NE CASC Projects

The following projects are funded by the NE CASC.

Project Leader

Science Themes

Project Leader	Title	Status
Keith Nislow	Small dam removal as a tool for climate change resilienceAcross the United States, millions of small dams fragment the landscape and alter stream ecosystems...	Ongoing
Matthew O'Donnell	Understanding Brook Trout Persistence in Warming StreamsCold-water adapted Brook Trout were historically widely distributed – ranging from northern Quebec...	Ongoing FY'20
Allison Roy	Rethinking Lake Management for Invasive Plants Under Future Climate: Sensitivity of Lake Ecosystems to Winter Water Level DrawdownsSmall lakes are important to local economies as sources of water supply and places of recreation....	FY'20
Michael Runge	Informing Management of Waterfowl Harvest in a Changing ClimateThe ability to effectively manage wildlife in North America is founded in an understanding of how...	Ongoing FY'20
Michelle Staudinger	A Pilot Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring Protocol in Support of Coastal Adaptation Projects in Tidal and Nearshore Subtidal Habitats of Boston Harbor IslandsThe Northeast U.S. coast is experiencing some of the fastest rates of sea level rise in the world....	FY'20
Ben Zuckerberg	Strategies for Reducing the Vulnerability of Grassland Birds to Climate Change within the Central Flyway Prairies were once widespread across North America, but are now one of the most endangered and...	Ongoing FY'19
William DeLuca	Refugia are Important but are they Connected? Mapping Well-Connected Climate Refugia for Species of Conservation Concern in the Northeastern U.S. As the climate continues to change, vulnerable wildlife species will need management strategies...	Ongoing FY'19
Jon Woodruff	Understanding Sediment Availability to Reduce Tidal Marsh Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise in the Northeast Tidal marshes along the Atlantic coastline provide critical habitat for a wide variety of...	Ongoing FY'19
Peter McIntyre	Adirondack Fish Conservation: Safeguarding Summer Suckers, Understanding Minnow Diversity, Limiting Smallmouth Bass Invasions, Developing Climate-Adapted StockingFishes of the Adirondack Park face numerous challenges. Summer Suckers are the only endemic...	Ongoing
Frank Kutka	Climate Adaptation in Forests and Waters of the Menominee Region As forest tree communities and major weather patterns are expected to shift, so too will the...	Ongoing
Peter McIntyre	Great Lakes Fish Migrations: Phenological Shifts and Nutrient Subsidies in a changing climate The timing and size of Great Lakes fish migrations determines their role in nutrient cycling....	Ongoing
Thomas Bonnot	Development and Evaluation of Climate Change Adaptation Tools The conservation community has long discussed the need to develop a tool to assess the...	Ongoing
Erik Hofmeister	Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies Changing climate conditions could have significant impacts on wildlife health. Shifts in...	Ongoing FY'18
Linda Deegan	Resilient rivers, Resilient coasts: River restoration benefits for river herring populations. Understanding the coupled dynamics of the ocean and freshwater ecosystems through the migration...	Ongoing
Hilary Dugan	The ecological impacts of lake ice loss in temperate lakes Expanding our knowledge of winter limnology is critical for managing lakes , reservoirs, and all...	Ongoing
Ezra Markowitz	Organizational leadership in climate engagement and response This project examines how leadership within organizations (e.g., C-suite executives) influences...	Ongoing
Robert M. DeConto	Probabilistic projections of local sea level rise and vulnerability along the Northeast coastline Global mean sea level rise of ~3 mm/year during the last decade was likely the highest rate...	Ongoing
Frank Kutka	Providing Support for the Development of a Tribal Forest Adaptation Menu Climate change has impacted and will continue to impact indigenous peoples, their lifeways and...	Ongoing
Frank Thompson	Evaluation of forest adaption scencarios for the Central Hardwood and Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozark Regions We worked with stakeholders to develop a series of climate change adaptation management...	Completed
Kristen L Bouska	Vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning for projected changes in water quality and quantity for protected areas in the Upper Mississippi watershed Climate change and the extreme weather associated with it can be a major challenge to landowners...	Ongoing FY'18
Anthony D'Amato, Frank Thompson	Identifying and Evaluating Adaptation Science for Forest Habitats and Bird Communities in the Northeast The forests of the Northeastern United States are home to some of the greatest diversity of...	Ongoing FY'18
Karen Terwilliger	Assessing Climate Change Threats and Actions in Northeast State Wildlife Action Plans In 2016-2017, the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (NEAFWA) funded a...	Ongoing FY'18
Toni Lyn Morelli, Keith Nislow	Increasing the resilience and resistance of climate-vulnerable northeastern species and ecosystems Both lynx and marten occupancy is negatively impacted by competition from bobcats (lynx)...	Ongoing FY'17, FY'18
Jon Woodruff, Timothy Cook, Brian Yellen	Climate change impacts on erosion, mass wasting, and the supply of sediment to tidal wetlands in the Northeast Climate change is likely to impact erosion rates, the magnitude and frequency of extreme...	Ongoing
Richard Palmer, Raymond Bradley, Robert M. DeConto	Massachusetts Climate Change Projections The Massachusetts Climate Change Projections - Statewide and for Major Drainage Basins: ...	Completed
Melissa Ocana	Bringing Together Cooperative Extension and NE CASC for Climate Adaptation As more NE CASC projects come to completion, the opportunity to share research-based outputs to...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Extreme Events Impacts on Water Quality in the Great Lakes: Prediction and Management of Nutrient Loading in a Changing Climate This project studies water systems in a changing climate through the lens of Sustainability...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Assisting Tribal Nations with Climate Change Adaptation Native communities are among the most vulnerable to climate change due to their small size and...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Evaluation of Downscaled Climate Modeling Techniques for the Northeast U.S. Downscaling is the process of making a coarse-scale global climate model into a finer resolution...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Adapting the Management of our National Parks for Climate Change Our National Parks are vulnerable to climate change in a number of ways, requiring changes in...	Ongoing
Diane L. Larson	Relocating Plants for Conservation and Restoration: Developing a Risk Assessment Framework There is growing interest in the facilitated movement of plants as a means of conserving or...	Ongoing FY'17
Jennifer Cartwright, Evan Grant, Toni Lyn Morelli	Mapping Climate Change Resistant Vernal Pools in the Northeastern U.S. Vernal pools are small, seasonal wetlands that provide critically important seasonal habitat for...	Completed FY'17
Jordan Read	“Hyperscale” Modeling to Understand and Predict Temperature Changes in Midwest Lakes Many inland waters across the United States are experiencing warming water temperatures. The...	Completed FY'17
	Development of a Wildlife Adaptation Menu for Resource Managers The Climate Change Response Framework is an example of a collaborative, cross-boundary approach...	Completed FY'17
Allison Roy, Sean Sterrett, Michelle Staudinger	Brook Floater Conservation The Brook Floater (Alasmidonta varicosa) is a stream-dwelling freshwater mussel native to the...	Completed
Chris Caldwell	Indigenous Planning Summer Institute The purpose of the Indigenous Planning Summer Institute (IPSI) is to introduce concepts of...	Ongoing
Toni Lyn Morelli	A monarch's view of the city: urban monarch landscape conservation design The monarch butterfly is in trouble - monarch butterfly habitat has declined throughout most of...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Fire history from lake sediments, & future fire vulnerability scenarios Major forest fires are relatively uncommon in the northeastern United States, but due to the...	Completed
Michelle Staudinger, Adrian Jordaan, Chris Sutherland	How and why is the timing and occurrence of seasonal migrants in the Gulf of Maine changing due to climate? Plants and animals undergo certain recurring life-cycle events, such as migrations between...	Completed FY'16
Richard Palmer	Slowing the Flow for Climate Resilience (SFCR): Reducing Vulnerability to Extreme Flows and Providing Multiple Ecological Benefits in a Non-Stationary Climate Current and future hydrologic variability is a major driver underlying large-scale management...	Completed FY'16
Curtice Griffin	Mechanisms for species responses to climate change: Are there biological thresholds? Climate change-driven shifts in distribution and abundance are documented in many species....	Completed FY'16
Michelle Staudinger	Critical thresholds and ecosystem services for coastal ecological and human climate adaptation A large portion of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts...	Completed FY'16
Toni Lyn Morelli	Biodiversity Findings and Outreach Impact from National Park Service BioBlitzes Connecting people, nature, and science is at the core of the mission of the US Department of the...	Ongoing
Toni Lyn Morelli, Bethany Bradley	Regional Effort on Invasive Species and Climate Change (RISCC) Management Invasive species and climate change represent two of the five major global change threats to...	Ongoing
Peter McIntyre	Coupled physical-chemical-biological models to predict losses of cold-water fish from inland lakes under climate warming Cold-water fish are disappearing from many midwestern lakes as they warm. This loss is due to a...	Ongoing
Peter McIntyre, Daniel Vimont	WICCI: Second report on Climate Change Impacts in Wisconsin WICCI is a grassroots effort to consolidate information about climate change impacts in...	Ongoing
Peter McIntyre	Quantifying shifting fish migration phenology across the Great Lakes The timing of major life cycle events (reproduction, flowering, feeding) is set by seasonal...	Ongoing
Toni Lyn Morelli	Effects of arctic ground squirrel abundance and distribution on carbon cycling and ecosystem dynamics Increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases have caused global warming, resulting in considerable...	Ongoing
Toni Lyn Morelli	Conservation of Climate Change Refugia The field of climate adaptation is still getting established, and guidelines and examples for...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Air Quality Impacts of Climate-Induced Changes on Forest Composition Forests play a role in air quality by supplying the atmosphere with volatile organic compounds (...	Completed
Peter McIntyre	Predicting the fate and impact of watershed nutrient loads as Lake Michigan's hydrodynamics shift under climate change Climate change is shifting the hydrodynamics and temperature of both the Great Lakes and their...	Ongoing
Radley Horton, Anthony D'Amato	Linking Species' Responses to Climate Extremes We are identifying historical relationships between climate extremes and species abundance, and...	Ongoing
Richard Palmer, Keith Nislow	Reconnecting Floodplains and Restoring Green Space as a Management Strategy to Minimize Risk and Increase Resilience in the Context of Climate and Landscape Change This research identified opportunities to manage flows, connections, and landscapes to increase...	Completed FY'15
Benjamin Letcher	Does Variation in Life History and Evolutionary Response Affect Species Vulnerability to Climate Change? Implications for Management Climate change poses a variety of threats to biodiversity. Most efforts to assess the likely...	Completed FY'15
Kristina Stinson	Climate Effects on the Culture and Ecology of Sugar Maple Maple syrup is produced from the sap of sugar maple trees collected in the late winter and...	Completed FY'15
Jordan Read	An Integrated Assessment of Lake and Stream Thermal Habitat Under Climate Change Water temperatures are warming in lakes and streams, resulting in the loss of many native fish....	Completed FY'15
Erika Lentz	Pilot Study to Evaluate Coastal Change Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are a new and relatively untapped resource for coastal surveying...	Completed FY'15
Evan Grant	Characterizing Local and Rangewide Variation in Demography and Adaptive Capacity of a Forest Indicator Species Climate change will have sweeping impacts across the northeast, yet there are key gaps in our...	Completed FY'15
Chris Caldwell	Supporting Collaborative Relationships between Tribes and Climate Science in the Northeast Region to Address Climate Impacts All peoples have a right to make meaningful plans for their future. For many Tribes in the...	Completed FY'15
Chris Caldwell	Tribal Colleges and Universities: TCU Engagement with Tribal Communities on Climate Change Issues This project is focused on the specific actions of CMNSDI as part of the CMN Campus and...	Completed
Richard Palmer	Determining the Skill and Value of Incorporating Streamflow Forecasts into an Early Drought Detection System This research investigates forecast skill in predicting the onset and severity of drought. One...	Ongoing
Alexander Bryan	Using Scenario Planning to Inform Land and Wildlife Management: A Pilot Project for Boreal Forests in the Northeastern United States Scenario planning is one decision support method that can help managers incorporate information...	Ongoing
Michelle Staudinger, Scott Jackson, Steve DeStefano	Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Climate Action Tool The Massachusetts Wildlife Climate Action Tool is...	Completed
Jianwu Tang	Scaling phenological patterns of canopy carbon cycling: Integrating physiology, canopy imagery, and net ecosystem exchange Changing climate is predicted to shift the phenology of plant processes, with implications for...	Ongoing
Ivan Valiela	Long-term record of Atmospheric N deposition interact with climate to influence estuarine impacts Atmospheric deposition can be an important contribution to nitrogen loading in coastal regions....	Completed
Frank Thompson	Using agent-based models to identify conservation solutions to large scale environmental variation and climate change Effective migratory bird management and conservation requires an integrate approach at multiple...	Completed
Michelle Staudinger	Integrating climate change into the state wildlife action plans Fish and Wildlife agencies across the United States are currently revising their State Wildlife...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Snowfall changes in future climate scenarios Changes of snow occurrence across the central and eastern United...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Elevation-dependent climate changes in mountain regions Mountain regions constrain ecological responses to climate change. Understanding how future...	Completed
Alexander Bryan	Climate Assessments and Scenario Planning (CLASP) This project compiled, synthesized, and communicated tailored climate change information to NE...	Completed
Christopher Neill, Linda Deegan	Interactions between climate change and beavers in coastal streams This project investigated the effects of climate on multiple aspects of river hydrology,...	Completed
Jack B. Waide	Incorporating social drivers to optimize conservation practices that address Gulf Hypoxia and declining wildlife populations impacted by extreme climate events USFWS Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) throughout the Mississippi River Basin (MRB)...	Completed FY'14
James D. Nichols	Avian indicators of climate change based on the North American Breeding Bird Survey Appropriate ecological indicators of climate change can be used to measure concurrent changes in...	Completed FY'14
Ezra Markowitz, Michelle Staudinger	Early career climate communications and networking The Department of the Interior and the U.S. Geological Survey have made it a priority to train...	Completed FY'14
Adrian Jordaan, Michelle Staudinger	Ecological and management implications of climate change induced shifts in phenology of coastal fish and wildlife species in the NE CASC region Climate change is causing species to shift their phenology, or the timing of recurring life...	Completed FY'14
Robert Jacobson	Science to inform management of floodplain conservation lands under non-stationary conditions Recent extreme floods on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers have motivated expansion of...	Completed FY'14
Michael Notaro	Development of Dynamically-Based 21st Century Projections of Snow, Lake Ice, and Winter Severity for the Great Lakes Basin to Guide Wildlife-Based Adaptation Planning, with Emphasis on Deer and Waterfowl Our project focused on anticipated effects of 21st century climate change on winter severity,...	Completed FY'14
Linda Deegan	Climate change facilitates northern expansion of an estuarine decapod ecosystem engineer We conducted a survey of saltmarshes north of Cape Cod to determine if decapod crustaceans were...	Completed
Curtice Griffin, Kevin McGarigal	A climate dependent metapopulation model of marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum) in western Massachusetts. Marbled Salamander reproductive failure is tightly linked to vernal pool hydrology and there are...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Assessment of paleoclimate resources for studies of climate extremes This project focused on compiling existing paleo-limnological data from lakes throughout the...	Completed
Keith Nislow	Effects of small impoundments on stream temperature regimes in the context of a changing climate Small dams and impoundments are ubiquitous in stream networks in the northeastern and north...	Completed
Linda Deegan, Christopher Neill	Insights into the long-term physical controls on estuarine food webs and implications for future change Freshwater discharge is an important driver of coastal ecosystem productivity. We use a variety...	Ongoing
Frank Thompson, Joshua Millspaugh	The use of climate and land cover to predict avian abundance across the Midwestern United States. We used a Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework to evaluate land...	Completed
Anthony D'Amato	Great Lakes Silviculture Prescription Library This project is developing an on-line platform to enable rapid sharing and cataloging of...	Ongoing
Anthony D'Amato	Developing historically-consistent and broadly-applicable monitoring, reporting, and verification system for quantifying forest change Given the increasing impacts of climate change and natural disturbances on forest ecosystems...	Ongoing
Richard Palmer, Linda Deegan	Understanding Conservation Management Decisions in the Face of Sea-Level Rise Along the U.S. Atlantic Coast This project addresses a complex local scale conservation problem: managing the impacts...	Completed FY'13
Jana Stewart	NorEaST – Stream Temperature Web Portal Demonstration and Application Climate change is expected to alter stream temperature and flow...	Completed FY'13
Chris Caldwell	Shifting Seasons: Tribal Climate Adaptation Training with Northeastern Tribes College of Menominee Nation (CMN) Sustainable Development Institute hosted a Shifting Seasons...	Completed FY'13
Ben Zuckerberg	Fitting the Climate Lens to Grassland Bird Conservation: Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability Using Demographically-Informed Species Distribution Models Our goal was to develop a framework to identify demographic sensitivities and assess the...	Completed FY'13
Craig Paukert	A Decisions Support Mapper for Conserving Stream Fish Habitats of the NE CASC Region To integrate results of a current condition habitat assessment of stream habitats that accounts...	Completed FY'13
Evan Grant, Allison Roy	Making decisions in complex landscapes: headwater stream management across multiple agencies There is growing evidence that headwater stream ecosystems are especially vulnerable to changing...	Completed FY'13
Radley Horton	Improving the downscaling of climate model for impacts assessments We improved downscaling of general circulation model (GCM) data for climate change impacts...	Completed
Anthony D'Amato	Ecological and hydrological impacts of the emerald ash borer on black ash forests This project examines the ecological and hydrological impacts of...	Ongoing
Anthony D'Amato	Modeling effects of climate change on spruce-fir forest ecosystems and associated priority bird populations Eastern spruce-fir forest ecosystems are among the most vulnerable to climate change within the...	Completed FY'13
Chris Caldwell	Collaboration in Action: Using the Menominee Model of Sustainability to Assess, Plan, and Build Capacity for Tribal Communities to Address Climate Change in the Northeast Climate Science Center Region This project seeks to implement the recommendations included in Science Theme 6: "Impacts of...	Ongoing
Dave King, Keith Nislow	Distributional changes in spruce-fir forests and forest-dependent wildlife: effects of climate variability and climate change Spruce-fir forests reach their southern limit in New England and the Upper Midwest, and are...	Completed
Curtice Griffin, Dave King	Forecasting songbird vulnerabilities to climate change This project focused on evaluating the spatial relationships of...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Circulation patterns associated with climate extremes The variability of winter precipitation over the northeastern United States and the...	Completed
Richard Palmer	Evaluating trends in streamflow extremes in the Northeast USA The goal of this project is to identify statistical trends in...	Ongoing
Radley Horton	Sea Level Rise and Its Impacts A reconnaissance study distinguishes coastal areas of the northeastern U.S. (approx. Virginia to...	Ongoing
Radley Horton	Assessing climate change projections over the Northeast Using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and CMIP3 data, we are developing a...	Ongoing
Linda Deegan	The role of freshwater input in determining the contributions of different primary production sources to estuarine food webs in a tidal river The hydrologic and biological dynamics of the oligohaline transitional zone, where nutrients and...	Ongoing
Linda Deegan	Effects of moderate eutrophication on saltmarsh food webs We examine the impacts of moderate nutrient enrichment on the production mummichog, Fundulus...	Ongoing
Linda Deegan	Ecology of coastal migratory striped bass (Morone saxatalis) Striped bass are a priority species for the Northeast LCC. Subadult and small adult (375–475 mm...	Ongoing
Frank Thompson, Joshua Millspaugh, Thomas Bonnot	Effects of climate on wildlife demographics and population viability We are investigating the effects of climate on multiple aspects of bird demography, including...	Ongoing
Frank Thompson, Joanna Whittier, Richard Guyette	Predicting fire frequency with chemistry and climate This project developed a predictive model for estimating fire frequency based on theories and...	Completed
Frank Thompson	Changes in forested landscapes of the eastern United States under alternative climate scenarios Forests in the Eastern United States are in the early- and mid-successional stages recovering...	Completed FY'13
Kenneth Potter	Assessing vulnerability through storm transposition Historical climate data for the Midwestern U.S. show substantial regional variability in the...	Completed
Kenneth Potter	Stream temperatures in the Driftless Area The Driftless Region is blessed with an exceptional coldwater fishery (native brook trout and...	Completed
Kenneth Potter	Climate change, frost, and groundwater recharge in the Midwestern U.S. The one-dimensional Simultaneous Heat and Water (SHAW) model was...	Completed
Anthony D'Amato	Climate and disturbance factors affecting shifts between grassland and forest biomes over the past century within the upper Midwest This project aimed to quantify the range in variability in forest...	Completed
Anthony D'Amato	Effects of climate, disturbance, and management on the growth and dynamics of temperate and sub-boreal forest ecosystems within the Lake States and New England This project is using a combination of long-term data records and recently established large-...	Ongoing
Raymond Bradley	Downscaling of GCM output; studies of climate extremes A statistical downscaling method (bias-correction and spatial disaggregation: BCSD) is applied...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Multi-model regional model simulations for future climate scenarios General circulation models and high resolution regional climate models (RCMs) are being used to...	Completed
Raymond Bradley	Assessment of regional climate model simulation estimates over the northeast United States We used outputs from an ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) participating in the North...	Completed
Richard Palmer	Evaluating the impacts of climate change in the Connecticut River Basin For the past four years, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps...	Ongoing
Richard Palmer	Evaluating the impacts of climate change on regional hydrology There are a number of fundamental questions that remain unanswered in the Northeast concerning...	Completed
Keith Nislow	Effects of hydrologic change and variability on upstream limits of stream fish distribution Coldwater stream fishes are widely predicted to move upstream in response to warming downstream...	Ongoing
Keith Nislow	Decision-support for headwater stream habitats Coldwater stream habitats are at risk from climate change, but...	Completed
Curtice Griffin, Kevin McGarigal	Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) This project is focused on assessing the capability of current and potential future landscapes...	Completed
Kasey Hutchinson	Science to examine the interactions between climate, agriculture, and water quality The purpose of the project was to conduct an extensive search for both published and ongoing...	Completed FY'12
Rob Thieler	A research and decision support framework to evaluate sea-level rise impacts in the northeastern U.S. Previous approaches to quantify coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise have had major...	Completed FY'12
Jana Stewart	A stream temperature inventory network and decision support metadata mapper - evaluating the resources to understanding climate change effects on streams in New england and the Great Lake's states Stream data for the northeastern U.S. are needed to enable managers to understand baseline...	Completed FY'12
Mark Anderson	Extending the northeast terrestrial habitat map to Atlantic Canada Consistent and accurate landscape datasets are important...	Completed FY'12
Austin Polebitski	Bringing people, data, and models together – addressing impacts of climate change on stream temperature This study set out to answer the question: “What data and modeling frameworks are needed to...	Completed FY'12
Richard Kraus	Developing fish trophic interaction indicators of climate change for the Great Lakes This project addressed regional climate change effects on aquatic food webs in the Great Lakes....	Completed FY'12
Brian Irwin	Characterization of spatial and temporal variability in fishes in response to climate change The number of fish collected in routine monitoring surveys often varies from year to year, from...	Completed FY'12
David Diamond	Critically evaluating existing methods and supporting a standardization of terrestrial and wetland habitat classification and mapping that includes characterization of climate sensitive systems This project facilitated coordination among the scientific community to provide a comparison of...	Completed FY'12