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

This research will complement ongoing work to develop models of future duck distributions using regional downscaled probabilistic climate change projections using weather severity thresholds and long-term changes in weather severity (Schummer et al. 2010). The data collected under a coordinated MAV waterfowl monitoring framework would be valuable for cross-validation of these model predictions. These data also would be useful in combination with ongoing efforts to model the impacts of precipitation, climate, and land use on the surface-water system within select MAV watersheds by providing an index of waterfowl population response to hydrologic variables presumed to be key drivers of waterfowl distribution and abundance.