We identify issues and uncertainties that pose obstacles to conservation and then—in collaboration with internal and external colleagues—develop science products that help overcome those obstacles.
Elizabeth S. Forbes, Peter S. Alagona, Andrea J. Adams, Sarah E. Anderson, Kevin C.Brown, Jolie Colby, Scott D. Cooper, Sean M. Denny, Elizabeth H.T. Hiroyasu, Robert Heilmayr, Bruce E. Kendall, Jennifer A. Martin, Molly Hardesty-Moore, Alexis M. Mychajliw, Brian P. Tyrrell, Zoë S.Welch
Species reintroductions in a changing world are difficult and highly uncertain. This paper introduces a framework to assess habitat suitability using historic, geographic, and taxonomic analogies to…
Barton H. Thompson, Jr., Melissa M. Rohde, Jeanette K. Howard, Sandi Matsumoto
In 2014, California’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) promised comprehensive management of California’s groundwater. This report, Mind the Gaps: The Case for Truly…
Christopher Dillis, Eric Biber, Hekia Bodwitch, Van Butsic, Jennifer Carah, Phoebe Parker-Shames, Michael Polson, and Theodore Grantham
This study used permitting and GIS data to explore geographic characteristics of legal cannabis farms in California. The study found two divergent paths of development - one characterized by numerous,…
Mary G. Gleason, Jennifer E. Caselle, Walter N. Heady, Vienna R. Saccomanno, Julie Zimmerman, Tristin Anoush McHugh, Norah Eddy
Global kelp forests are biodiverse and productive nearshore ecosystems that provide a wide range of ecosystem services, but they are at risk from both local stressors and global drivers of kelp loss.…
Robert I. McDonald, Tanushree Biswas, Cedilla Sachar, Ian Housman, Timothy M. Boucher, Deborah Balk, David Nowak, Erica Spotswood, Charlotte K. Stanley, Stefan Leyk
Urban tree cover provides benefits to human health and well-being, but it is often inequitably distributed. In this study, researchers Google Earth Engine (GEE) and an automated machine learning…
Lyall Bellquist, Vienna Saccomanno, Brice X. Semmens, Mary Gleason, Jono Wilson
The health of ocean ecosystems is critical to maintaining natural biodiversity and sustainable fisheries, but federally-declared fishery disasters are reflecting devastating impacts to ecosystems,…
Alyssa E. Semerdjian, H. Scott Butterfield, Robert Stafford, Michael F. Westphal, William T. Bean
This paper in the Journal of Wildlife Management combines nearly 20 years of remote sensing, field/trapping, and modeling data to develop a new approach to the identification and prioritization of…
Jono R Wilson, Darcy Bradley, Kristina Phipps, Mary G Gleason
Overfishing threatens the health and resilience of the ocean. In response, the global conservation community has set ambitious targets for protecting biodiversity inside no-take marine reserves. Yet…
Serena Lomonico, Mary G Gleason, Jono R Wilson, Darcy Bradley, Kate Kauer, Richard J Bell, Thomas Dempsey
Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to the sustainable management of wild capture fisheries. Management systems that improve the flow of information so that actionable steps can be taken are…
Eric Gilman, Michael Musyl, Petri Suuronen, Milani Chaloupka, Saeid Gorgin, Jono Wilson, Brandon Kuczenski
More than 4.5 million fishing vessels deploy fishing gear in the ocean every year. A significant amount of these nets, traps, lines, and floats are abandoned, lost, or discarded, threatening the…
Julie K.H. Zimmerman, Daren M. Carlisle, Jason T. May, Kirk R. Klausmeyer, Theodore E. Grantham, Larry R. Brown, Jeanette K. Howard, Nathaniel Rindlaub, Falk Schuetzenmeister
Water is essential for California’s people, economy, and environment. Centuries of water management through dams and diversion have altered the flows in many streams and rivers, which can harm…
Kirk Klausmeyer, Jeanette Howard, Melissa Rohde, Charlotte Stanley
The first step to sustainably manage groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) is to identify where they are. The Nature Conservancy developed a statewide spatial database that provides locations of…
Christopher J. Lortie, Alessandro Filazzola, Charlotte Brown, Jacob Lucero, Mario Zuliani, Nargol Ghazian, Stephanie Haas, Malory Owen, H. Scott Butterfield, Emmeleia Nix, Michael Westphal
There are many pressures that influence the ecological capacity and health of drylands around the world. Shrubs are often a critical component of these systems and can function positively as…
Andrew P. Nosal, Daniel P. Cartamil, Arnold J. Ammann, Lyall F. Bellquist, Noah J. Ben‐Aderet, Kayla M. Blincow, Echelle S. Burns, Eric D. Chapman, Ryan M. Freedman, A. Peter Klimley, Ryan K. Logan, Christopher G. Lowe, Brice X. Semmens, Connor F. White, Philip A. Hastings
Due to decades of heavy fishing pressure and steep population declines worldwide, the conservation status of the soupfin shark was elevated to Critically Endangered globally in 2020 by the…
Laurel Saito, Bill Christian, Jennifer Diffley, Holly Richter, Melissa M. Rohde, Scott A. Morrison
In this paper, we describe minimum provisions for planning, managing, and monitoring groundwater in a manner that collectively can lower the risk of harm to groundwater-dependent ecosystems and…
H. Scott Butterfield, T. Rodd Kelsey, and Abigail K. Hart, Editors
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. At the same time, climate change, soil degradation, and water scarcity mean that…
Tom Baribault, Daniel Porter, Jessica Burton Desrocher, Douglas Larmour, Mark Rasmussen, Roy Anderson
The Tahoe-Central Sierra Initiative (TCSI) area has seen recent megafires and is highly developed, making the risk new of human-caused wildfire ignitions high. In this report, experts from Mason Bruce…
Erin Conlisk, Gregory H. Golet, Mark D. Reynolds, Blake Barbaree, Kristin Sesser, Kristen Byrd, Sam Veloz, Matthew E. Reiter
Highly mobile species, such as migratory birds, respond to seasonal and yearly changes in resource availability by moving among habitats. Understanding how they select among habitats is important for…
Daniel Porter, Robert Longcor
Forests of the Sierra Nevada and across the western U.S. are under unprecedented threat from catastrophic wildfire, insect outbreaks, and drought. In this briefing paper, which was developed as a…