NE CASC @ NEAFWA: Join Us for Two Symposia on Key Adaptation Topics

NE CASC enthusiastically invites the regional climate adaptation science community to learn more about our work at the 2025 NEAFWA Conference from April 21-24 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. We have organized two special symposia on key adaptation topics.

Symposium #1
Wednesday, April 23rd, 8:00 AM-12:00 PM ET
Addressing the Combined Impacts of Climate Change and Invasive Species to Improve Fish and Wildlife Management

Overview: The combined impacts of invasive species and climate change represent a critical challenge to habitat management, restoration, and conservation.  This symposium will outline invasive species and climate change issues most relevant to habitat management, highlight a series of projects focused on climate change and invasive species interactions, and provide an overview of the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC) and the Northeast Regional Invasive Species & Climate Change (NE RISCC) Management Network. NE RISCC is a boundary-spanning organization that aims to reduce the compounding effects of invasive species and climate change by synthesizing relevant science, communicating the needs of practitioners to researchers, building stronger scientist-practitioner communities, and conducting priority research relevant to their region. A facilitated discussion with the audience about how invasive species and climate change can be included in habitat management will conclude the session. We aim to share NE RISCC and NE CASC as resources and potential partners for wildlife professionals and showcase the RISCC model as an example of connecting science with practice.

Presentations will include:

• Implications of climate change for invasive species in the Northeast, Bethany Bradley (NE CASC & UMass Amherst)
• Translational Invasion Ecology: A framework for connecting research and practice to address the combined challenges of invasive species and climate change, Carrie Brown-Lima (USGS & NE CASC) 
• Range shifts of native and nonnative species with climate change, Jenica Allen (NE RISCC & UMass Amherst)
• Managing resilient plant communities through the identification of climate-adapted native species, Daniel Buonaiuto (NE RISCC & UMass Amherst) 
• Risk and Resilience: Plant Traits to Inform Climate-smart Restoration Species Selection, Thomas Nuhfer (NE RISCC & UMass Amherst)
• Invasive Species in Massachusetts Lakes and Rivers: Climate Change has Changed the History of Invasions, David Wong (Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection)
• Climate-smart Invasive Species Management, Toni Lyn Morelli (USGS & NE CASC)
• Can NASA remote sensing help solve the mystery of disappearing muskrats?, Laurence Smith (Brown University)
• Lanternfly on the Loose: How Climate Change Fuels an Invasive Menace, Natasha Shangold (City of Rockville, Maryland)
• Biological invasion of a non-indigenous wood-boring insect threatens keystone wetland tree species, Nathan Siegert (US Forest Service)
• Education & Outreach Partnership Teaching K-12 Students About Tree-Killing Invasive Species and Climate Change, Gary Fish (Maine Depaartment of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry)

Symposium #2
Wednesday, April 23, 1:30-5:30 PM ET
Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Wildlife in New England

New England is highly exposed to climate change, facing a rate of warming higher than most places on earth. New England’s streams and forests, and the fish and wildlife that inhabit them, are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In particular, boreal forests and northern hardwood forests are expected to be highly sensitive to climate warming and increasing droughts. Both these forest ecosystems, as well as many of the birds, mammals, amphibians, fish, and insects that inhabit them, are at their southern range edges here in New England and thus are considered especially vulnerable to climate change. In addition to warming temperatures and increased drought conditions, local species’ adaptive capacity is limited by habitat fragmentation, high rates of invasive species, and other stressors. There is considerable uncertainty with respect to the magnitude and direction of future changes, particularly considering changes in land use and land management, as well as novel interactions amongst co-occurring species. Thus, a focus on climate adaptation in northern forest ecosystems, including evaluations of the impacts of particular management actions, is critical as we think about the future of natural resource management.  

In this symposium, we highlight work supported by the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC) to help fish, wildlife, land, and people adapt to a changing climate in New England. This work includes identifying coldwater refugia for fish facing warming streams, tracking range shifts for red squirrels, increasing understanding of phenological shifts in color-changing snowshoe hares, monitoring abundance and occurrence changes in songbird populations, and more. Using the latest field, lab and modeling methods, together with knowledge coproduction and translational ecology approaches, a diverse team of researchers and practitioners are increasing understanding and acting on conclusions to result in more effective action on the ground.

Presentations will include:

• Climate Science to Improve Outcomes for Wildlife in New England, Toni Lyn Morelli (USGS & NE CASC)
• Matrix habitat offsets the impacts of climate change on southern prey populations, Alexej P. K. Sirén (University of New Hampshire)
• Adaptive Capacity to Camouflage Mismatch in Snowshoe Hares and Weasels across the Northeastern U.S., Marketa Zimova (Ohio University)
• Mapping future habitat and climate change refugia for Canada lynx conservation planning in the Northeastern United States, Nikki Cavalieri (USGS & NE CASC)
• Ecosystem-based Core-independent Regional Connectivity for Climate Change Adaptation, Bradley W. Compton (UMass Amherst)
• A full annual cycle perspective on climate change and the conservation of migratory birds, William DeLuca (National Audubon Society)
• Thirty years of change - climate impacts on a high-elevation breeding bird community across the Northeastern United States, Michael T. Hallworth (Vermont Center for Ecostudies)
• Can regional bird monitoring among forest stands with mixed management and disturbance histories inform future forest responses to climate change?, Aaron Weed (National Park Service)
• Adaptive silviculture practices and Breeding Songbirds in the Northeast, David Farris (UMass Amherst)
• Modeling Habitat Loss for Endemic Alpine Butterflies in the White Mountains Under a Changing Climate, Heather Siart (UMass Amherst)
• Landscape transcriptomic analysis detects thermal stress responses and potential adaptive variation in wild brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) during successive heatwaves, Justin Waraniak (Penn State University)