1. Climate forcing of wetland landscape connectivity in the Great Plains.
- Author
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McIntyre, Nancy E., Wright, Christopher K., Swain, Sharmistha, Hayhoe, Katharine, Liu, Ganming, Schwartz, Frank W., and Henebry, Geoffrey M.
- Subjects
WETLAND ecology ,CLIMATE change ,ANIMAL species ,FORCING (Model theory) ,MACROECOLOGY - Abstract
Habitat connectivity is a landscape attribute critical to the long-term viability of many wildlife species, includ-ing migratory birds. Climate change has the potential to affect habitat connectivity within and across the three main wetland complexes in the Great Plains of North America: the prairie potholes of the northern plains, the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska, and the playas of the southern plains. Here, we use these wetlands as model sys-tems in a graph-theory-based approach to establish links between climatic drivers and habitat connectivity for wildlife in current and projected wetland landscapes and to discern how that capacity can vary as a function of climatic forcing. We also provide a case study of macrosystems ecology to examine how the patterns and processes that determine habitat connectivity fluctuate across landscapes, regions, and continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
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