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Shrestha N, Kolarik NE, Brandt JS. Mesic vegetation persistence: A new approach for monitoring spatial and temporal changes in water availability in dryland regions using cloud computing and the sentinel and Landsat constellations. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 917:170491. [PMID: 38301786 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170491] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2023] [Revised: 01/24/2024] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 02/03/2024]
Abstract
Climate change and anthropogenic activity pose severe threats to water availability in drylands. A better understanding of water availability response to these threats could improve our ability to adapt and mitigate climate and anthropogenic effects. Here, we present a Mesic Vegetation Persistence (MVP) workflow that takes every usable image in the Sentinel (10-m) and Landsat (30-m) archives to generate a dense time-series of water availability that is continuously updated as new images become available in Google Earth Engine. MVP takes advantage of the fact that mesic vegetation can be used as a proxy of available water in drylands. Our MVP workflow combines a novel moisture-based index (moisture change index - MCI) with a vegetation index (Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Vegetation Index (MCARI2)). MCI is the difference in soil moisture condition between an individual pixel's state and the dry and wet reference reflectance in the image, derived using 5th and 95th percentiles of the visible and shortwave infra-red drought index (VSDI). We produced and validated our MVP products across drylands of the western U.S., covering a broad range of elevation, land use, and ecoregions. MVP outperforms NDVI, a commonly-employed index for mesic ecosystem health, in both rangeland and forested ecosystems, and in mesic habitats with particularly high and low vegetation cover. We applied our MVP product at case study sites and found that MVP more accurately characterizes differences in mesic persistence, late-season water availability, and restoration success compared to NDVI. MVP could be applied as an indicator of change in a variety of contexts to provide a greater understanding of how water availability changes as a result of climate and management. Our MVP product for the western U.S. is freely available within a Google Earth Engine Web App, and the MVP workflow is replicable for other dryland regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nawaraj Shrestha
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, 1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725, USA; Conservation Survey Division, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA.
| | - Nicholas E Kolarik
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, 1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725, USA
| | - Jodi S Brandt
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, 1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725, USA
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Doody TM, Gao S, Vervoort W, Pritchard J, Davies M, Nolan M, Nagler PL. A river basin spatial model to quantitively advance understanding of riverine tree response dynamics to water availability and hydrological management. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2023; 332:117393. [PMID: 36739773 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117393] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2022] [Revised: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 01/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Ecological condition continues to decline in arid and semi-arid river basins globally due to hydrological over-abstraction combined with changing climatic conditions. Whilst provision of water for the environment has been a primary approach to alleviate ecological decline, how to accurately monitor changes in riverine trees at fine spatial and temporal scales, remains a substantial challenge. This is further complicated by constantly changing water availability across expansive river basins with varying climatic zones. Within, we combine rare, fine-scale, high frequency temporal in-situ field collected data with machine learning and remote sensing, to provide a robust model that enables broadscale monitoring of physiological tree water stress response to environmental changes via actual evapotranspiration (ET). Physiological variation of Eucalyptus camaldulensis (River Red Gum) and E. largiflorens (Black Box) trees across 10 study locations in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, was captured instantaneously using sap flow sensors, substantially reducing tree response lags encountered by monitoring visual canopy changes. Actual ET measurement of both species was used to bias correct a national spatial ET product where a Random Forest model was trained using continuous timeseries of in-situ data of up to four years. Precise monthly AMLETT (Australia-wide Machine Learning ET for Trees) ET outputs in 30 m pixel resolution from 2012 to 2021, were derived by incorporating additional remote sensing layers such as soil moisture, land surface temperature, radiation and EVI and NDVI in the Random Forest model. Landsat and Sentinal-2 correlation results between in-situ ET and AMLETT ET returned R2 of 0.94 (RMSE 6.63 mm period-1) and 0.92 (RMSE 6.89 mm period-1), respectively. In comparison, correlation between in-situ ET and a national ET product returned R2 of 0.44 (RMSE 34.08 mm period-1) highlighting the need for bias correction to generate accurate absolute ET values. The AMLETT method presented here, enhances environmental management in river basins worldwide. Such robust broadscale monitoring can inform water accounting and importantly, assist decisions on where to prioritize water for the environment to restore and protect key ecological assets and preserve floodplain and riparian ecological function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tanya M Doody
- CSIRO, Land and Water, Waite Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
| | - Sicong Gao
- CSIRO, Land and Water, Waite Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia; University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Willem Vervoort
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Jodie Pritchard
- CSIRO, Land and Water, Waite Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Micah Davies
- CSIRO, Land and Water, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Martin Nolan
- CSIRO, Land and Water, Waite Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Pamela L Nagler
- U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Tucson, AZ, USA
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Forester BR, Murphy M, Mellison C, Petersen J, Pilliod DS, Van Horne R, Harvey J, Funk WC. Genomics-informed delineation of conservation units in a desert amphibian. Mol Ecol 2022; 31:5249-5269. [PMID: 35976166 PMCID: PMC9804278 DOI: 10.1111/mec.16660] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2021] [Accepted: 07/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
Delineating conservation units (CUs, e.g., evolutionarily significant units, ESUs, and management units, MUs) is critical to the recovery of declining species because CUs inform both listing status and management actions. Genomic data have strengths and limitations in informing CU delineation and related management questions in natural systems. We illustrate the value of using genomic data in combination with landscape, dispersal and occupancy data to inform CU delineation in Nevada populations of the Great Basin Distinct Population Segment of the Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris). R. luteiventris occupies naturally fragmented aquatic habitats in this xeric region, but beaver removal, climate change and other factors have put many of these populations at high risk of extirpation without management intervention. We addressed three objectives: (i) assessing support for ESUs within Nevada; (ii) evaluating and revising, if warranted, the current delineation of MUs; and (iii) evaluating genetic diversity, effective population size, adaptive differentiation and functional connectivity to inform ongoing management actions. We found little support for ESUs within Nevada but did identify potential revisions to MUs based on unique landscape drivers of connectivity that distinguish these desert populations from those in the northern portion of the species range. Effective sizes were uniformly small, with low genetic diversity and weak signatures of adaptive differentiation. Our findings suggest that management actions, including translocations and genetic rescue, might be warranted. Our study illustrates how a carefully planned genetic study, designed to address priority management goals that include CU delineation, can provide multiple insights to inform conservation action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brenna R Forester
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
| | - Melanie Murphy
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA
| | | | | | - David S Pilliod
- U.S. Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise, ID, USA
| | | | | | - W Chris Funk
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.,Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
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Thompson PD, Lundskog CL, Dittmer DE. A Successful Reintroduction of Columbia Spotted Frog (Rana luteiventris) through Repatriation of Recently Hatched Larvae. ICHTHYOLOGY & HERPETOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1643/h2021045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Paul D. Thompson
- Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 1594 W North Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114; (PDT) ; and (DED) . Send reprint requests to DED
| | | | - Drew E. Dittmer
- Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 1594 W North Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114; (PDT) ; and (DED) . Send reprint requests to DED
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Facilitative interaction promotes occupancy of a desert amphibian across a climate gradient. Oecologia 2022; 198:815-823. [DOI: 10.1007/s00442-022-05127-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Accepted: 01/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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Thermal conditions predict intraspecific variation in senescence rate in frogs and toads. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2112235118. [PMID: 34845023 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112235118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Variation in temperature is known to influence mortality patterns in ectotherms. Even though a few experimental studies on model organisms have reported a positive relationship between temperature and actuarial senescence (i.e., the increase in mortality risk with age), how variation in climate influences the senescence rate across the range of a species is still poorly understood in free-ranging animals. We filled this knowledge gap by investigating the relationships linking senescence rate, adult lifespan, and climatic conditions using long-term capture-recapture data from multiple amphibian populations. We considered two pairs of related anuran species from the Ranidae (Rana luteiventris and Rana temporaria) and Bufonidae (Anaxyrus boreas and Bufo bufo) families, which diverged more than 100 Mya and are broadly distributed in North America and Europe. Senescence rates were positively associated with mean annual temperature in all species. In addition, lifespan was negatively correlated with mean annual temperature in all species except A. boreas In both R. luteiventris and A. boreas, mean annual precipitation and human environmental footprint both had negligible effects on senescence rates or lifespans. Overall, our findings demonstrate the critical influence of thermal conditions on mortality patterns across anuran species from temperate regions. In the current context of further global temperature increases predicted by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios, a widespread acceleration of aging in amphibians is expected to occur in the decades to come, which might threaten even more seriously the viability of populations and exacerbate global decline.
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Cayuela H, Dorant Y, Forester BR, Jeffries DL, Mccaffery RM, Eby LA, Hossack BR, Gippet JMW, Pilliod DS, Chris Funk W. Genomic signatures of thermal adaptation are associated with clinal shifts of life history in a broadly distributed frog. J Anim Ecol 2021; 91:1222-1238. [PMID: 34048026 PMCID: PMC9292533 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13545] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2021] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Temperature is a critical driver of ectotherm life‐history strategies, whereby a warmer environment is associated with increased growth, reduced longevity and accelerated senescence. Increasing evidence indicates that thermal adaptation may underlie such life‐history shifts in wild populations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) can help uncover the molecular mechanisms of temperature‐driven variation in growth, longevity and senescence. However, our understanding of these mechanisms is still limited, which reduces our ability to predict the response of non‐model ectotherms to global temperature change. In this study, we examined the potential role of thermal adaptation in clinal shifts of life‐history traits (i.e. life span, senescence rate and recruitment) in the Columbia spotted frog Rana luteiventris along a broad temperature gradient in the western United States. We took advantage of extensive capture–recapture datasets of 20,033 marked individuals from eight populations surveyed annually for 14–18 years to examine how mean annual temperature and precipitation influenced demographic parameters (i.e. adult survival, life span, senescence rate, recruitment and population growth). After showing that temperature was the main climatic predictor influencing demography, we used RAD‐seq data (50,829 SNPs and 6,599 putative CNVs) generated for 352 individuals from 31 breeding sites to identify the genomic signatures of thermal adaptation. Our results showed that temperature was negatively associated with annual adult survival and reproductive life span and positively associated with senescence rate. By contrast, recruitment increased with temperature, promoting the long‐term viability of most populations. These temperature‐dependent demographic changes were associated with strong genomic signatures of thermal adaptation. We identified 148 SNP candidates associated with temperature including three SNPs located within protein‐coding genes regulating resistance to cold and hypoxia, immunity and reproduction in ranids. We also identified 39 CNV candidates (including within 38 transposable elements) for which normalized read depth was associated with temperature. Our study indicates that both SNPs and structural variants are associated with temperature and could eventually be found to play a functional role in clinal shifts in senescence rate and life‐history strategies in R. luteiventris. These results highlight the potential role of different sources of molecular variation in the response of ectotherms to environmental temperature variation in the context of global warming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Cayuela
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Yann Dorant
- Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada
| | - Brenna R Forester
- Department of Biology, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
| | - Dan L Jeffries
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Rebecca M Mccaffery
- US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Port Angeles, WA, USA
| | - Lisa A Eby
- Wildlife Biology Program, W. A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
| | - Blake R Hossack
- US Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Missoula, MT, USA
| | - Jérôme M W Gippet
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - David S Pilliod
- US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise, ID, USA
| | - W Chris Funk
- Department of Biology, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
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