Changes in the position of the low salinity zone, a habitat suitability index, turbidity, and water temperature modeled from four 100-year scenarios of climate change were evaluated for possible effects on delta smeltHypomesus transpacificus, which is endemic to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. The persistence of delta smelt in much of its current habitat into the next century appears uncertai...

Accurate predictions of the impacts of future land use change on species of conservation concern can help to inform policy-makers and improve conservation measures. If predictions are spatially explicit, predicted consequences of likely land use changes could be accessible to land managers at a scale relevant to their working landscape. We introduce a method, based on open source software, whic...

Many species have already experienced distributional shifts due to changing environmental conditions, and analyzing past shifts can help us to understand the influence of environmental stressors on a species as well as to analyze the effectiveness of conservation strategies. We aimed to (1) quantify regional habitat associations of the California gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica); (2) descri...

Individuals along the periphery of a species distribution regularly encounter more challenging environmental and climatic conditions than conspecifics near the center of the distribution. Due to these potential constraints, individuals in peripheral margins are expected to change their habitat and behavioral characteristics. Managers typically rely on species distribution maps when developing a...

River biota are affected by global reach-scale pressures, but most approaches for predicting biota of rivers focus on river reach or segment scale processes and habitats. Moreover, these approaches do not consider long-term morphological changes that affect habitat conditions. In this study, a modelling framework was further developed and tested to assess the effect of pressures at different sp...

Land-based activities, including deforestation, agriculture, and urbanisation, cause increased erosion, reduced inland and coastal water quality, and subsequent loss or degradation of downstream coastal marine ecosystems. Quantitative approaches to link sediment loads from catchments to metrics of downstream marine ecosystem state are required to calculate the cost effectiveness of taking conse...

Environmental Flow Requirement (EFR) is defined as the flow that is necessary to ensure the existence of habitats in water resources systems. EFR is defined in rivers as flow index commonly. Tennant method is the most popular hydrological method in rivers and based on the historic flow data. The most common method of hydraulic rating method is the wetted perimeter method. Habitat simulation tec...

A shortage of salmonid spawning habitat on dammed and regulated rivers has led to the popularity of spawning habitat rehabilitation projects. Habitat heterogeneity is thought to be an important feature of aquatic ecosystems, but specific metrics for design and assessment are lacking. In August 2002, ~ 2,786 metric tons of spawning gravels and 7 large boulders were placed in a 155 meter reach on...

Climate change can influence the transmission of vector-borne diseases (VBDs) through altering the habitat suitability of insect vectors. Here we present global climate model simulations and evaluate the associated uncertainties in view of the main meteorological factors that may affect the distribution of the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), which can transmit pathogens that cause chik...

Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are placing spatially divergent stresses on the world's tropical coral reefs through increasing ocean surface temperatures and ocean acidification. We show how these two stressors combine to alter the global habitat suitability for shallow coral reef ecosystems, using statistical Bioclimatic Envelope Models rather than basing projections on any a priori ass...