Missouri

Ecosystems will increasingly be affected by a changing climate. Understanding these potential impacts is an important first step to sustaining healthy forests in the face of changing conditions. As part of the Central Hardwoods Climate Change Response Framework project, more than 30 scientists and forest managers collaborated to assess the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in this region to the likely range of climate change.

Many landowners have begun to ask how their forest management strategy affects the carbon within their forest and thus the forest’s ability to mitigate climate change. Every strategy has its tradeoffs; therefore, to meet all of society’s needs, we will ultimately need a mix of passive and active strategies across the region.

The tool provides a rapid and simple process to assess forest resiliency. This publication contains background information on important characteristics of resilient and healthy forests and examples of potential adaptation strategies. It is accompanied by a scorecard to be used in the field to evaluate the resiliency of a forest.

In this report, we describe several climate-driven problems that are projected to affect, or are already affecting, particular wildlife species and ecosystems, and solutions that conservation groups are implementing to help plants and animals respond and adapt. These projects are tangible examples of climate-informed conservation, and can serve as inspiration for others grappling with similar issues.

Forests are a defining landscape feature across the footprint of the Northern Forests Climate Hub, which spans the Midwest and Northeast Regional Climate Hubs. Northern forests contain 42% of all US forests, 32% of US timberlands, and 41% of the US population, and are central to ecological, economic, and cultural values in the region. These ecosystems are already responding to changing conditions, and climate change is anticipated to have a pervasive influence on forests and wildlife over the coming decades.

Forests and other ecosystems act as carbon sinks, and they sequester carbon dioxide through plant growth, removing it from the atmosphere. The Forest Service is a leader in developing tools for carbon assessment, management, and forest carbon cycle science.

The Climate Smart Land Network (CSLN) provides forest landowners and managers with direct access to the forest and climate experts at Manomet, and the opportunity to benefit from other forest landowners in the Network. Bulletin series on climate change issues in forest management for forest landowners.