Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Alaska
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

1) Formally estimate the multi-scale temporal and spatial variance structure in a suite of putatively climate driven habitat metrics (e.g. lake drying, river flow, flooding frequencies), emphasizing available legacy datasets from remote sensing, river gauges, and other pertinent sources; 2) Formally evaluate the implications of the variance in climate-driven habitat trends for optimal monitoring strategies and subsequent design of adaptive management programs, specifically addressing the spatial and temporal intensity of monitoring necessary to estimate whether populations have demonstrated biologically meaningful changes and management activities have been effective or not; 3) Collaboratively explore the implications of the variance in climate-driven habitat trends with two samples of refuges--one group from Region 7 and one group from Region 6--that differ in their a) emphasis on lacustrine/palustrine (Region 7) or riverine (Region 6) aquatic habitats for USFWS trust species and therefore b) their stakeholder interests, inherent environmental variability, degree of climate driven change, and available management actions. 4) Collaboratively explore within- and between-region assessments of the strategic implications of the variance in climate related habitat drivers to the management activities of long-term a) planning, b) budgeting, and c) selection of potential actionable management. [note: work on the attached proposal conducted by non-CRU Federal employees, such as USGS Jane Austen and USFWS personnel, will be conducted outside the purview of this RWO]