cc  >> Tonight, we have two  speakers.  This is the seventh seminar  series of our set  on Wisconsin Climate Change.  This is brought to you by WICCI,  Wisconsin Initiative  on Climate Change Impacts.  And WICCI is a collaboration  between the UW System and the  Department of Natural Resources.  The title of our seminar series  is "Bracing for Impact,  Climate Change, Adaptation  in Wisconsin."  And tonight, the focus is on  climate change and wildlife.  I'd like to introduce both  speakers up front.  We have Karl Martin and Mike  Meyer.  First, Karl Martin.  Karl is the chief of Wildlife  and Forest Tree Research section  of the Wisconsin Department of  Natural Resources.  And he's an adjunct professor at  the University of  Wisconsin-Madison in Forest and  Wildlife Ecology Department. 

 Karl received his bachelor's  degree in Wildlife Ecology at  UW-Madison, and his masters and  doctorate degrees at Oregon  State University.  Karl's research has focused on  interaction of forest management  and multi-scale wildlife habitat  relationships.  Karl currently supervises ten  research scientists at the  Wisconsin DNR, or Department of  Natural Resources.  Karl advises graduate students  and post-docs at UW-Madison, and  also co-chairs the WICCI  Wildlife Climate Change working  group with Mike Meyer.  The second speaker is going to  be Mike Meyer, who is a  wildlife research scientist with  the Wisconsin DNR Bureau of  Sciences Services, and is  stationed in Rhinelander.  Mike received his PhD from the  University of Wisconsin  Department of Wildlife Ecology  in 1989, and has since conducted  numerous landscape scale  research projects on common  loons, bald eagles, osprey, and  other aquatic dependant wildlife  associated with lake ecosystems  in northern Wisconsin.  Mike, along with Karl Martin,  co-chairs the WICCI Wildlife  working group.  So now I'd like to introduce the  first speaker, Karl Martin.  (applause)  >> Karl Martin: Thanks, Mike.  And thanks everybody for coming  on this gorgeous evening. 

 Today, Mike and I are going to  talk about how wildlife in  Wisconsin has responded to  climate change over the last  half century.  And then, also, projections on  how we expect wildlife in  Wisconsin to respond to climate  change over the next hundred  years, and on into the future.  So Mike and I, as Mike had  pointed out, are co-chairs of  the WICCI Wildlife Working  Group.  And our WICCI group has four  primary objectives.  And today, I'm going to talk  about the first two objectives.  Then I'm going to turn it over  to Mike, and he's going to talk  about the second two objectives.  So I'm going to talk about the  potential risks and  vulnerabilities of wildlife in  Wisconsin related to climate  change.  But I'm also going to summarize  existing information on climate  change impacts to Wisconsin  Wildlife.  Mike is going to talk about data  and research needed to assess  future impacts on Wisconsin  Wildlife.  Then he's going to talk about  adaptation and mitigation  strategies related to wildlife  and climate change. 

 I think before we get started,  I'm going to talk a little bit  about, you know, just kind of  laying the framework.  I'm sure many of you have seen  these slides before.  The Intergovernmental Panel on  Climate Change, the IPCC, has  come out with a statement  basically saying that the  evidence is unequivocal that  climate change is occurring,  that we are seeing warming  across the globe.  If you look at these two charts,  you can see here, basically  shortly after the industrial  revolution, if you look at the  top chart, you can see that  climate has increased over time,  with a significant increase  since 1980.  If you go down to the bottom  graph, you can see that the  northern hemisphere shows a very  similar pattern.  And again, since about 1980,  very significant changes,  increases in temperature in the  northern hemisphere.  This is that bottom graph, just  a little different display, kind  of showing that, again, since  1980, you can see the  temperature has really  increased.  And it's projected to continue  to increase over the next  hundred years.  So what does this mean for  Wisconsin?  We talk about a lot of these  global trends, northern  hemisphere trends.  What has happened in Wisconsin?  And a lot of this data is  actually borrowed from Chris  Kucharik, who's in the Agronomy  Department here at UW-Madison. 

 So annually, over the past 50  years, or so, minimum  temperatures have increased  from 0.6 to 2.2 degrees Celsius,  whereas maximum temperatures  have warmed  from 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius.  During that same period of time,  precipitation has increased in  central and southern Wisconsin,  but it's actually decreased  significantly, one to two  inches, in the far north.  If you look at seasonal trends,  the most noticeable is warming  during the winter and spring  seasons.  Nighttime temperature warming  tends to be more than daytime  temperatures.  So your minimum at night tend to  be higher than they were  historically, where the daytime  highs tend not to change as  much.  Cooling trends have been  observed in fall, particularly  in the northeast part of  Wisconsin.  And then decreasing summer  precipitation, again,  particularly in the northern  part of the state.  So what does this mean for  Wisconsin?  What does the future look like?  We've kind of looked back.  If you look at this map, the  projections are for the winters  in Wisconsin to be more like  winters in Iowa, which at first  doesn't seem like such a bad  thing.  But then you start saying, well,  they get a lot of ice in Iowa,  and I kind of like to ski. 

 I don't know if Iowa winters are  really all they're cracked up to  be.  What I dread more are summers  like Arkansas.  It tends to be kind of warm down  there, particularly in summer.  But these are the kind of  predictions on what would occur  in the next hundred years.  Specifically, we're going to see  more extreme heat, more heat  waves, extended growing seasons.  From a precipitation standpoint,  winter and spring precipitation  will be increasing, while in  summer and fall, you see  decreasing amounts of    precipitation.  Drier soils and more droughts,  that's related to both the  precipitation coming in more of  a pulse, but then also because  of increased evapotranspiration  related to increased  temperatures.  The more extreme events, storms,  floods, could be 50% to 100%  more frequent.  And ice cover will decline.  These are kind of important,  just to kind of lay the  groundwork on how is this going  to impact wildlife in Wisconsin. 

 There are six main categories  that we're going to talk about  today.  And the first is range  contraction and expansion.  That's really looking at species  that live on the southern edge  of their range, or on the  northern edge of their range.  The ones that are at the  southern edge of that range are  likely to move northward and  possibly be extricated from  Wisconsin.  Whereas those species that are  at the northern edge of that  range, located in southern  Wisconsin, are likely to spread  northward throughout the state.  Predator prey relationships are  likely to be impacted with these  changing temperatures, impacts  on habitat.  Changes in migration, we're  already seeing some species are  not migrating that have migrated  historically.  Then interactions with  anthropogenic modifications.  How does land use interact with  climate change, and how are  those going to move forward into  the future.  Then ultimately climate change  may cause ecological  disruptions. 

 We'll talk more about these  issues.  So, I want to break it down from  direct impacts of climate change  to indirect impacts of climate  change.  So direct impacts that we're  going to see, warmer air and  water.  Those are fairly obvious.  Changes in the type of  precipitation, snow, ice.  I referred to that we're going  to be more like Iowa.  We're going to see more ice  storms in the future.  Rain events.  All that rain comes.  We're going to have a lot more  intense storms. 

 We've already seen that pattern  already.  Duration of snow cover could  change.  Warmer nights, we may have less  duration, less time where we  actually have snow on the  ground.  Those extreme weather events,  the warming will result also in  drought conditions and also  flooding.  These all impact wildlife.  The Audubon Society has been  conducting Christmas bird counts  for a little over a hundred  years.  And they recently did an  analysis where they looked at  these Christmas bird counts.  And Christmas bird counts are  taken three weeks around  Christmas.  Citizens go out, and they  observe their birds and record  the location of those birds.  And what we're seeing is that  58% percent of those 305 birds  that they observed are actually  moving northward. 

 You can see, if you look at this  graph here, for example if you  look at the red-breasted  merganzer, you can see almost a  due northward shift of the  center of its range.  So when they plots these points,  you have the location of all  these birds.  They plot these points.  The center of that distribution  is what they're referring to.  That is what's moving northward.  So if you take that distribution  40 years ago and you plot that  now, you're going to see a  movement on average of about 35  miles.  An exception to this are  grassland birds.  Grassland birds are not showing  much of a movement northward.  And the thought is that  grassland birds are habitat  specialists.  They need large grassland areas. 

 That's one of the more rare  habitats on the landscape, and  there just aren't areas for  those species to move.  So it's starting to be a  combination of those  anthropogenic effects of having  reduced grasslands from what  we've had historically, and also  climate change.  Spruce grouse is one of the  species that is much more  frequent in the northern part of  its range.  And actually, spruce grouse  range down just into the  northern third of Wisconsin.  And we'll talk more about that  species here in a bit.  The wild turkey has moved  significantly, over 400 miles in  the last 40 years.  And climate change is probably  part of that.  We now have wild turkeys in  northern Wisconsin, where  historically there's no record  of wild turkeys being, probably,  in the northern half of the  state.  And they're doing quite well.  You can essentially drive  anywhere in Wisconsin today and  find wild turkeys. 

 This graph shows the  distribution of some of those  species.  And some of these are Wisconsin  species, or species that at  least winter or pass through  Wisconsin.  On the left axis, that's  actually miles.  So that's miles of movement that  the center of the distribution  for each of these species has  moved over 40 years.  And you'll notice that the  purple finch has moved over 400  miles, so significant change in  the winter distribution of that  species.  These other species, also, have  all moved over 250 miles.  But there are wildlife species  that are embracing climate  change.  Geese, which were once  migratory, are now starting to  reside in southern Wisconsin in  particular.  And causing a lot of problems.  Golf courses, parks, urban  areas. 

 Potentially, geese are actually  going to do better under  increased climate conditions,  but could cause additional  social issues.  Deer are another species that  may do better under climate  change.  Deer tend to be restricted in  their distribution by winter  weather, particularly here in  Wisconsin.  The Wisconsin DNR collects data  on the severity of winter,  winter severity for deer.  So this is an index that looks  at the depth of snow and the  temperature throughout winter.  We started tracking this back in  1960.  And what this looks at is the  number of nights that you had at  least 18 inches of snow on the  ground, and the number of nights  that are below zero.  So basically, you look at that  for the whole winter and you add  those numbers together.  So the most you can have for one  day is two.  A night where it's zero or below  and a night where you have 18  inches of snow. 

 If you look over time, you'll  notice that we have a severe  level here at 100.  You'll notice that once you get  to about the mid-'80s, we start  having very few winters where we  are over 100, or into very  severe winters.  And the winter severity index is  really designed to determine  what our deer population is  going to look like the following  year.  And there's two factors that  come into this.  If you look at the chart on the  bottom here, you'll see that  fawns per doe, that's  essentially the reproduction  that's occurring for that year.  There's a 25% decline in the  number of does that are going to  be born in the spring, if you go  from a severe winter, way out to  the right side, where you look  at 100-120, to a mild winter  where we're at a winter severity  index of around 20.  The other impact that severity  has is mortality of deer, direct  mortality where deer starve.  Or deer that are weak going into  the winter, deer that tend to  have disease or have some type  of injury tend to suffer  mortality when you have these  severe winters.  Whereas if you have a mild  winter, this tends not to be an  issue.  I should point out that this is  only applicable to northern  Wisconsin. 

 We get to southern Wisconsin,  the winter severity index does  not work, because they're in a  much different landscape where  you have agriculture.  This is really designed for the  northern forest.  And deer have a lot of impacts  in our forests.  There's potential problems with  having too many deer browsing,  both understory and also tree  regeneration can be a major  problem if you have too many  deer.  We're seeing this already in  Wisconsin.  If you look at the harvest rates  of deer in Wisconsin over the  last 40 years, 40 years ago we  were harvesting less than  100,000 deer per year.  And now we're over 400,000 deer  per year, just to give you an  idea of how deer numbers have  changed over the last 40 years.  So we talked about direct  impacts.  What about indirect impacts?  Climate change will have a lot  of impacts on habitats that  again, are going to impact  wildlife indirectly.  There's also interactions  between species, niche  separation, where you have two  species that are separated  because of some environmental  feature. 

 You can now see overlap.  Predator-prey relationships  could be altered, particularly  if a keystone prey species  become less abundant.  Changes in parasites and disease  distributions.  And then, also disruptions in  phenologocial synchrony.  This is some work that David  Miladenoff and his graduate  students at UW-Madison have  worked on.  They've looked at how trees are  going to respond to changes in  climate.  And what they found is that a  lot of the southern species in  in Wisconsin are likely to move  northward, particularly  hickories and oaks.  But at the same time, there's  going to be a lot of species,  such as jack pine, white spruce,  red pine, balsam fir, and paper  birch that are going to decline.  And the projection for current  climate models is that these  species will not be reproducing  in Wisconsin by 2100, or their  distribution would be  significantly reduced.  Specifically, if you look at  balsam fir, you can see the  current distribution of balsam  fir kind of cuts through the  center part of the state. 

 This dashed line up on top  represents the projected  distribution of balsam fir in  the future, just basically the  tip of the arrowhead of  Minnesota.  White birch is a little better.  Its current distribution is  about the northern two-thirds of  the state.  But again, you'll see, by 2100,  it's projected that the  distribution will end, basically  at Duluth.  White birch is kind of a key  species in the state.  A lot of people think of the  northwoods, northern Wisconsin,  they think of white birch, a  very majestic tree with pure  white bark, very important to  Native Americans.  Then also red pine is another  species.  You can see red pine is roughly  distributed the northern  two-thirds of the states right  now.  It'll only encompass the very  far northern part of the state  in the future.  So how does that change in those  tree species potentially impact  wildlife?  Spruce grouse are a species that  are at the southern edge of  their range in Wisconsin. 

 They're basically distributed in  the northern quarter to third of  the state.  Michael and I initiated a  project four years ago to try to  get a handle on what the  distribution of spruce grouse  was in the state.  And these red symbols basically  represent locations of spruce  grouse that were turned in by  biologists and birders in the  northern part of the state from  1980 to 2005.  And you can see that spruce  grouse are really limited to  kind of subboreal type habitat,  dominated by white spruce, black  spruce, jack pine.  And that species is very closely  tied to those tree species.  We're monitoring these species  currently, and projections are  that if those tree species start  to show stress, that likely will  be the end of spruce grouse in  Wisconsin.  Their distribution will simply  move northward.  And spruce grouse are fairly  abundant in other parts of their  range, northern Minnesota and  then up into Canada.  And actually, in Alaska, the  distribution of spruce grouse is  moving northward.  This is one of those species  that is found to move  significantly north in the  Christmas bird count. 

 So species interactions.  I talked about prey and  predators.  Snowshoe hares, which are a  keystone species in the state.  They're very abundant.  One thing you'll notice about  snowshoe hares, they have these  huge back hind feet.  That really distinguishes them  from cottontail rabbits, which  do not have that large back  foot.  That allows the species to get  through fairly deep snow.  It has a very high  foot-to-weight loading ratio.  This species, the current  distribution, if you look at the  bottom right here, is basically  across central Wisconsin, the  northern third of the state.  Snowshoe hares also turn white  in wintertime. 

 Some of these early falls, if  you go out and you see snowshoe  hares, they are pretty easy to  see.  You can literally spot them from  several hundred yards away,  because they're white and  everything else is brown or  green.  They become particularly  vulnerable.  In the bottom center here, you  have a northern goshawk.  This is a state threatened and  endangered species.  Species are concerned  nationally.  Northern goshawks have a similar  distribution as snowshoe hares  in Wisconsin.  If snowshoe hares decline, it's  likely that northern goshawks  will decline also.  Snowshoe hares make up a  significant portion of the  northern goshawk diet.  On the left side here, you see  this cute animal up on the top  here. 

 This is an American marten, the  only endangered mammal in  Wisconsin.  The American marten, and on the  bottom here we have a fisher.  They were both extricated from  Wisconsin during the 1940s.  The Wisconsin DNR reintroduced  both of these species, starting  in the 1960s.  Fishers have taken off and have  done very, very well.  Unfortunately, American marten  have not done very well.  We're actually supplementing the  current population with  additional animals over the next  couple years, with the goal to  try to increase the genetic  diversity of the population.  But one thing that's occurring  with these species that fisher  are more of a southern species.  They actually range all the way  down to Kentucky.  We're actually shipping animals  down to Kentucky and Tennessee  to reintroduce populations down  there. 

 Where marten are more of a  northern species.  The thought is that the two  generally co-exist because  marten are more adapted to deep  snow.  Unfortunately, since we  reintroduced them, they have not  done very well.  One of the factors is that it  could be as a result of not  having enough persistence of  snow and deep snow on the  ground.  There are other factors.  There are other factors with  goshawks, too.  Habitat is another issue with  both of these species.  I wouldn't say that it's just  climate change.  But climate change interacting  with some of these other factors  could really be a problem for  these species in the future.  Diseases and parasites. 

 I talked about deer populations  increasing being a major  potential problem here in the  state.  Well, there's another side to  climate change that may actually  result in deer declining in the  state.  Hemorrhagic disease is a viral  disease.  It's generally a southern  disease.  It does not range up into  Wisconsin.  It has never been documented  until 2002, when there was an  outbreak in Iowa County.  And this species is really  dependant on the Culicoides  midges.  Culicoides midges spread this  disease.  But Culicoides midges cannot  stand harsh winters.  They do exist in Illinois. 

 And the thought is that with  warming temperatures, this  species may actually move into  Wisconsin.  Wisconsin deer do not have  antibodies to hemorrhagic  disease.  So the potential is that this  could significantly impact the  deer population, at least for  several years.  Along with that, the projected  longer growing season really  could support larger  populations, but could also  really increase a variety of  pathogens that we don't have in  Wisconsin currently.  Another disease to worry about  is Botulism C If winters become  mild, as predicted, diseases  that never occurred in Wisconsin  could begin to appear.  Or, if they have appeared in  Wisconsin, they become more  frequent.  Endemic diseases that are  currently only sporadically  found in the state, or only  occasionally found every several  years, could become widespread  and common.  Botulism C is actually a toxin  that's produced by a bacteria.  And this is particularly lethal  to water fowl and to shore  birds.  The thought is that with changes  in water depth and warmer  temperatures, the bacteria that  causes Botulism C is going to be  more persistent in the state,  and also over-winter throughout  the winter with milder winters. 

 The potential for water fowl to  be impacted is significant.  Phenological asynchrony.  So let me talk about phenology.  Basically, what we're referring  to is the timing of events, when  a particular flower blooms, when  a bird nests, when birds return  from migration.  One of the concerns has to do  with how species respond to  either climate or annual weather  conditions, or photo-periods.  So some species, such as plants  in particular, and insects, are  tied into weather conditions,  annual conditions.  If it's a warm spring, you're  going to have your dandelions  blossoming earlier, for example.  Trees will blossom out earlier.  But there are a lot of species  that only react to photo-period,  particularly long distance  migrants.  And those species are going to  become out of synch with some of  those other species that they're  currently dependant on. 

 Migratory songbirds and water  fowl, for example, are arriving  earlier than they have  historically.  And some of those water fowl, as  we talked about, are actually  over-wintering in Wisconsin.  Plant and insect phenology could  change rapidly with this  increased temperature.  If you think back to that graph  I showed, there's a rapid  increase in temperature in the  last 50 years.  And if that continues, that's  unprecedented.  And it's very difficult for  species to adapt to that change.  A couple, kind of some data on  that issue.  Nina Leopold Bradley, Aldo  Leopold's daughter, has  generated some data on phenology  events that occurred at the  shack, near Baraboo, Wisconsin.  And Aldo Leopold started  collecting this data 60 years  ago.  So there's a fairly long-term  data set and events that have  occurred there. 

 If you look down on the left,  bird migration, a fairly easy  thing to quantify.  Geese are arriving much  earlier.  Cardinals' first songs are 22  days earlier than it was in  1935-45.  Robins are arriving nine days  earlier.  Then if you look at the  vegetation.  False indigo is blooming 18 days  earlier than it had back in  1935-1945.  Similarly, butterfly weed and  marsh milkweed are also much  earlier.  What Nina, and Stan Temple is  also involved in this, is they  looked at the response to these  phenophases, 55 of them.  And what they determined is that  there's about a 1.2 day earlier  response per decade, from 1945  to the current time.  That results in roughly  about a 7.2 day difference. 

 Things have become earlier  in the springtime.  That data is similar to some  climate data we've looked at.  If you look at the onset of  spring, basically a period of  time where you have ten days  where the average temperature  reaches 50 degrees Fahrenheit,  or 10 degrees Celsius.  If you look at that,  that tends to occur 4-16 days  earlier than it had historically  across southern and southwest  Wisconsin.  Interestingly, if you look at  northeast Wisconsin, it's  actually later in that part of  the state.  So there seems to be a  difference occurring, even  within Wisconsin, over the last  60 years.  This is some work that Stan  Temple has done with Nina.  They've looked at skunk cabbage,  when skunk cabbage blooms.  In 1935-45, it was April 1.  And basically, it's two weeks  earlier than that during the  last decade. 

 Similarly, eastern phoebes used  to arrive on April 7.  Now their average arrival date  is March 24, which is also two  weeks earlier.  There's about a one week  difference between the blooming  of the skunk cabbage and the  arrival of the phoebe.  The though is that the skunk  cabbage is correlated with  insects.  The phoebes are flycatchers.  They're one of the earliest  migrants that we see in  Wisconsin.  And they're likely to feed on  insects associated with skunk  cabbage and other plants that  are erupting early.  I should point out also that  phoebes are short distance  migrants.  They're residing in southern  Illinois, into Texas, into  Mexico, but not long distance  migrants.  So they seem to be responding to  annual weather events and not  photo-period. 

 Great crested flycatchers are  long distance migrants.  They're a neotropical migrant.  In 1935-45, their average  arrival date was May 2.  And it's only one day earlier  during the last decade, so not a  big change.  And that kind of makes sense in  that a species that's basically  in the tropics during wintertime  will have no idea what the  weather is going to be in  Wisconsin.  Whereas if a species is in  Illinois, they're going to have  some clue as to how the weather  is changing for that particular  year.  Part of the problem is, when we  talk about asynchrony, is that  the flycatcher is a cavity  nesting species.  The flycatcher continues to come  back at its normal time.  But birds such as starlings and  bluebirds, which are also cavity  nesters, are now nesting much  earlier than they did  historically.  The starlings, on average, are  nesting 13 days earlier than  they did from the 1935-45  period. 

 So the thought is that a lot of  those cavities are now being  taken up by other species, and  the great crested flycatcher is  looking for places to nest.  It should be noted, also, that  the great crested flycatcher has  dropped, it's population is down  30%-35% over the last 40 years.  So, just wrapping up, what  species are we most concerned  about in Wisconsin, and the  impact on climate change?  Edge of range species.  Those species that are likely to  either be extricated from the  state or species that are likely  to move into Wisconsin.  Snow dependant species, those  species that are both positively  and negatively impacted.  Deer, for example, are going to  be positively impacted.  Snowshoe hares, marten, are  probably going to be negatively  impacted, and maybe forced on a  northward retreat.  Rare species that are already  limited in their distribution.  Those species could be  potentially vulnerable.  They're already vulnerable to a  lot of the pressures that are  occurring. 

 And climate changes are just  going to add to that.  Habitat specialists, such as the  spruce grouse, that are limited  in their distribution to very  few habitats.  If those habitats even change a  slight amount, it's likely to  impact that species.  Species that are sensitive to  fluctuating water, particularly  water fowl and shore birds that  nest near wetland areas.  They're going to be particularly  sensitive to flood and drought  events that occur.  And lastly, migratory species.  You have the short distance and  the long distance migrants.  They're going to respond  differently to climate change,  and could significantly impact  the phenological synchrony that  currently exists.  So just a quote from Aldo  Leopold before I turn it over  to Mike.  "Can the land adjust itself  to the new order?"  I think, you know, this is in  reference to the land ethic  during Aldo Leopold's time. 

 I think now we'd look at that  as, can the land and can our  ecosystems adjust to climate  change, to things that are  coming?  Climate change and all the other  stresses that are out there.  And with that, I'll turn it over  to Mike Meyer.  (applause)  >> Mike Meyer: I'd like to start  off where Karl ended.  Basically, he did a fine job  with illustrating for you the  complexity of relationship of  Wisconsin wildlife to the  climate and to the landscape in  Wisconsin.  Given that complexity, it's a  daunting challenge to consider  that we need to make adaptation  recommendations to our policy  makers.  The complexity of relationships  that we just illustrated are  only the tip of the iceberg.  There's many more.  And the complexity continues to  evolve as the landscape changes  due to human influence, and as  the climate changes due to our  inability to prevent the  atmospheric warming.  So, what I wanted to do today is  just illustrate, with a couple  case studies, some attempts  research scientists in the state  have undertaken to help predict,  develop a means for predicting  how wildlife species may change  their distribution or abundance  in the face of changing climate  in Wisconsin, and to illustrate  what sort of adaptation  strategies are being considered  to accommodate this change.  We'll just skip the first slide. 

 That first slide basically was a  title slide to a section where  I'm going to define how research  scientists are trying to  identify how climate change may  impact aquatic dependent  wildlife in Wisconsin.  Those of you who live here in  southern Wisconsin are well  aware that you've experienced  several seasons of innundating  rainfall in the summertime, with  damage to local communities and  infrastructure.  There's a disparity though,  between southern Wisconsin and  the north, from which I just  came.  And it occurs in about the  central part of the state.  In northern Wisconsin, we're  experiencing a four-year  drought.  It's an historic drought.  Our lake levels in Vilas County,  where I'm from, are at a level  not seen since the early 1930s.  Once again, the complexity of  the situations that we're going  to have to deal with.  Right now, the area of the state  where I work is considered to be  under severe drought by the  U.S. Drought Monitor.  And the lakes which I study are  at, like I mentioned, at  historic lows, and actually  starting the season without much  of a winter recharge. 

 So what you see here is what the  spring lake levels look like in  Vilas County.  I'm involved in a project where  we're evaluating how potential  climate change may impact the  hydrology and lake trophic  status of a watershed in Vilas  County, that being the Trout  Lake watershed.  This is a well-studied  watershed, it has had a lot of  research scientists working in  the area, and we've teamed up  with the US Geologic Survey  water center in Middleton, that  has been developing hydrology  models for the watershed over  the past several years.  We're also working with wildlife  scientists from USGS La Crosse.  And we are putting together a  series of models that we're    hoping will explain or predict  how the common loon population  within that watershed may or may  not experience a change in its  habitat quality as the climate  of the region changes.  This work is sponsored with a  grant from the Focus on Energy  program.  What we're wondering is if, as  the temperature and  precipitation  of northern Wisconsin changes,  can we anticipate a change in  hydrology that will lead to a  change in lake trophic status.  There is some interest in this  from a wildlife perspective  because, as you'll see in a  minute, the common loon is very  dependent on clear water lakes  with high water quality.  The concern is that as lake  volumes decrease and as, per  chance, nutrient concentrations  in inflow in groundwater and  surface water increases, you may  see the lake trophic status  change from, say, a little bit  trophic, mesotrophic lakes, to  more eutrophic lakes, more lakes  where you see large amounts of  aquatic plants and algae blooms.  And we're wondering if our  northern Wisconsin lakes may  become like that as the climate  changes. 

 We also are contemplating  whether aquatic invasive species  may become more of a problem as  plant growth becomes more  luxuriant on these lakes.  We do know, I've worked loons  for 20 years, I've learned a lot  about these critters, and one  thing we do know is they like  clear water lakes with lots of  fish.  And that's because they're  underwater foragers and they  pursue their prey.  And this bar graph represents  the probability you'll find a  loon on a lake as a function of  its Secchi disk depth.  And Secchi disk depth describes  how clear the water is.  The lower the Secchi disk depth,  those less than five, are very  green, algae-filled lakes, or  dark stained lakes.  And only 20% of these lakes are  occupied by loons in Vilas  County.  On the other hand, when your  water clarity is very great,  when Secchi disk depth is  greater than 20 feet, there's  over an 80% chance you're gonna  find loons on the lakes, so  there's a clear relationship  between how loons are currently  distributing themselves and the  clarity of lakes.  There's one signal that the  loons may be sensitive to  changes on the landscape or  climate.  We have noticed that the loon  breeding distribution in the  state has dramatically decreased  or moved north over the past 80  years. 

 The map on the left represents  known loon reproduction in the  state through, from the period  of 1890 to 1960, and as you can  see on the bottom, those stars  represent nesting loons in  counties right around here.  In fact, they were nesting in  the Yahara chain as late as  1910, they were nesting into  northern Illinois, northern  Indiana, and northern Iowa  during that period of time, too.  But the graphic on the right,  map on the right, represents the  current breeding distribution,  and as you can see, it has  shrunk north a good deal.  We've often asked the question,  could this be a function of  water quality, has water quality  of lakes in the south changed to  the extent that the loons can no  longer make a living and raise  their young on these lakes?  Once again, I mentioned we're  working in the Trout Lake  watershed of Vilas County,  Wisconsin.  This is a forested watershed  with very little landscape  alteration due to housing  settlement, it's mostly the  northern Highland, American  Legion state forest.  And it's a forested region, a  little agriculture, a little  non-point runoff into these  lakes, so these lakes are in  pretty good shape, one would  say, for this period of time,  and are oligotrophic,  mesotrophic lakes, pretty clear  water lakes.  Loons are distributed widely  across this watershed, I have a  crew out there right now  documenting which lakes they're  using and how well they're  reproducing on these lakes.  The assets that the USGS water  center brings to our project is  their ability to link the IPCC  climate model, which predicts  with increased resolution,  developed by UW atmospheric  sciences department, the  temperature and precipitation  for the Trout Lake watershed 50  years from now, 80 years from  now, 100 years from now.  You name the date, they'll tell  you how much rain you'll get and  what the temperature will be,  the model will tell you.  The hydrologists would then take  this information and run it  through their hydrology model  called the GS flow model, which  would then describe how much  water volume is delivered to the  Trout Lake watershed in any  given year. 

 So as temperature and  precipitation changes, the  hydrology of the watershed will  change.  What they will do in addition is  model how the solute  concentrations of this water  flow could change.  Will it deliver more nutrients  to the lakes, will the lakes  have less volume in the future?  All these things can work  together to change the trophic  status of a lake.  We can wind up with lakes that  are currently oligotrophic or  mesotrophic, having a decrease  in volume and an increase in  nutrient flow that would change  the water clarity, perchance as  a function of them becoming more  productive, having more plant  and algae growth.  This is a complex linkage of  models, we look at this as a  first step to try to get a  handle on how climate change may  impact hydrology at the  watershed level in northern  Wisconsin, but we take it one  step beyond and ask the  question, how could this change  also affect lake-dependent  wildlife?  Such as the common loon, which  is dependent on lakes of high  water quality.  So this is a project that just  got started, the past two weeks,  I've been getting the crew out  there, taking our water samples,  we also have crews with the USGS  in central and southern  Wisconsin documenting what lakes  are currently using.  So the results from this  research project should be  coming out in about two years.  As Karl mentioned, Dave  Miladenoff and colleagues at the  University of Wisconsin here  have modeled how forest cover  will change as a function of  changing temperature and  precipitation patterns.  You will see the southern oaks  replacing a lot of the  coniferous forests of the north.  This is primarily a function of  changes in the growing season,  some species that are currently  unable to tolerate the long,  cold winters in the north may  find that it's a more hospitable  environment, and the dominant  tree species will likely change. 

 Karl presented this slide  showing how some of our common  dominant trees in the north  right now will be pretty much  relegated to just a few remnants  in Minnesota --- and northern  Wisconsin.  Snow cover is likely to change  in the forested regions of  northern Wisconsin as well.  This is from a presentation  given by Dan --- and Mike  Notaro in previous "Bracing for  Impact" presentations.  This graphic illustrates how the  period of time that we will be  likely to see snow events,  throughout the state of  Wisconsin, is going to  constrict.  The blue line represents our  current probability curve of the  likelihood of seeing snow versus  rain in a given location.  For instance, in September, in  Eau Claire, you're very unlikely  to see any snow.  And as the season progresses you  become more and more likely to  see snow events as opposed to  rain events.  The red line represents the  probability of seeing a snow  event versus a rain event in a  future climate condition.  You'll likely see more rain  events in the winter,  particularly if you look to a  place like Milwaukee.  Where a very small portion of  the year will you be more likely  to see snow than rain as the  climate changes. 

 And as Karl illustrated, this  has implications for  snow-dependent wildlife.  Picture a snowshoe hare dealing  with this predator complex while  it is completely white on a  brown or green background for  three to four months at a time,  which could be the future.  We do know snowshoe hare used to  exist down in central and  southern Wisconsin, as Karl  illustrated.  It could be that this species'  distribution may shrink more so  long as the predator complex  that is associated with it as  the snow covered period  declines.  We also need to know on the  landscape what features of  Wisconsin forest habitat are  most vulnerable to climate  change.  We currently have knowledge of  what regions of the state are  critically important to  maintaining wildlife species  diversity.  This is a map generated by the  Wisconsin Wildlife Action Plan,  which identifies important areas  for conservation, where we can  maintain the largest abundance  of species diversity where  opportunity presents itself.  How will climate change impact  these regions?  The state has over 515 natural  areas that are populated by  unique flora and fauna.  These are remnant populations  that have persisted despite the  European settlement across the  state and huge landscape  changes.  These habitats are vulnerable as  well. 

 David Miladenoff and Sara  Hotchkiss for the University of  Wisconsin will be presenting  next week, and they'll be  presenting a study that's  designed to identify on the  forested landscape of Wisconsin,  which, at a fine scale, which  locations are most vulnerable to  changes in the forest  composition.  The soils, the aspects, all  these things could contribute to  how forests may or may not  change as the climate changes.  Some areas may be more likely to  change than others, and they're  going to investigate this.  This is important for us to help  us identify what reaches of the  state are most in need for  conservation strategies to  incorporate climate change.  We currently have a very good  knowledge of our forests  covering the state, it's  well-mapped, it's GIS ready, you  can look at it at a very fine  scale and it'll tell you the  dominant tree species currently  present.  And this is available in many  different formats, actually.  David Miladenoff and his  colleagues have developed a  pre-settlement land cover for  the state of Wisconsin that  describes the dominant forest  species that were present before  European settlement.  His colleague Sara Hotchkiss has  the ability to go to a  landscape, and by investigating  the pollen in lake bottoms, look  back in time to determine at  that site what were the dominant  tree species present.  This is an important tool  because there was a time in  Wisconsin when we had warm  temperatures and less  precipitation, this is during  the Medieval Warm Period, it's  termed.  And Sara will look at her pollen  cores from lakes throughout the  northern forests to see if the  forest composition dramatically  changed, or not, during this  Medieval Warm Period. 

 This technique will allow them  to identify, on the landscape  scale, what local areas are most  likely to see the forest  composition change.  Come back next week and we'll  give you a very good overview of  the detail of that project.  They'll extrap this information  to the landscape scale and help  us understand what areas of  northern Wisconsin forest are we  most likely to see impacted by  climate change.  A link to wildlife occurs  because many wildlife species  are linked to the dominant tree  species present in a forest,  many forests depend on wildlife  species.  And the additional step that the  Hotchkiss and Miladenoff  experiment hopes to take is  looking at current relationships  between wildlife species and  dominant tree species in the  forest, look at how that could  change as the dominant tree  species change according to  their predictions in the future.  This is just an example, using  the black-throated green  warbler, to show,  pre-settlement, where it likely  occurred and in what abundance,  based on the dominant tree  species.  The current habitat distribution  model shows that as the  landscape's been cleared and new  trees have taken the place of  the pre-settlement forest, this  distribution has shrunk.  The question will be, as the  forest changes again, what will  the black-throated green  warbler's distribution look  like?  That's one additional aspect to  their research project that will  have immediate benefit to  wildlife managers' knowledge of  what we can expect for future  distributions.  However, and once again, going  back to Karl's description of  the complexity of the  relationships between species  and the landscape and their  predators and disease, these,  remember, will be models.  And they will help guide us, but  they will not actually predict  the future. 

 A final project I wanted to  describe is a very important  project.  It's looking at a mitigation  strategy that's been recommended  by the governor's task force on  global warming.  That is the production of  biofuel in large quantities on  the landscape in Wisconsin to  replace petroleum-based fuels.  What's the impact of this  management strategy on wildlife?  This is something that needs to  be known, because as you convert  large expanses of our landscape,  perhaps to switchgrass or  monotonic aspen forest, for  biofuel, how could this affect  the wildlife?  We have a project underway in  Wisconsin that is evaluating how  various mixes of grassland  vegetative type and/or aspen  forest type will produce  sufficient amount of biomass to  be economically feasible for  biofuel production, yet maintain  the highest diversity of  wildlife species.  This work is again funded by the  Wisconsin Focus on Energy  program.  Dr. Christopher Webster, and  David Flaspohler at Michigan  Technical University are the  recipients of the grant.  Doctoral candidate Amber Roth is  one of the principal field  scientists and other  participating scientists are  listed below.  This project focuses on  conservation priority birds.  These are birds that we know are  in need of conservation and  management strategies presently  because their populations are in  a downward trajectory.  Or the habitat they're  associated with is becoming  increasingly rare. 

 So you can see those associated  with the aspen forest and those  associated with the native  grasslands.  These are the species that this  research group is interested in  knowing how well they'll do  under the various vegetative  management regimes.  They have two research areas,  one in northern Wisconsin, which  is the Aspen Project, and one in  southern Wisconsin, the  Grassland Project.  And within these study areas,  they will be growing different  plots of biomass, biofuels,  various types of grass, prairie  plants, and I'll illustrate that  in a minute, and they'll  quantify the amount of biomass  that's produced per mix of plant  type.  They'll also quantify the  diversity and abundance of wild  birds associated with these  different plantings.  Again, same thing in the Aspen  Project.  Specifically, the project  designed for the Grassland  Project will pair plots that  have switchgrass monoculture to  that which are mixed grass  plantings to a restored prairie  with ---.  And they will investigate the  amount of biofuel produced, the  amount of biomass each season  within these plots, as well as  the breeding bird data, such as  species richness, their density,  and their territory size.  A similar approach is being  taken in the aspen forest, where  the treatments, or the plots,  will be aspen clearcut, without  any mature forest retention.  Aspen clearcut with a pine  component remaining, or an aspen  clearcut with oak retention. 

 Once again, they're gonna  quantify the amount of biofuel  produced per unit of area and  the breeding bird data once  again.  Species diversity, density.  They also have a mascot bird on  the aspen forest, it's a  federally listed species, the  gold wing warbler, which does  well in some types of aspen  management areas.  And they're also quantifying  nest success in that area.  So their goal is to inform our  policymakers, what mix of  vegetation in aspen forest and  grasslands will provide us with  the biomass needed for  economical biofuel production,  yet retain the largest species  diversity, or is it feasible.  Will this work.  So that's an ongoing project as  well.  Adaptation.  How will we use all this  information to inform our  wildlife managers, our  endangered resource scientists,  what the future of the state may  look like, how we'll have to  design our harvest management  strategies, how we'll have to  deal with endangered and  threatened species that could no  longer be even contemplated to  survive in this state.  As climate changes. 

 These are all new pieces of  information that are just  becoming, that are just coming  to the surface that we need to  know.  One thing we always know when it  comes to adaptation.  Adaptation.  I wanted to illustrate what a  few other natural resource  management areas are doing from  an adaptation standpoint to  protect the resource of interest  to them.  In the upper right you see, Matt  -- did a presentation here a few  weeks ago describing how  coldwater fisheries, such as our  trout fishery, may be at risk to  warming waters in the  summertime, these fish may  exceed their thermal thresholds  and become extricated.  They're looking to stretches of  stream now to plant in shrubs  that'll help protect by shading  some of the thermal requirements  of these species.  Forestry.  They're looking at what species  we need to plant to replace  forests that are harvested in  the future.  Our stormwater management folks  are looking at constructing new  sewer systems to accommodate the  new volumes of precipitation  that may fall  in our urban areas.  Even our recreational folks are  coming up with plan B for  running the Birkie in seasons of  low snowfall. 

 So these are adaptation  strategies.  How are we gonna deal with this  changing climate?  We don't have it all worked out  for wildlife, but I can tell you  one thing, and I heard it from  --- Wilson on public TV last  night.  The surest way to protect  wildlife diversity is to protect  habitat.  And if we do nothing else, our  emphasis on habitat conservation  and habitat restoration is  essential to mitigate some of  the stressors that are going to  face wildlife in Wisconsin as a  function of climate change.  We'll be coming up with more  detailed information and  recommendations as we learn more  from our research projects, but  this I wanted to be the take  home message, that what we do no  today from a conservation and  restoration standpoint as it  relates to habitat will have the  biggest bang for the buck in the  short end for wildlife.  We took slides from many people  to make this presentation, and I  wanted to produce the long list  of contributors of information  that I shared.  And I also wanted to point you  to the WICCI website, where our  wildlife working group has an  active link where we will update  our findings as we go and  provide, and we do provide a  variety of links to wildlife  climate change resources.  So please check us out there.  So that's what I have to offer,  and I guess we can take any  questions if you have them.  Karl?  (applause)