Identifying Past and Future Climate Change Refugia for Midwestern Birds

I will conduct an assessment of climate-mediated range shifts to evaluate the refugial capacity of protected areas for birds throughout the Upper Great Lakes region. We have four objectives: 1) analyze long-term range shifts to identify which birds are most impacted by climate change; 2) evaluate if and how protected areas mediate colonization and extinction dynamics for multiple species and communities; 3) model climate suitability for a diversity of species and communities under different future emissions and land use scenarios; and 4) provide area-specific portfolios of those species and guilds that are likely to become more or less common in the future to inform management priorities. To do so, we develop a novel analytical framework for modeling species distributions based on integrating data from multiple, long-term avian monitoring programs across the region.