- This event has passed.
Webinar on how future climate may reshape grassland bird habitat
Mapping tomorrow’s grasslands: How future climate may reshape grassland bird habitat across the western Great Plains
Grassland bird populations declined steeply as native grasslands have been lost and degraded. Future shifts in temperature and precipitation across the Great Plains are expected to alter vegetation, with consequences for bird habitat. Because vegetation change depends not only on climate but also on existing plant communities and soils, we modeled relationships between 27 grassland bird species and vegetation productivity across the western Great Plains. We then used projections of future vegetation productivity to map potential changes in bird distributions under multiple climate scenarios. These maps offer land managers a tool for understanding how local projects align with broader trajectories for bird habitat.
Adrian Monroe is a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, Colorado. Adrian’s work focuses on avian ecology in working landscapes, examining how disturbance, land management, and restoration shape bird population trends, distributions, and ecosystem recovery across the Great Plains and Intermountain West.