ecosystems in high demand for tourism and recreation that also are increasingly experiencing stress from climate change.

Wetland features and landscape context predict the risk of wetland habitat loss.

Wetlands generally provide significant ecosystem services and function as important harbors of biodiversity. To ensure that these habitats are conserved, an efficient means of identifying wetlands at risk of conversion is needed, especially in the southern United States where the rate of wetland loss has been highest in recent decades. We used multivariate adaptive regression splines to develop a model to predict the risk of wetland habitat loss as a function of wetland features and landscape context.

Understanding interaction effects of climate change and fire management on bird distributions through combined process and habitat models.

Avian conservation efforts must account for changes in vegetation composition and structure associated with climate change. We modeled vegetation change and the probability of occurrence of birds to project changes in winter bird distributions associated with climate change and fire management in the northern Chihuahuan Desert (southwestern U.S.