Looking Back to See Ahead: Using long-term monitoring data to predict species persistence across the NSMBW

Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission Proposition 50 grant project

Group Project

We will use long-term amphibian and chaparral monitoring data to quantify the impacts of recent extreme climate events and predict species persistence across the North Santa Monica Bay Watershed under changing climate and ecological conditions. We hypothesize that species in this watershed are in precipitous decline due to recent major disturbances (fire) coupled with climate change and its stressors, such as severe drought, record-setting warmer temperatures, the impacts of invasive species, and novel disease outbreak. Currently, it is unclear how populations will respond after disturbance in conjunction with various climate change-associated stressors. Without urgent action populations may be lost if we do not identify and mitigate factors driving population reductions. The subsequent loss of associated ecosystem functioning is also a possibility. Using models, we will isolate key stressors driving population trends and predict persistence in this region through the coming decades.