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Code 614.4 Branch Seminar - Bethany Bradley
Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 07:00
Global change poses significant challenges for ecosystem conservation. At regional scales, climate change may lead to extensive shifts in species distributions and widespread extirpations or extinctions. At landscape scales, land use and invasive species disrupt ecosystem function and reduce species richness. However, a lack of spatially explicit models of risk to ecosystems makes it difficult for science to inform conservation planning and land management. Here, I use remote sensing to identify land cover or land cover change combined with geospatial analysis to assess how global change, including land use, invasive species, and climate change, threaten ecosystems in the western U.S. The combination of remote sensing and geospatial analysis creates powerful tools for assessing the impacts of global change on terrestrial ecosystems as well as predicting future risk. These types of integrated assessments are increasingly important for informing land management, conservation, and restoration efforts in light of global change.