Forest Impacts of Climate Change: Monitoring Indicators

Find the data and methods you need to monitor the impacts of climate change on our forests.

What is the Indicators of Climate Impacts Database?

Forest ecosystems are experiencing the impacts of climate change in many forms, and monitoring is critical for tracking and understanding these impacts. This tool, developed for use by researchers, professionals and land managers across the region, lets users find methods and protocols for monitoring climate change impacts.It also shows where these monitoring efforts are already being conducted in our region and provides a quick visualization of where there are gaps in our monitoring. As contributors in the Cooperative region share more information about their own monitoring efforts, these data will become available to the community through this tool.

How were indicators selected?

With input from a panel of regional experts, the FEMC identified 24 important indicators of climate impacts. This list is not comprehensive of all possible indicators, but is meant to capture the most commonly measured and most accepted methods of quantification. Based on the recommendations and literature review, the indicators cover a range of population and community level processes. More details can be found on the About page.

The number of monitoring studies by state, go to the monitoring page to explore studies in your area!

Aquatic Systems

Aquatic systems are an important part of watershed dynamics and connect large areas of land to one another. Freshwater systems are an important part of aquatic systems and include lakes, rivers, ponds, vernal pools, and wetlands. Freshwater species such as fish and macroinvertebrates can be great indicators of aquatic system health and responses to change. Vernal pools, which are sensitive to degredation, are also important systems to monitor for signs of climate change.

Forest Systems

Forest systems are complex, terrestrial systems that include the ecosystem processes and functions of flora and fauna. Forested system dynamics depend on the interrelated function of all organisms and abiotic factors in a landscape. These dynamics include relationships between pest and pathogens, pollinators and host species, undestory plants and invasive species. By quantifying some of the most robust metrics of forest system dynamics, the impacts of climate change can be measured.

Trees

Trees are a foundational component of forested ecosystems and play an important role in determining how forests respond to climate change. Within the forested system, tree stand health and function is one of the most important metrics of ecological resilience. As climate patterns (i.e. precipitation, temperature, storm damage) change, trees will experience novel conditions. This can result in changes to mortality, growing season, ranges, and overall biodiversity. These parameters can be monitored to identify the impacts of climated change-driven shifts.

Wildlife

Wildlife are often highly adapted to their native habitats and are thus good indicators of ecosystem health and the impacts of climate change. Due to their varying natural history and different scales of home ranges, mammal, birds, and amphibians are important indicators of overall forest health. The population dynamics of vulnerable species can provide clues to the long-term health of various forested systems.

Vernal Pool Biodiversity: Amphibians

Vernal pools are complex and sensitive systems. This indicator focuses on population-level changes and changes to abundance, mortality, and reproduction of vernal pool-dependent amphibians such as the wood frog.

Stream Biodiversity

Stream biodiveristy can be examined in many ways. This indicator fouses on changes in abundance of macroinvertebrate indicators and sensitive fish species such as brook trout. On the community level, shifts in composition of cold/cool water species to warm water species.

Understory Plants

There are many ways to measure changes in understory plant communities. This indicator focuses on community composition/ species assemblage shifts and increased abundance of invasive plant species such as bush honeysuckles, privet, and kudzu.

Pest and Pathogens

There are numerous pests and pathogens that impact northeastern forests. This indicator focuses on shifts in range and range expansion of climate sensitive pest and pathogen species such as hemlock woolly adelgid and southern pine beetle.

Asynchronicity: Pollinators

This asynchronicity indicator focuses on changes to pollinator phenology/physiology as observed through early emergence, changes in peak activity, and changes in diapause. Direct comparison with plant phenological stages are also relevant.

Growing Season

Growing seasons determine how much time is available to plants to capture resources and grow. This indicator largely refers to plant physiological and phenological processes, and is based on changes in first bloom, first leaf and fall senescence.

Extent of Sensitive Communities

The extent of sensitive communities can shift with climate change, and this indicator focuses on shifts in spatial distribution of vulnerable flora/fauna based on community composition monitoring.

Tree Mortality

The Tree Mortality indicator encompasses changes in overall stand biomass, ratio of dead to live trees, canopy cover and decrease of abundance of vulnerable species. Changes in climate are predicted to impact tree mortality adversely in several ways, including death from water stress, increased severity of disturbance regimes and pest defoliation.

Range Shifts

This range shift indicator focuses on changes to the upper limits of tree line in mountainous regions and changes in spatial distribution of vulnerable tree species by elevation—particularly shifts in broadleaf/conifer forest boundaries.

Regeneration

Regeneration of tree species through the establishment of seedlings is a key determinant of the future forest. The regeneration indicator focuses on the regeneration of seedlings by forest type and tree species with emphasis on softwood regeneration and hardwood regeneration.

Tree Biodiversity

This tree biodiveristy indicator addresses changes to landscape-level biomass for northern species such as red spruce, paper birch, black spruce, and tamarack, as well as spruce-fir forest system and changes in community composition and abundance.

Storm Damage

Storm damage focuses on indicatiors of physical damage to individual trees such as tree crown damage, snags, dieback across stands from extreme weather events.

Bird Biodiversity

Bird biodiversity is impacted by changes in climate because of the complex lifecycle of many avian species. The Bird Biodiversity indicator encompasses changes to avian wintering range via 'center of abundance' studies on the ecosystem scale, as well as changes in abundance and distribution of vulnerable species such as Bicknell’s Thrush and Black-throated Blue Warbler. Changes to arrival time of migratory species could also be considered.

Mammal Biodiversity

The Mammal Biodiveristy indicator focuses on changes in abundance of vulnerable mammalian species that are susceptible to subtle environmental changes. These species include moose, northern flying squirrel, little brown bat and snowshoe hare.