The Western Mountain Initiative: Response of Western Mountain Ecosystems to Climatic Variability and Change

Research Task: 3213B7F.4.2
Task Manager: Craig Allen

Mountain ecosystems of the western U.S. provide irreplaceable goods and services such as water, wood, biodiversity, and recreational opportunities, but their potential responses to anticipated climatic changes are poorly understood. The overarching objective of the Western Mountain Initiative (WMI) is to understand and predict the responses—emphasizing sensitivities, thresholds, resistance, and resilience—of western mountain ecosystems to climatic variability and change. The overall project will address four key questions: (1) How are climatic variability and change likely to affect disturbance regimes (particularly fire)? (2) How are changing climate and disturbance regimes likely to affect the composition, structure, and productivity of vegetation (particularly forests)? (3) How will climatic variability and change affect hydrologic processes in the mountainous West? (4) Which mountain resources and ecosystems are likely to be most sensitive to future climatic change, and what are possible management responses? Investigators will build on 12 years of productive global change research at the five WMI sites through an integrated cross-site program of natural experiments in time (paleoecological and long-term studies), natural experiments in space (studies across regions and elevational gradients), and synthetic modeling. This task entails work at the Southern Rocky Mountains node, emphasizing the relationships between climate and multiple disturbance processes. These include past and present fire regimes, forest dieback, accelerated soil erosion, and responses to climate variability of tree-growth, surface-dwelling arthropod populations, and herbaceous vegetation.

 For more information contact Craig Allen

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