A platform-independent fuzzy logic modeling framework for environmental decision support

Fuzzy logic modeling is a useful method for evaluating landscapes for conservation and resource planning and has been successfully used in different types of ecological and environmental studies. A variety of software packages have been produced to facilitate fuzzy logic modeling, but each is either associated with a specific computer program or does not comprise a complete modeling system. The Environmental Evaluation Modeling System (EEMS) is a platform-independent fuzzy logic modeling framework for environmental decision support. EEMS has been designed so that it can easily be adapted to work with different file types and interface with other software systems. It has been implemented to work with NetCDF and CSV file formats as a command line application, in the ArcGIS ModelBuilder environment, and as part of a web-based data exploration tool. In a performance test, EEMS was run using a dataset with four million reporting units per map layer and yielded execution times of less than 30 s.Results from an EEMS model for Utah and the Colorado Plateau show a complex pattern of site sensitivity.

This article examines trends in farming and livelihood activities among forest-dwelling Adivasi farmers (Soligas) in a tiger reserve from 2008 to 2015. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted in two contrasting, but representative, villages, where traditional mixed-crop farming was being replaced by cash crops such as coffee, maize, and cotton. Access to state-subsidized food supply and increase in cash income through wage labor, coupled with increasing depredation of food crops by wild animals, were some causes for the shift to cash crops. Declining supply of non-timber forest produce (NTFP) and the subsistence cash it provided has also impacted farmer livelihoods and indirectly contributed to this shift. The changing aspirations of younger Soligas and inadequate state support for mixed-crop farming also could be contributing factors. Soligas consistently maintained that increased wildlife depredation of food crops, reduction in supplies of wild foods, and the decline in NTFP was due to poor forest health. The transition to cash crops improved cash flows but exposed the Soligas to market risks. While food security also improved, the nutritional quality of diet declined. Soligas are adopting new farming practices, diets, and livelihood strategies, and importantly, leveraging rights historically denied to them, all a reflection of their social resilience.

Although wildfire plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity in many ecosystems, fire management to protect human assets is often carried out by different agencies than those tasked for conserving biodiversity. In fact, fire risk reduction and biodiversity conservation are often viewed as competing objectives. Here we explored the role of  management through private land conservation and asked whether we could identify private land acquisition strategies that fulfill the mutual objectives of  biodiversity conservation and fire risk reduction, or whether the maximization of  one objective comes at a detriment to the other. Using a fixed budget and number of  homes slated for development, we simulated 20 years of  housing growth under alternative conservation selection strategies, and then projected the mean risk of  fires destroying structures and the area and configuration of  important habitat types in San Diego County, California, USA. We found clear differences in both fire risk projections and biodiversity impacts based on the way conservation lands are prioritized for selection, but these differences were split between two distinct groupings. If  no conservation lands were purchased, or if  purchases were prioritized based on cost or likelihood of  development, both the projected fire risk and biodiversity impacts were much higher than if  conservation lands were purchased in areas with high fire hazard or high species richness. Thus, conserving land focused on either of  the two objectives resulted in nearly equivalent mutual benefits for both. These benefits not only resulted from preventing development in sensitive areas, but they were also due to the different housing patterns and arrangements that occurred as development was displaced from those areas. Although biodiversity conflicts may still arise using other fire management strategies, this study shows that mutual objectives can be attained through land-use planning in this region. These results likely generalize to any place where high species richness overlaps with hazardous wildland vegetation.

Seedling establishment is a critical step that may ultimately govern tree species’ distribution shifts under environmental change. Annual variation in the location of seed rain and microclimates results in transient “windows of opportunity” for tree seedling establishment across the landscape. These establishment windows vary at fine spatiotemporal scales that are not considered in most assessments of climate change impacts on tree species range dynamics and habitat displacement. We integrate field seedling establishment trials conducted in the southern Sierra Nevada and western Tehachapi Mountains of southern California with spatially downscaled grids of modeled water-year climatic water deficit (CWDwy) and mean August maximum daily temperature (Tmax) to map historical and projected future microclimates suitable for establishment windows of opportunity for Quercus douglasii, a dominant tree species of warm, dry foothill woodlands, and Q. kelloggii, a dominant of cooler, more mesic montane woodlands and forests. Based on quasi-binomial regression models, Q. douglasii seedling establishment is significantly associated with modeled CWDwy and to a lesser degree with modeled Tmax. Q. kelloggii seedling establishment is most strongly associated with Tmax and best predicted by a two-factor model including CWDwy and Tmax. Establishment niche models are applied to explore recruitment window dynamics in the western Tehachapi Mountains, where these species are currently widespread canopy dominants. Establishment windows are projected to decrease by 50–95%, shrinking locally to higher elevations and north-facing slopes by the end of this century depending on the species and climate scenario. These decreases in establishment windows suggest the potential for longer-term regional population declines of the species. While many additional processes regulate seedling establishment and growth, this study highlights the need to account for topoclimatic controls and interannual climatic variation when assessing how seedling establishment and colonization processes could be affected by climate change.

Global Vegetation Dynamics: Concepts and Applications in MC1 model describes the creation in the mid 1990s, architecture, uses, and limitations of the MC1 dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) that is being used by an increasing number of research groups around the world. The scientific foundation of most models is often poorly documented and difficult to access, and a centralized source of information for MC1, including the complete list of over eighty papers and reports with MC1 results will be useful to scientists and users who want to better understand the model and the output it generates.

Global Vegetation Dynamics: Concepts and Applications in MC1 model will be a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of climate change science, conservation science, biogeochemistry and ecology, as well as for land managers looking for a better understanding of the projections of climate change impacts and of the tools that have been developed to produce them.

Table of Contents

Part I: General Description of the Model MC1

1  History and General Description of the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model MC1- Dominique Bachelet

2  Historical Climate and Suppression Effects on Simulated Fire and Carbon Dynamics in the Conterminous United States-James M Lenihan and Dominique Bachelet

3  Challenges and Limitations of Using a DGVM for Local to Regional Applications- Dominique Bachelet, Brendan M Rogers, and David R Conklin

4  The Making of a Dynamic General Vegetation Model, MC1- Ronald P Neilson

Part II: Examples of Projects Using MC1 at Various Spatial Scales

5  A Brief Description of the VINCERA Project; Vulnerability and Impacts of North American Forests to Climate Change: Ecosystem Responses and Adaptation- David T Price, Daniel Scott, Mark R Lomas, Daniel W McKenney, Dominique Bachelet, Raymond J Drapek, James M Lenihan, Ronald P Neilson, F I Woodward, and Jonathan A Foley

6  Continent wide Simulations of a Dynamic Global Vegetation Model over the United States and Canada under Nine AR4 Future Scenarios- Raymond J Drapek, John B Kim, and Ronald P Neilson

7  Drivers of Future Ecosystem Change in the US Pacific Northwest: The Role of Climate, Fire, and Nitrogen- Brendan M Rogers, Dominique Bachelet, Raymond J Drapek, Beverly E Law, Ronald P Neilson, and John R Wells 91

8  Application of MC1 to Wind Cave National Park: Lessons from a Small Scale Study- David A King, Dominique Bachelet, and Amy J Symstad

9  Simulating Effects of Climate and Vegetation Change on Distributions of Martens and Fishers in the Sierra Nevada, California, Using Maxent and MC1- Wayne D Spencer, Heather Rustigian Romsos, Ken Ferschweiler, and Dominique Bachelet

Part III: Packaging MC1 Results to Increase Its Usability by Managers

10  Using a Dynamic Global Vegetation Model to Help Inform Management Decisions- Joshua S Halofsky, Jessica E Halofsky, David R Conklin, Dominique Bachelet, Miles A Hemstrom, Becky K Kerns, and Anita T Morzillo

11  Bringing MC1 Model Results to Data Basin to Facilitate Access, Distribution, and Interpretation- Dominique Bachelet and the CBI Data Basin team

Appendix: Publications and Reports Featuring MC1

Glossary

Index

The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) shifted federal lands management from a focus on timber production to ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. The plan established a network of conservation reserves and an ecosystem management strategy on ~10 million hectares from northern California to Washington State, USA, within the range of the federally threatened northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina). Several subsequent assessments—and 20 years of data from monitoring programs established under the plan—have demonstrated the effectiveness of this reserve network and ecosystem management approach in making progress toward attaining many of the plan’s conservation and ecosystem management goals. This paper (1) showcases the fundamental conservation biology and ecosystem management principles underpinning the NWFP as a case study for managers interested in large-landscape conservation; and (2) recommends improvements to the plan’s strategy in response to unprecedented climate change and land-use threats. Twenty years into plan implementation, however, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, under pressure for increased timber harvest, are retreating from conservation measures. We believe that federal agencies should instead build on the NWFP to ensure continuing success in the Pacific Northwest. We urge federal land managers to (1) protect all remaining late-successional/old-growth forests; (2) identify climate refugia for at-risk species; (3) maintain or increase stream buffers and landscape connectivity; (4) decommission and repair failing roads to improve water quality; (5) reduce fire risk in fire-prone tree plantations; and (6) prevent logging after fires in areas of high conservation value. In many respects, the NWFP is instructive for managers considering similar large-scale conservation efforts.

We used Maxent distribution models and MC1 to investigate effects of climate and vegetation on the distribution of martens (Martes caurina) and fishers (Pekania pennanti) in the Sierra Nevada, California, under current and projected future conditions. Both species are forest carnivores of conservation concern in California, where they reach their southernmost distributions. The species occupy similar ecological niches and may compete in the elevation band where their ranges overlap—but martens mostly occupy higher elevations with deep, persistent snow, and fishers occupy lower elevations with less snow. We systematically varied types of environmental variables (climate, vegetation, terrain, presence or absence of the other species) included in Maxent models and compared area‐under‐curve (AUC) values to determine what variables best predict current distributions. Terrain variables and presence or absence of the competing species did not add significantly to model fit. For fishers, models using both climate and vegetation variables outperformed those using only vegetation; for martens, there was no significant difference between vegetationonly, climate‐only, and vegetation + climate models. We then prepared climate + vegetation Maxent models using MC1‐derived variables that best approximated the variables used in the best current (benchmark) models, compared predicted distributions with benchmark models, and projected distributions to mid‐ and late 21st century using MC1 vegetation projections and an array of downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) and emission scenarios at three resolutions (10 km, 4 km, 800 m). The finest available GCM resolution (800 m) provided the best spatial congruence between MC1‐derived models and benchmark models. Regardless of GCM emission scenario, predicted marten distribution shifted to higher elevations, became more fragmented, and decreased in area by 40−85% (depending on scenario) compared to current distributions. Predicted changes in fisher distribution were more variable across GCM scenarios, with some increases and some decreases in extent and no consistent elevation shifts—suggesting high uncertainty in climate change effects on fishers. Management to benefit these species should consider ways of sustaining appropriate vegetation conditions within their preferred climate envelopes via adaptive management.

Aim: Forest regeneration data provide an early signal of the persistence and migration of tree species, so we investigated whether species shifts due to climate change exhibit a common signal of response or whether changes vary by species.

Location: California Floristic Province, United States; mediterranean biome.

Methods: We related Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data from 2000−07 for 13 tree species to high-resolution climate and geographical data. Using methods from invasion ecology, we derived indices of species-specific regeneration overlap and central tendency change (range-wide global indicators) based on kernel density estimation of presence and absence of regeneration. We then built regeneration surfaces to identify areas of occurrence of high regeneration (regeneration
hotspots, local indicators) in both geographical and climate space for 13 common tree species.

Results: Differences between presence and absence of regeneration in forests varied in magnitude across species, with little evidence that tree regeneration is shifting to higher latitudes and elevations, the expected geographical fingerprint of climate change. We also identified potential topographic mediators of regeneration dynamics. Multiple regeneration hotspots were found for many species, suggesting the influence of non-climatic factors on regeneration. Differences between the presence and absence of regeneration in geographic and climate spaces were not always congruent, suggesting that shifting climate space and range area are not entirely coupled.

Main conclusions: The distributions of regeneration in Californian forests show diverse signals, not always tracking the higher latitudinal–elevation fingerprint of climate change. Local regeneration hotspots are common in our analysis, suggesting spatially varying persistence of forest linked to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Our results emphasize that projections of tree range shifts in the context of climate change should consider the variation of regeneration drivers

Survival of early life stages is key for population expansion into new locations and for persistence of current populations (Grubb 1977, Harper 1977). Relative to adults, these early life stages are very sensitive to climate fluctuations (Ropert-Coudert et al.2015), which often drive episodic or event-limited regeneration (e.g. pulses) in long-lived plant species (Jackson et al. 2009). Thus, it is difficult to mechanistically associate 30-yr climate norms to dynamic processes involved in species range shifts (e.g. seedling survival). What are the consequences of temporal aggregation for estimating areas of potential establishment? We modeled seedling survival for three widespread tree species in California, USA (Quercus douglasii,Q. kelloggii, Pinus sabiniana) by coupling a large-scale, multi-year common garden experiment to high-resolution downscaled grids of climatic water deficit and air temperature (Flint and Flint 2012, Supplementary material Appendix 1). We projected seedling survival for nine climate change projections in two mountain landscapes spanning wide elevation and moisture gradients. We compared areas with windows of opportunity for seedling survival defined as three consecutive years of seedling survival in our species, a period selected based on studies of tree niche ontogeny (Supplementary material Appendix 1) to areas of 30-yr averaged estimates of seedling survival. We found that temporal aggregation greatly underestimated the potential for species establishment (e.g. seedling survival) under climate change scenarios.

Context Predicting climate-driven species’ range shifts depends substantially on species’ exposure to climate change. Mountain landscapes contain a wide range of topoclimates and soil characteristics that are thought to mediate range shifts and buffer species’ exposure. Quantifying fine-scale patterns of exposure across mountainous terrain is a key step in understanding vulnerability of species to regional climate change.

Objectives We demonstrated a transferable, flexible approach for mapping climate change exposure in a moisture-limited, mountainous California landscape across 4 climate change projections under phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) for mid-(2040–2069) and end-of-century (2070–2099).Methods We produced a 149-year dataset (1951–2099) of modeled climatic water deficit (CWD), which is strongly associated with plant distributions, at 30-m resolution to map climate change exposure in the Tehachapi Mountains, California, USA. We defined climate change exposure in terms of departure from the 1951–1980 mean and historical range of variability in CWD in individual years and 3-year moving windows.

Results Climate change exposure was generally greatest at high elevations across all future projections, though we encountered moderate topographic buffering on poleward-facing slopes. Historically dry lowlands demonstrated the least exposure to climate change.

Conclusions In moisture-limited, Mediterraneanclimate landscapes, high elevations may experience the greatest exposure to climate change in the 21st century. High elevation species may thus be especially vulnerable to continued climate change as habitats shrink and historically energy-limited locations become increasingly moisture-limited in the future.