The Terrestrial Wetland Global Change Research Network is a U.S.-Canadian effort to assess key impacts of climate, interacting with other drivers of global change, on wetland-upland landscape matrices across environmental gradients in North America. Our goals are to inform stakeholders of 1) actual and projected impacts in terms of biodiversity-related and other critical ecosystem services and 2) conservation options for mitigating negative effects. We are maximizing the power of a network by efficiently leveraging resources and skills across organizations, disciplines, and research sites via an integrated, standardized approach and cutting-edge technologies. These include using data collected from satellite and plane-based systems to assess snow presence, ice-out, vegetation green-up and structure, surface-water extent, land-cover change, and effective habitat connectivity within 2500-km2 landscape blocks over time. Simultaneously, we are using digital sound recorders and other field methods to assess bird and amphibian calling phenology and occupancy, air and water temperatures, and water quantity and quality at individual wetlands, all in relation to climate and human activities. Our integrated, standardized approach to measuring the timing of climate-related physical, hydrologic, and biological events across the landscape affords us a unique opportunity to compare phenological changes across local, regional, and larger continental scales and along several physical and ecological gradients.
Results/Conclusions
We implemented field research at six network nodes in 2008, added five more in 2009, expect to have a total of 20 or more nodes in the conterminous U.S., Alaska, and Canada during 2010, and are working to continue to expand effectively in 2011 and beyond. We also are testing a comprehensive relational database and Web-based system for serving information. The inherent value of information from our integrated approach is evident in the example of a recent drought in northern Wisconsin, which we documented at two of our network nodes in terms of shorter hydroperiods, altered amphibian calling phenology, and reduced amphibian breeding at individual wetlands, as well as changes in surface water and vegetation conditions on the surrounding landscape. Data we produce describing such relationships over time, coupled with our data-serving efforts, will provide U.S. and Canadian stakeholders information they can use to evaluate and manage effects of global change on the critical ecosystem services these wetland-upland landscapes provide.