Montana’s Mapviewer Web Application: Direct Access to 1.4 Million Animal Observations, Wetland and Land Cover Mapping, Land Management and Georeferenced Photos

The Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP) was established by the Montana State Legislature in 1983 and charged with statutory responsibility for the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information documenting Montana’s flora, fauna and biological communities (Montana Code Annotated 90-15). In order to track the distribution and status of species, MTNHP has developed databases containing nearly 1.5 million animal observation records and over 160,000 locations where a formally structured animal survey protocol has been followed.  This information is used to create a variety of other data products, including, range maps, species occurrence areas used in environmental review processes, and predicted distribution models. Agency biologists and resource managers have direct access to this information as well as more than 2.2 million acres of mapped wetland and riparian areas, statewide landcover mapping, land management information, and georeferenced photos on MTNHP’s new MAPVIEWER web application. MAPVIEWER is compatible with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome and will eventually be compatible with touch screen devices. Users can submit animal observations, search for a place names and map coordinates, get summaries of land cover and land management within preselected areas, select different wetland types for viewing, overlay a variety of information layers, create a variety of customized queries, and generate image, pdf, and excel reports through the application

Assessing the natural range of variability in minimally disturbed wetlands across the Rocky Mountains: the Rocky Mountain ReMAP Project

Prepared for: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Includes bibliographical references (pages 35-40).In Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, extremes of mountain climate, high elevations and characteristic geology produce a large range of natural variability within ecological systems. Even under minimal human disturbance regimes, environmental gradients can result in wetlands with very low vegetation cover, low species diversity and unpredictable hydrologic shifts. Documenting the range of variability found under minimally disturbed conditions can help distinguish signal from noise when assessing more altered occurrences, and aid in the calibration of assessment metrics. The project was a collaboration between the Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP), the Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP) and the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD). It had three objectives:1) identify reference standards for four wetland ecological systems across four Rocky Mountain ecoregions; 2) assess the range of natural variability of these ecological systems; and3) produce a regionally standardized Level 1,2 and 3 method for assessing and monitoring wetland condition, including quality assurance project plans, sampling strategies, and metrics calibrated to the four different wetland ecological systems. This report summarizes our approach, activities, and conclusions

Montana’s Mapviewer Web Application: Direct Access to 1.4 Million Animal Observations, Wetland and Land Cover Mapping, Land Management and Georeferenced Photos

The Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP) was established by the Montana State Legislature in 1983 and charged with statutory responsibility for the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information documenting Montana’s flora, fauna and biological communities (Montana Code Annotated 90-15). In order to track the distribution and status of species, MTNHP has developed databases containing nearly 1.5 million animal observation records and over 160,000 locations where a formally structured animal survey protocol has been followed. This information is used to create a variety of other data products, including, range maps, species occurrence areas used in environmental review processes, and predicted distribution models. Agency biologists and resource managers have direct access to this information as well as more than 2.2 million acres of mapped wetland and riparian areas, statewide landcover mapping, land management information, and georeferenced photos on MTNHP’s new MAPVIEWER web application. MAPVIEWER is compatible with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome and will eventually be compatible with touch screen devices. Users can submit animal observations, search for a place names and map coordinates, get summaries of land cover and land management within preselected areas, select different wetland types for viewing, overlay a variety of information layers, create a variety of customized queries, and generate image, pdf, and excel reports through the application

Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How Do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

How robust is our assessment of impacts to ecosystems and species from a rapidly changing climate during the 21st century? We examine the challenges of uncertainty, complexity and constraints associated with applying climate projections to understanding future biological responses. This includes an evaluation of how to incorporate the uncertainty associated with different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and climate models, and constraints of spatiotemporal scales and resolution of climate data into impact assessments. We describe the challenges of identifying relevant climate metrics for biological impact assessments and evaluate the usefulness and limitations of different methodologies of applying climate change to both quantitative and qualitative assessments. We discuss the importance of incorporating extreme climate events and their stochastic tendencies in assessing ecological impacts and transformation, and provide recommendations for better integration of complex climate&ndash;ecological interactions at relevant spatiotemporal scales. We further recognize the compounding nature of uncertainty when accounting for our limited understanding of the interactions between climate and biological processes. Given the inherent complexity in ecological processes and their interactions with climate, we recommend integrating quantitative modeling with expert elicitation from diverse disciplines and experiential understanding of recent climate-driven ecological processes to develop a more robust understanding of ecological responses under different scenarios of future climate change. Inherently complex interactions between climate and biological systems also provide an opportunity to develop wide-ranging strategies that resource managers can employ to prepare for the future.</div

Nest-Site Selection and Nest Survival of Lewis\u27s Woodpecker in Aspen Riparian Woodlands

Riparian woodlands of aspen (Populus tremuloides) provide valuable breeding habitat for several cavity-nesting birds. Although anecdotal information for this habitat is available for Lewis\u27s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis), no study has previously examined the importance of aspen woodlands to this species\u27 breeding biology. From 2002 to 2004, we monitored 76 Lewis\u27s Woodpecker nests in aspen riparian woodlands of south-central Idaho to describe nest-site characteristics and estimate the nests\u27 survival. We quantified the vegetation at nest sites and randomly selected other sites to determine habitat features important in the species\u27 selection of a nest site. We then related these features, as well as several time-specific covariates, to nest survival. Lewis\u27s Woodpecker selected nest trees that were larger in diameter than random trees and selected nest sites with more trees, fewer woody stems, and less bare ground than random sites. However, nest-site characteristics were not important determinants of nest survival. Rather, nest-initiation date and daily maximum temperature had the strongest influence on nest survival, which was higher for early nesters and increased with increasing daily maximum temperature. Nest survival (74%) and productivity (2.3 fledglings per successful nest) were comparable to values observed for Lewis\u27s Woodpeckers in burned pine forests, suggesting that aspen riparian woodlands also serve as valuable breeding habitat for this species in the Intermountain West

Southwest Montana wetland assessment : developing a statewide assessment and monitoring strategy for Montana /

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Milk, Marias, and St. Mary monitoring : developing a long-term rotating basin wetland assessment and monitoring strategy for Montana /

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Southeast Montana wetland assessment : developing and refining Montana\u27s wetland assessment and monitoring strategy /

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