Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Linking variability in climate to wetland habitat suitability: is it possible to forecast regional responses from simple climate measures?

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Wetlands Ecology and Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Temporary wetlands have value to both ecological and social systems. Interactions between local climate and the surrounding landscape result in patterns of hydrology that are unique to temporary wetlands. These seasonal and annual fluctuations in wetland inundation contribute to community composition and richness. Thus, predicting wetland community responses to environmental change is tied to the ability to predict wetland hydroregime. Detailed monitoring of wetland hydroregime is resource-intensive, limiting the scope and scale of forecasting. As an alternative, we determine which freely available measures of water availability best predict one component of wetland hydroregime, habitat suitability (i.e., the predictability of water in a wetland) within and among geographic regions. We used data from three North American regions to determine the climate index that best explained year-to-year variation in habitat suitability during a key phenological period—amphibian breeding. We demonstrate that simple, short-term climate indices based solely on precipitation data best predict habitat suitability in vernal pools in the northeast, montane wetlands in the west and coastal plain wetlands in the southeast. These relationships can help understand how changes in short-term precipitation patterns as a result of climate change may influence the overall hydroregime, and resulting biodiversity, of temporary wetlands across disparate biomes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allan RP, Soden BJ (2008) Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes. Science 321:1481–1484

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Alley WM (1985) The Palmer Drought Severity Index as a measure of hydrologic drought. Water Resour Bull 21:105–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Babbitt KJ, Tanner GW (2000) Use of temporary wetland by anurans in a hydrologically modified landscape. Wetlands 20:313–322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Babbitt KJ, Baber MJ, Tarr TL (2003) Patterns of larval amphibian distribution along a wetland hydroperiod gradient. Can J Zool 1552:1539–1552

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck CW, Congdon JD (2000) Effects of age and size at metamorphosis on performance and metabolic rates of southern toad, Bufo terrestris, metamorphs. Funct Ecol 14:32–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beebee TJC (1995) Amphibian breeding and climate. Nature 374:219–220

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Benard MF (2015) Warmer winters reduce frog fecundity and shift breeding phenology, which consequently alters larval development and metamorphic timing. Glob Change Biol 21:1058–1065

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blaustein AR, Walls SC, Bancroft BA, Lawler JJ, Searle CL, Gervasi SS (2010) Direct and indirect effects of climate change on amphibian populations. Diversity 2:281–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowling LC, Lettenmaier DP (2010) Modeling the effects of lakes and wetlands on the water balance of arctic environments. J Hydrometeorol 11:276–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks RT (2000) Annual and seasonal variation and the effects of hydroperiod on benthic macroinvertebrates of seasonal forest (“vernal”) ponds in central Massachusetts, USA. Wetlands 20:707–715

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks RT (2004) Weather-related effects on woodland vernal pool hydrology and hydroperiod. Wetlands 24:104–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks RT (2009) Potential impacts of global climate change on the hydrology and ecology of ephemeral freshwater systems of the forests of the northeastern United States. Clim Change 95:469–483

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks RT, Hayashi M (2002) Depth-area-volume and hydroperiod relationships of ephemeral (vernal) forest pools in southern New England. Wetlands 22:247–255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calhoun AJK, Walls TW, Stockwell SS, McCollough M (2003) Evaluating vernal pools as a basis for conservation strategies: a Maine case study. Wetlands 23:70–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calhoun AJK, Mushet DM, Bell KP, Boix D, Fitzsimons JA, Isselin-Nondedeu F (2017) Temporary wetlands: challenges and solutions to conserving a ‘disappearing’ ecosystem. Biol Conserv 211:3–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll SS, Cressie N (1997) Spatial modeling of snow water equivalent using covariances estimated from spatial and geomorphic attributes. J Hydrol 190:42–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chandler HC, McLaughlin DL, Gorman TA, McGuire KJ, Feaga JB, Haas CA (2017) Drying rates of ephemeral wetlands: implications for breeding amphibians. Wetlands 37:545–557

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chang TJ, Cleopa XA (1991) A proposed method for drought monitoring. Water Resour Bull 27:275–281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Church DR, Bailey LL, Wilbur HM, Kendall WL, Hines JE (2007) Iteroparity in the variable environment of the salamander Ambystoma tigrinum. Ecology 88:891–903

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen MJ, Creed IF, Alexander L, Basu NB, Calhoun AJK, Craft C, D’Amico E, DeKeyser E, Fowler L, Golden HE, Jawitz JW, Kalla P, Kirkman LK, Lane CR, Lang M, Leiboqitz SG, Lewis DB, Marton J, McLaughlin DL, Mushet DM, Raanan-Kiperwas H, Rains MC, Smith L, Walls SC (2016) Do geographically isolated wetland influence landscape functions? Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113:1978–1986

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Colburn EA (2004) Vernal pools: natural history and conservation. Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper DJ (1990) Ecology of wetlands in big meadows, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Biol Rep 90:1–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Crouch WB III, Paton PWC (2002) Assessing the use of call surveys to monitor breeding anurans in Rhode Island. J Herpetol 36:185–192

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cushman SA, McGarigal K (2002) Hierarchical, multi-scale decomposition of species-environment relationships. Landscape Ecol 17:637–646

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dai A, Trenberth KE, Qian T (2004) A global dataset of Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1870–2002: relationship with soil moisture and effects of surface warming. J Hydrometeorol 5:1117–1130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis CL, Miller DAW, Walls SC, Barichivich WJ, Riley JW, Brown ME (2017) Species interactions and the effects of climate variability on a wetland amphibian metacommunity. Ecol Appl 27:285–296

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dodd CK Jr (1993) Cost of living in an unpredictable environment: the ecology of striped newts Notophthalmus perstriatus during a prolonged drought. Copeia 3:605–614

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodd CK Jr (1994) The effects of drought on population structure, activity, and orientation of toads (Bufo quercicus and B. terrestris) at a temporary pond. Ethol Ecol Evol 6:331–349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Domencich T, McFadden DL (1975) Urban travel demand: a behavioral analysis. In: Jorgenson DW, Waelbroeck J. American Elsevier Publishing Company Inc., New York

  • Donald DB, Aitken WT, Paquette C, Wulff SS (2011) Winter snowfall determines the occupancy of northern prairie wetlands by tadpoles of the Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus). Can J Zool 89:1063–1073

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dore MHI (2005) Climate change and changes in global precipitation patterns: what do we know? Environ Int 31:1167–1181

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Easterling DR, Meehl GA, Parmesan C, Changnon SA, Karl TR, Mearns LO (2000) Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289:2068–2074

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Egan RS, Paton PWC (2004) Within-pond parameters affecting oviposition by wood frogs and spotted salamanders. Wetlands 24:1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ficetola GF, Maiorano L (2016) Contrasting effects of temperature and precipitation change on amphibian phenology, abundance and performance. Oecologia 181:683–693

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gervasi SS, Foufopoulos J (2008) Costs of plasticity: responses to desiccation decrease post-metamorphic immune function in a pond-breeding amphibian. Funct Ecol 22:100–108

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs JP, Breisch AR (2001) Climate warming and calling phenology of frogs near Ithaca, New York, 1900–1999. Conserv Biol 15:1175–1178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goater CP, Semlitsch RD, Bernasconi MV (1993) Effects of body size and parasite infection on the locomotory performance of juvenile toads, Bufo bufo. Oikos 66:129–136

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grant EHC (2005) Correlates of vernal pool occurrence in a Massachusetts landscape. Wetlands 25:480–487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grant EHC, Zipkin EF, Nichols JD, Campbell JP (2013) A strategy for monitoring and managing declines in an amphibian community. Conserv Biol 27:1245–1253

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg CH, Goodrick S, Austin JD, Parresol BR (2015) Hydroregime prediction models for ephemeral groundwater-driven sinkhole wetlands: a planning tool for climate change and amphibian conservation. Wetlands 35:899–911

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grömping U (2007) Estimators of relative importance in linear regression based on variance decomposition. Am Stat 61:139–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guttman NB (1991) A sensitivity analysis of the Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index. Water Resour Bull 27:797–807

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guttman NB (1998) Comparing the Palmer Drought Index and the Standardized Precipitation Index. J Am Resour Assoc 34:113–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardy LM, Raymond LR (1980) The breeding migration of the mole salamander, Ambystoma talpoideum, in Louisiana. J Herpetol 14:327–335

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayhoe K, Wake CP, Huntington TG, Luo L, Schqartz MD, Dheffield J, Wood E, Anderson B, Bradbury J, DeGaetano A, Troy TJ, Wolfe D (2007) Past and future changes in climate and hydrologic indicators in the U.S. Northeast. Clim Dyn 28:381–407

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heddinghaus TR, Sabol P (1991) A review of the Palmer Drought Severity Index and where do we go from here?. American Meteorological Society, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Heim RR Jr (2002) A review of twentieth-century drought indices used in the United States. Bull Am Meteor Soc 83:1149–1165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herbert ER, Boon P, Burgin AJ, Neubauer SC, Franklin RB, Ardón M, Hopfensperger KN, Lamers LPM, Gell P (2015) A global perspective on wetland salinization: ecological consequences of a growing threat to freshwater wetlands. Ecosphere 6:1–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2014) Climate Change 2013: Synthesis Report. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change In: Core writing team, Pachauri RK, Meyer LA (eds.). IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, p 151

  • Jackson CR, Thompson JA, Kolka RK (2014) Wetland soils and hydrology. In: Batzer DP, Sharitz R (eds) Ecology of Freshwater and estuarine wetlands, 2nd edn. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 23–60

    Google Scholar 

  • Jansen M, Schulze A, Werding L, Streit B (2009) Effects of extreme drought in the dry season on an anuran community in the Bolivian Chiquitano region. Salamandra 45:233–238

    Google Scholar 

  • John-Alder HB, Morin PJ (1990) Effects of larval density on jumping ability and stamina in newly metamorphosed Bufo woodhousii fowleri. Copeia 1:856–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jonas T, Magnusson MJ (2009) Estimating the snow water equivalent from snow depth measurements in the Swiss Alps. J Hydrol 378:161–167

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karl TR (1986) The sensitivity of the Palmer Drought Severity Index and Palmer’s Z-index to their calibration coefficients including potential evapotranspiration. J Clim Appl Meteorol 25:77–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinkead KE, Otis DL (2007) Estimating superpopulation size and annual probability of breeding for pond-breeding salamanders. Herpetologica 63:151–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klaus SP, Lougheed SC (2013) Changes in breeding phenology of eastern Ontario frogs over four decades. Ecol Evol 3:835–845

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Krasnostein AL, Oldham CE (2004) Predicting wetland water storage. Water Resour Res. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003wr002899

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kupferberg SJ (1996) Hydrologic and geomorphic factors affecting conservation of a river-breeding frog (Rana boylii). Ecol Appl 6:1332–1344

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kusano T, Inoue M (2008) Long-term trends toward earlier breeding of Japanese amphibians. J Herpetol 42:608–614

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawler JJ, Edwards TC Jr (2006) A variance-decomposition approach to investigating multiscale habitat associations. The Condor 108:47–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee S, Ryan ME, Hamlet AF, Palen WJ, Lawler JJ, Halabisky M (2015) Projecting the hydrologic impacts of climate change on montane wetlands. PLoS ONE 10:e0136385. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136385

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Leibowitz SG (2003) Isolated wetlands and their functions: an ecological perspective. Wetlands 23:517–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liang X, Lettenmaier DP, Wood EF, Burges SJ (1994) Simple hydrologically based model of surface water and energy fluxes for GSMs. J Geophys Res Atmos 99:14415–14428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mackenzie DI, Bailey LL, Hines JE, Nichols JD (2011) An integrated model of habitat and species occurrence dynamics. Methods Ecol Evol 2:612–622

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matthews JH (2010) Anthropogenic climate change impacts on ponds: a thermal mass perspective. BioRisk 5:193–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFadden D (1974) Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. In: Zarembka P (ed) Frontiers in Econometrics. Academic Press, Cambridge, pp 105–142

    Google Scholar 

  • McFadden D (1977) Quantitative methods for analyzing travel behavior of individuals: some recent developments. Cowles Found for Research in Economics at Yale University, Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 474.

  • McLaughlin DL, Cohen MJ (2013) Realizing ecosystem services: wetland hydrologic function along a gradient of ecosystem condition. Ecol Appl 23:1619–1631

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McMenamin SK, Hadly EA (2010) Developmental dynamics of Ambystoma tigrinum in a changing landscape. BMC Ecol 10:10

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Michener WK, Blood ER, Bildstein KL, Brinson MM, Gardner LR (1997) Climate change, hurricanes and tropical storms, and rising sea level in coastal wetlands. Ecol Appl 7:770–801

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller DAW, Campbell Grant EH, Muths E et al (2018) Quantifying climate sensitivity and climate-driven change in North American amphibian communities. Nat Commun. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06157-6

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mote PW (2003) Trends in snow water equivalent in the Pacific Northwest and their climatic causes. Geophys Res Lett 30:1–4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NOAA’s Gridded Climate Divisional Dataset (CLIMDIV). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center. 25 May 2015

  • Palmer WC (1965) Meteorological drought. U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Paton PWC (2005) A review of vertebrate community composition in seasonal forest pools of the northeastern United States. Wetlands Ecol Manage 13:235–246

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pechmann JHK, Scott DE, Gibbons JW, Semlitsch RD (1989) Influence of wetland hydroperiod on diversity and abundance of metamorphosing juvenile amphibians. Wetlands Ecol Manage 1:3–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pounds JA, Fogden MP, Campbell JH (1999) Biological response to climate change on a tropical mountain. Nature 398:611–615

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2017). R: language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/

  • Raxworthy CJ, Pearson RG, Rabibisoa N, Rakotondrazafy AM, Ramanamajato JB, Raselimanana AP, Wu S, Nussbaum RA, Stone DA (2008) Extinction vulnerability of tropical montane endemism from warming and upslope displacement: a preliminary appraisal for the highest massif in Madagascar. Glob Change Biol 14:1703–1720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowe CL, Dunson WA (1995) Impacts of hydroperiod on growth and survival of larval amphibians in temporary ponds of Central Pennsylvania, USA. Oecologia 102:397–403

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan ME, Palen WJ, Adams MJ, Rochefort RM (2014) Amphibians in the climate vise: loss and restoration of resilience of montane wetland ecosystems in the western U.S. Front Ecol Environ 12:232–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sakamoto CM (1978) The Z-index as a variable for crop yield estimation. Agric Meteorol 19:305–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheele BC, Driscoll DA, Fischer J, Hunter DA (2012) Decline of an endangered amphibian during an extreme climatic event. Ecosphere 3:101. https://doi.org/10.1890/ES12-00108.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider DW, Frost TM (1996) Habitat duration and community structure in temporary ponds. J North Am Benthol Soc 15:64–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Semlitsch RD (1987) Relationship of pond drying to the reproductive success of the salamander Ambystoma talpoideum. Copeia 1:61–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Semlitsch RD, Scott DE, Pechmann JHK (1988) Time and size at metamorphosis related to adult fitness in Ambystoma talpoideum. Ecology 69:184–192

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Semlitsch RD, Scott DE, Pechmann JHK, Gibbons JW (1996) Structure and dynamics of an amphibian community: evidence from a 16-year study of a natural pond. In: Cody ML, Smallwood JA (eds) Long-term studies of vertebrate communities. Academic Press Inc, Cambridge, pp 217–248

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sims AP, Niyogi DS, Raman S (2002) Adopting drought indices for estimating soil moisture: a North Carolina case study. Geophys Res Lett 29:1–4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sims LL, Davis JA, Strehlow K, McGuire M, Trayler KM, Wild S, Papas PJ, O’Connor J (2013) The influence of changing hydroregime on the invertebrate communities of temporary seasonal wetlands. Freshw Sci 32:337–342

    Google Scholar 

  • Skelly DK, Werner EE, Cortwright SA (1999) Long-term distributional dynamics of a Michigan amphibian assemblage. Ecology 80:2326–2337

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snow Telemetry and Snow Course Data and Products, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service National Water and Climate Center. http://wcc.sc.egov.usda.gov/nwcc/rgrpt?report=swe_hist&state=CA. Accessed July 16 2016

  • Strayer DL, Dudgeon D (2010) Freshwater biodiversity conservation: recent progress and future challenges. J North Am Benthol Soc 29:344–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor BE, Scott DE, Gibbons JW (2006) Catastrophic reproductive failure, terrestrial survival, and persistence of the marbled salamander. Conserv Biol 20:792–801

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Timm BC, McGarigal K, Compton BW (2007) Timing of large movement events of pond-breeding amphibians in Western Massachusetts, USA. Biol Conserv 136:442–454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiner RW (2003) Geographically isolated wetlands of the United States. Wetlands 23:494–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Todd BD, DE Scott, Pechmann JHK, Gibbons JW (2010) Climate change correlates with rapid delays and advancements in reproductive timing in an amphibian community. Proc Royal Soc B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1768

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincente-Serrano SM, Beguería S, López-Moreno JI (2010) A multiscalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index. J Clim 23:1696–1718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vose RS, Applequist S, Squires M, Durre I, Menne MJ, Williams CN Jr, Fenimore C, Gleason K, Arndt D (2014) Improved historical temperature and precipitation time series for U.S. climate divisions. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 53:1232–1251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walls SC, Barichivich WJ, Brown ME, Scott DE, Hossack BR (2013a) Influence of drought on salamander occupancy of isolated wetlands on the southeastern Coastal Plain of the United States. Wetlands 33:345–354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walls SC, Barichivich WJ, Brown ME (2013b) Drought, deluge and declines: the impact of precipitation extremes on amphibians in a changing climate. Biology 2:399–418

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Whittaker J (1984) Model interpretation from the additive elements of the likelihood function. J Royal Stat Soc Series C (Applied Statistics) 33:52–64

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilbur HM, Collins JP (1973) Ecological aspects of amphibian metamorphosis. Science 182:1304–1314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter TC (2000) The vulnerability of wetlands to climate change: a hydrologic landscape perspective. J Am Water Resour Assoc 36:305–311

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter TC, Rosenberry DO (1998) Hydrology of prairie pothole wetlands during drought and deluge: a 17-year study of the cottonwood lake wetland complex in North Dakota in the perspective of longer term measured and proxy hydrological records. Clim Change 40:189–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zedler PH (2003) Vernal pools and the concept of “isolated wetlands”. Wetlands 23:597–607

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zipkin EF, Grant EHC, Fagan WF (2012) Evaluating the predictive abilities of community occupancy models using AUC models while accounting for imperfect detection. Ecol Appl 22:1962–1972

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Katriona Shea, Tyler Wagner and Staci Amburgey for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. This manuscript is contribution #678 of the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Courtney L. Davis.

Electronic supplementary material

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Davis, C.L., Miller, D.A.W., Campbell Grant, E.H. et al. Linking variability in climate to wetland habitat suitability: is it possible to forecast regional responses from simple climate measures?. Wetlands Ecol Manage 27, 39–53 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-018-9639-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-018-9639-2

Keywords

Navigation