Phase I: Alternatives for Vulnerability Assessments: Expert Panel Findings
or read it online:
Frequently Asked Questions
Broadly speaking, a climate change vulnerability assessment is a process of using science to make predictions about the likelihood that a landscape, species, habitat, or population is to be impacted negatively by projected changes in climate. Our project focused on species and habitats that are found in the Appalachian LCC region.
In Phase I, we invited a panel of experts in climate change to provide guidance to the Appalachian LCC and its constituency on prioritizing species and habitats to assess, selecting the most effective approaches, and identifying climate data sets to use in the assessments. In addition, we assembled a wealth of recently completed existing assessments by a number of researchers, and compiled the results of over 650 species and 30 habitats into a single set of searchable spreadsheets. We used these results to select additional species and habitats to fill gaps in our data. With guidance from the LCC, the list of species and habitats was finalized, and in Phase II, we conducted vulnerability assessments of 41 species and three habitats, and added these to the previously compiled lists.
A searchable set of Excel spreadsheets are available here, with instructions on how to filter them to focus on your area, species, and habitats of interest.
Phase I and Phase II reports are available here, as are the reports from which the existing assessments were compiled.
The primary findings from Phase I include these recommended approaches: a) The first step in all cases is to determine the appropriate target of the assessment. For example, is the assessment of a particular habitat more likely to provide the information you need, rather than focusing on a single species? b) Use "coarse filter" methods such as an index approach to rapidly assess numerous species. Because hundreds of species had already been assessed using NatureServe's Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), the panel recommended use of this tool in Phase II to produce directly comparable results. c) Use more in-depth assessments such as bioclimatic modeling for species and habitats determined to be highly vulnerable in the coarse-filter analyses.
It depends on your goals, the amount and quality of data you have at hand to conduct the assessment, and the amount of time and resources you can commit. Our report provides an example of a decision tree you can employ to decide on the approach that is most appropriate for your circumstances. See xxxx (edit when ready).
Wide-ranging species are not expected to respond to climate change uniformly throughout their range. For example, a species at the southern edge of its range is likely to be more vulnerable than it is in the northern portion of the range; different landscapes impose greater or lesser barriers to migration. The Appalachian LCC region is large and varied, so we divided it into three ecologically distinct subregions for analysis: the Central Appalachians, ranging from southern New York to southeastern Ohio, West Virginia, and portions of Virginia; Cumberland - Southern Blue Ridge Subregion, from southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, south to Alabama; and the Interior Low Plateau on the western portion of the LCC region, including southern Indiana, a small slice of southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and a small portion of northern Alabama. This means that species and habitats were assessed up to three times in the LCC region. See the subregion map here.
There had been previous assessments completed on 660 species and 31 habitats by researchers in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois, as well as two regionally focused assessments in the Cumberland and Southern Blue Ridge subregion. Of these, 557 animals were assessed, which included 88 birds, 116 fishes, 80 herptiles, 227 invertebrates (including 74 mussels), and 46 mammals. 101 assessments were conducted on plants. 134 species were globally rare, with NatureServe conservation status ranks of G1, G2, or G1G2. Of these, 33 were cave invertebrates, and all were found to be relatively resistant to climate change. The remaining 101 were found to be at least moderately vulnerable to climate change in at least one subregion of analysis. The greatest number of assessments had been conducted in the Central Appalachian subregion (345), followed by Cumberland - Southern Blue Ridge subregion (273), with only 33 in the Interior Low Plateau.
The set of searchable spreadsheets can be found here, accompanied by guidance on how to use these spreadsheets..
