This proposal will use lab and field studies and modeling to study pathogen transmission and spillover.

Nature-based solutions provide benefits to both nature and people, simultaneously addressing the issues of climate change and biodiversity loss. The Department of the Interior (DOI) manages large areas of natural and working lands in the United States and would like to implement a nature-based solutions approach to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets, equitably build ecosystem and community resilience, and deliver additional co-benefits for ecosystems and people. However, DOI currently lacks consistent information on technical approaches, expected benefits, funding mechanisms, and likely barriers and solutions for implementing nature-based solutions. This project will create a roadmap document to provide this information for a variety of nature-based solution strategies identified as relevant to DOI. The roadmap will be used to educate DOI staff and promote implementation of nature-based solutions to help DOI increase carbon storage, improve ecosystem and community resilience, and protect federal assets.

This award will combine molecular, cellular, and organismal biology with community ecology to understand pollinator-pathogen transmission dynamics.

This proposal will assess the effects of nectar yeast on pollinator behavior, visitation patterns, and plant reproduction.

The Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) conduct science that directly addresses the informational needs of natural and cultural resource managers across the country. Projects cover topics that address the exposure to and impacts of changing climate conditions on fish, wildlife, ecosystems, and the communities that depend on them, as well as potential strategies to adapt to these changes. In order to support the most effective synthesis and dissemination of CASC research, this project will develop products to synthesize, summarize, visualize, and disseminate research information to relevant audiences using a variety of media and venues. The NCSU team will incorporate guidance from National CASC staff as well as consultation with regional CASC communications staff to create materials and information. Products will be informed by insights from the resource management community to determine the most effective methods to visualize and share CASC science in order to provide managers with the information they need to make decisions.

Climate change is expected to further facilitate the spread of invasive species, which represents one of the biggest anticipated challenges to the conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. Because range shifts of invasive species from climate change have been identified as a major concern for natural resources managers, coordination and information sharing among researchers, managers, and policy makers is essential for effective planning, decision-making and applied management. Yet, at a regional scale, no existing network exists for facilitation across jurisdictions (e.g., county, district, state), agencies and/or institutions. To address this challenge, our goal is to establish a Southeast Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change Management Network (SE RISCC). SE RISCC will coordinate and disseminate information to guide management of native and invasive plants and animals across the ecologically rich ecosystems of the SE USA. To achieve this, we propose a working group to bring together scientists, managers and officials to conduct a horizon scan of the information needs of managers and develop a strategy to address those needs through targeted research and communication.

State wildlife agencies and their partners use State Wildlife Action Plans to coordinate and guide management activities aimed at protecting species. To do so, they must identify factors putting species and their habitats at risk. Current and future climate change is one such factor. To succeed, management actions need to account for impacts of climate change on species today and in the future as climate change accelerates in coming decades. Researchers use modeling approaches to understand how future climate change will impact species. In contrast, natural resource managers involved in wildlife action plans have tended instead to favor index-based scoring approaches. This project will compare the two methods. We will examine where the two agree in their determinations about species vulnerability, evaluate where any disagreements originate, and recommend how the two can be combined to arrive at consensus determinations about species vulnerability. To do so, we will leverage existing databases and also develop new model runs for groups where there are existing data gaps. To make them comparable with outputs from index-based scoring methods, we will collapse the richness of model predictions down to summary scores. Our main questions and analyses will be relevant to many states, but we focus on the SE. We will focus on terrestrial and freshwater species identified by state wildlife agencies as representing a shared concern among states in the SE. Throughout the work, we will discuss with stakeholders any issues that may inhibit greater accounting for climate change impacts in management plans and will scope opportunities to encourage greater consistency in how climate change is accounted for in management plans across the SE moving forward. We will provide data resources to state wildlife agency staff across the region in a format and at a time that can support the upcoming 2025 revision of wildlife action plans.

Species are on the move as they respond to climate change. This includes many native species, but also invasive species with high costs to society such as disease vectors, pests, and nonnative invasive species. Currently there are hundreds of invasive species with relatively restricted ranges in the southeastern USA, but as the climate changes these species are expected to expand their ranges to new regions. To understand if and how these species might move and what actions we can take to lessen their impact on species and habitats, the project will use observations and statistical models to explore the spread of invasive species under different scenarios of future climate change. Using these data and models, the project will develop new information to better understand where invasive species will spread, how they will get there, and when they are expected to arrive. The project will engage scientists, managers, and wildlife biologists to consider how management strategies can be used to stop or slow the spread of invasive species. Detecting invasive species early on and responding quickly to manage established populations of invasive species are essential to minimizing their impact.

The guiding strategy of the Southeast Climate Science Center (SE CSC) is to provide staffing and institutional support for core SE CSC mission areas. The SE CSC's mission involves supporting researchers and managers to co-produce science connected to management decisions (actionable science), coordinating logistics and communications to bring partners and the community together (within NCSU, with USGS researchers, and across the broader community) to discuss global change impacts to the DOI mission, and training the next generation (graduate students) and current managers on how to use and develop global change science.

Warming of streams and changes in the flow amount and timing of streamflow is likely to facilitate the spread of invasive fish species. The spread of invasive species will likely impact native fishes and dependent local economies including fishing and tourism in the economically and biologically important Tennessee and Cumberland River Basins. This project will partner with state and federal natural resource agency managers and community groups to (1) identify invasive fish species that have expanded their distribution and abundance in the past 10�����������������30 years; (2) examine the effect of climate- and land-cover- associated changes in stream temperature and flow dynamics on invasions; (3) investigate impacts of invasive fish on native fish communities including game species; and (4) identify which streams are more likely to be colonized by which invasive species in the next 30 years in Tennessee and Cumberland River Basins. The project uses existing fish monitoring data and hydrologic models to conduct a cost-efficient, data-driven assessment of climate impacts on species invasions and their effects on native fish communities.