Skip to main content

April 2017 Newsletter

News and upcoming events related to the Southeast Climate Science Center. Subscribe to the monthly newsletter here.

——–SE CSC NEWS————————-

Hiring announcement for a Tribal Climate Science Liaison serving the SE and NE Climate Science Centers. The position will be hired through the United South and Eastern Tribes. Link to SE CSC News Post.

USGS Research Ecologist, Adam Terando, shared his work related to climate change, ecosystems, and human-environmental interactions as a featured speaker at the University of North Alabama 3rd Annual Conference on Sustainability on March 23. The conference attracted more than 100 students, faculty, and staff of UNA as well as community members. The venue provided an opportunity to present background information on the fundamentals of climate science and the implications of changes in climate and land use to natural resources in the Southeast, to an audience of varying backgrounds. This has implications for improvement of the climate literacy of students and citizens in northern Alabama.

Faculty Affiliate, Rob Dunn, has published a new book, Never Out of Season, that lays out the risks to human food systems at stake because of limitations of current monoculture-based agricultural practices that focus on few crop species. Risks of food crises are exacerbated with global climate change. Read an interview.

Faculty Affiliate, Holly Menninger, Director of Public Science, College of Sciences, is sponsoring two Story Collider events. See Upcoming Events below.

Global Change Fellow, Shilo Felton (Applied Ecology), received third place for best poster presentation at North Carolina’s Coastal Conference, Raleigh, NC, April 4-5, 2017. Global Change Fellow alumna, Liliana Velasquez Montoya (Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering), took second place at the conference. Read more.

Faculty Affiliate, Peter Askim, received the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music in January. Askim’s leadership of the orchestral program is also notable for engaging multiple disciplines across campus. In 2016 the Raleigh Civic Symphony Orchestra performed the Great Animal Orchestra, which combined a live orchestral performance with the sounds of animals recorded in their natural environments. The event involved collaboration from 11 units in the university, including the Department of Forestry, the Southeast Climate Science Center and the Sustainability Fund. Read more.

USGS Research Ecologist, Adam Terando, joined modelers of Hawaiian climate and the users of their climate predictions on April 11-12, 2017 to discuss more detailed predictions of future climate conditions and implications for ecological impact. Organized by the Pacific Islands CSC, other participants were from the Alaska CSC, National Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Hawai’i, SUNY Albany, and USGS.

SE CSC Played a Role in Caribbean and Southeast Regional Engagement Workshops for the 4th National Climate Assessment. Read more.

Faculty Affiliates, Nils Peterson and Kathryn Stevenson, are co-authors with other NCSU collaborators on a recent paper in Environmental Conservation, Wildlife species preferences differ among children in continental and island locations, Shapiro et al., which provides cultural information relevant for conservation efforts. Read NCSU news post.

Climate Science Centers are key for connectivity research in the U.S. Read the post on Conservation Corridor.

Application Period Open to Participate in Climate Science Center Review Teams. Read more

Want to learn more about the SE Conservation Adaptation Strategy? A recent blog post by Mallory Martin of the South Atlantic LCC provides a summary of the recent meeting in Raleigh, NC. Watch a video presentation on the effort.

——–FEATURED RESOURCE————————-

Climate Engine, http://climateengine.org/. A partnership among Desert Research Institute, University of Idaho, and Google developed this tool designed to to improve decision making related to drought, water sustainability, agricultural productivity, wildfire, and ecological health by allowing users to analyze and interact with climate and land-surface environmental monitoring datasets in real-time without the need to download huge data sets. The Climate Engine web-based application uses Google’s Earth Engine platform for on-demand processing of cloud-based remote sensing & gridded weather and climate data: Landsat Remote Sensing 4,5,7,8; MODIS Terra Remote Sensing; UI METDATA/gridMET; AVHRR; CFS Reanalysis; CHIRPS.

——–RESOURCES————————-

Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States. Sea level rise is occurring worldwide, but this change will not affect all regions the same way. In a new study, researchers investigated the possible range of global sea level rise for the 21st century and then developed regional sea level rise scenarios for the entire U.S. coastline across this global range. Different coastal communities can use the report, and companion dataset, to evaluate their vulnerability to sea level rise. The report was co-authored by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), EPA, Rutgers University, South Florida Water Management District, Columbia University, and U.S. Geological Survey. Read the report.

New Tool Helps Communities Take Equity into Account When Preparing for Climate Change. The Georgetown Climate Center has just launched the Adaptation Equity Portal.

Updates to Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios model. EPA has updated its Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios (ICLUS) model that projects future changes in population, as well as residential, commercial, and industrial development in the US. The model is used for the development of integrated climate and land-use scenarios used in projections to aid community planning. A report describes the development of ICLUS Version 2 (v2) and the updates to the original data sets and demographic and spatial allocation models. Use ICLUS v2.

George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication has a new podcast. Evidence Squared (the science of why science fails to persuade) will discuss the evidence on how to talk about evidence, will explore scientific research into climate communication, and will reflect on the fast-moving events of the current era.

The Nature Conservancy released Beyond the Source, a new report in partnership with the Natural Capital Project, Forest Trends, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Latin American Water Funds Partnership, which details nature-based source water management solutions that contribute to resilient cities, improved water security, sustainable development, and a more stable climate. Read more.

Audubon has two new programs to help North Carolina’s state birds survive as the effects of climate change become more severe. Climate Strongholds represent regions of North Carolina where birds are expected to seek sanctuary from the effects of our changing climate. Climate Watch Explores birds threatened by climate change.

Ducks Unlimited and Gulf Coast conservation partners unveil a decision support tool to target wetland and grassland conservation efforts. Read more.

Wetland Forest Initiative, a collaborative effort to conserve wetland forests of Southeast and Gulf Coast Plains, has been launched. Learn more.

The Resilience Dialogues, a public-private collaborative effort to help local communities address climate-related vulnerabilities, will involve ten communities in their beta phase. Through the Resilience Dialogues, the communities will explore their risks from climate variability and change and work through a series of facilitated online dialogues with subject matter experts and scientists to learn how to reduce these risks and build community resilience. The 10 participating communities are: Antioch, CA; Bridgeport, CT; Menominee and Oneida Reservations; Navajo Nation; Boynton Beach, FL; Hallandale Beach, FL; Mt. Shasta, CA; San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, CA; East Lansing, MI; Savannah, GA.
The Resilience Dialogues is co-managed by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the American Geophysical Union’s Thriving Earth Exchange. Go to the website.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Resilient America Roundtable has released proceedings from a July 2015 workshop, Measures of Community Resilience for Local Decision Makers: Proceedings of a Workshop. The workshop focused on ways to facilitate the exchange of information about development and implementation of resilience measures within diverse communities. Participants worked to understand the challenges these communities face in pursuing resilience and what can help guide these communities.

The annual State of the Global Climate report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has been released, showing that 2016 was the warmest year on record. The El Niño weather phenomenon played a role in addition to the longer-term warming driven by carbon dioxide emissions.

——–NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS————————-

Practical Advice for Facilitating Actionable Science. A new publication in Society and Natural Resources describes the mechanisms by which managers and scientists collaborated to incorporate climate change projections into Colorado’s State Wildlife Action Plan. The paper, authored by North Central CSC-supported scientists, offers practical suggestions for scientists and practitioners who want to implement actionable science.

Value of Biodiversity. Recently published article in Science Advances by a team of economists and ecologists describes a model developed to assign a dollar value to the loss or gain of species in an ecosystem based on carbon storage, offering an economic argument for preserving biodiversity.

A new paper in Science, Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being, examines how climate change is causing geographical redistribution of plant and animal species globally. These distributional shifts are leading to new ecosystems and ecological communities, changes that will affect human society.

Special issue of Ecography focuses on habitat fragmentation research. Read a synopsis or explore the special issue.

New research explores monitoring success in landscape-level connectivity restoration efforts. Read a synopsis or access the article.

News article highlights potential devastating impact of a continuous border wall on wildlife habitat along the U.S.-Mexico border, one of North America’s most biodiverse areas.

New book, Science, Conservation and National Parks, charts a course for the second century of National Parks as they confront an era of rapid environmental change and cultural changes. Learn more about the book.

Scale-dependent complementarity of climatic velocity and environmental diversity for identifying priority areas for conservation under climate change. As most regions of the earth transition to altered climatic conditions, new methods are needed to identify refugia and other areas whose conservation would facilitate persistence of biodiversity under climate change. We compared several common approaches to conservation planning focused on climate resilience over a broad range of ecological settings across North America and evaluated how commonalities in the priority areas identified by different methods varied with regional context and spatial scale. Read the paper.

New research has revealed a multitude of ways in which forests create rain and cool local climates, urging a closer look at forests’ capabilities beyond just climate change mitigation. In a recent paper, 22 researchers from diverse institutions, call for a paradigm shift in the way the international community views forests and trees, from a carbon-centric model to one that recognizes their importance in cross-continental water cycles, as well as at the local scale.

Ecological Resilience. A new paper by the University of Washington and NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center systematically examined the published literature on ecological resilience to identify biological, chemical, and physical attributes that confer resilience to climate change. The study identifies ways that resilience can be measured and achieved at different scales to improve ecological restoration and monitoring efforts under changing climate conditions.

Landscape Connectivity: A Call to Action. A new report authored by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Syngenta, makes the case that “Creating landscapes with healthy, functioning ecosystems is not only key to making progress towards the environmental targets embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals, but also to addressing multiple social and economic targets that depend partly or wholly on the benefits that ecosystems provide to people.” The report details the challenges of habitat fragmentation and mechanisms to incorporate connectivity in policy and business decisions to counter it.

Regional Impacts of Coastal Land Loss and Louisiana’s Opportunity for Growth, a report by LSU, was commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund and built on previous research done for Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. It concludes that Louisiana could suffer up to $3.6 billion in damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure over the next 50 years if the state does not take actions such as the ones outlined in the state Coastal Master Plan. Additionally, the economic disruption would add up to approximately $7.6 billion in lost wages, consumer spending and other business disruptions.

Managed Retreat. A recent paper in Nature Climate Change analyzed 27 recent cases of managed retreat affecting 22 countries and 1.3 million people and found that, regardless of a country’s wealth and level of development, relocations were most likely to happen when a government and its citizens were in accord.

Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance details the impacts of climate change on Americans’ health and psychological well-being, including increases in stress and anxiety, loss of community identity, heightened aggression and violence, and many others. The report discusses the pathways through which these and other impacts on human well-being will arise, why some communities will be hit harder than others, and how psychological impacts interact with physical health.

Low-carbon energy boosts human and ecological health. New paper shows that replacing coal and gas electricity generation with solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power would have substantial benefits for both human and ecological health, according to new research.

Communicating Sea Level Rise, an article published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, discusses sea-level rise threats to coastal populations. In spite of millions of people potentially impacted globally by the end of the 21st century, there is generally low media attention given to this issue. The paper reviews media analyses, audience research, and communication outreach and engagement to identify gaps in sea-level rise communications.

Biodiversity loss shifts flowering phenology at same magnitude as global warming. Research shows that plants flower earlier when plant diversity declines as a result of habitat loss, human use, and other environmental pressures, and that the effects of diversity loss on the timing of flowering are similar in magnitude to the effects of global warming.

Persistent episodes of extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere summer have been shown to be associated with the presence of high-amplitude quasi-stationary atmospheric Rossby waves within a particular wavelength range. Analysis of historical model simulations and observational surface temperature data strongly suggests that anthropogenic warming is impacting the zonal mean temperature profile in a manner conducive to wave resonance. Combined with other additional proposed mechanisms for climate change impacts on extreme weather, this adds to the weight of evidence for a human influence on the occurrence of recent devastating events such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heat wave, the 2011 Texas heat wave. Read the Scientific Reports article.

——–SEMINARS AT NC STATE————————-

April 14-18. Wolfpack Citizen Science Challenge: City Nature Challenge

April 19 12:00 PM-1:00 PM Creating Meaning From Information in Science and Storytelling

April 19 3:30 PM-4:30 PM Women in Science, Dr. Toddi Steelman
April 20 3:30 PM-4:30 PM Food and Water: The Inseparables

——–WEBINARS————————-

Find more webinar information in our calendar.

APR 20 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Marsh mapping results across the span of the South Atlantic LCC

APR 20 3:00 PM-4:00 PM Using Drought Forecasts to Improve Natural Resource Management

APR 21 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative: Tackling Sea-Level Rise Together

APR 24 4:30 PM-5:30 PM Evaluating Decision Support – Sustainability of Tools and Resources

APR 26 10:00 AM-11:00 AM The South Carolina Stream Conservation Planning Tool

APR 27 1:15 PM-2:45 PM Closing the Environmental Literacy Gap

APR 28 12:00 PM-1:00 PM Disaster Needs: Sea Grant/Private Sector Partnership Serves Impacted Sectors and Prepares for Future Events (Sea Grant Brown Bag Seminar)

MAY 3 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Introduction to Convergence of Climate Health Vulnerabilities

MAY 3 1:00 PM-2:00 PM Mapping shallow reefs using low-cost side scanning sonar and drone photography systems

MAY 4 12:00 PM-1:00 PM The Use of Culturally Significant Area Criteria in an Ecosystem Approach to Management Processes

MAY 4 2:00 PM-3:00 PM A Survey of Landowner Attitudes & Conservation Practitioner Networks about Ecosystem Services in the Gulf Coastal Plains & Ozarks Region


——–TRIBAL NEWS————————-

USET Hiring Announcement- Tribal Climate Science Liaison for NE/SE. The Office of Environmental Resource Management (OERM) Tribal Climate Science Liaison will serve as a technical expert on climate change issues, resource vulnerability, and climate adaptation actions to Tribal nations in the USET region, and more broadly in the combined region comprising the Department of Interior’s Northeast Climate Science Center and Southeast Climate Science Center (NE CSC and SE CSC). The Tribal Climate Science Liaison will be responsible to develop and implement a communication, education and outreach program; identify climate research needs and priorities; and provide climate adaptation planning support to Tribal nations. He/she will also integrate program and research results into budget documents, annual reports, or other documents. The Tribal Climate Science Liaison will participate in a network of Tribal climate science liaisons within the Climate Science Center system; and a national workgroup of Tribal organizations, Tribal colleges, and other partners to address policy and resource issues associated with Tribal climate resilience. This position will be based at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Read full announcement

Climate Change In Louisiana Changes Diets Of Native Americans. Hear the interview with Theresa Dardar, a Pointe-au-Chien Tribal member.

Native Youth Community Adaptation and Leadership Congress, July 9 -14, 2017. The Native Youth Community Adaptation and Leadership Congress is a week-long student environmental conference for approximately 100 Native American, Alaskan Native, and Pacific Islander high school students interested in environmental issues, natural resource conservation, community leadership and public service. We aim to achieve a broad representation of Native communities across the country, so student enrollment from each community is competitive and may be limited. This event is sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Students competitively selected via the application will be admitted as a school or community group of 3-5 current 10-12th grade students with 1 adult mentor per group, who will serve as their event travel chaperone and team leader during the entire event. Travel to and from the event, conference lodging/meals for both students and adult mentors will be paid for by the federal agency partners. For more information, contact Jessi Evans (jessica_evans@fws.gov). Get details and application.

Tapping Traditional Wisdom to Cope with Climate Change. From the mountains of Tajikistan to Standing Rock in the Dakotas, scientists are collaborating with indigenous people to study climate change and predict the future.© 2017 American institute of Physics, 03/27/2017. Link to article.

Indigenous People Best Custodians of Threatened Forests, Studies Show. Local communities are best equipped to safeguard valuable forests, and those with strong land rights are the most effective, said a raft of studies presented this week at the World Bank’s annual Land and Poverty Conference. © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 03/21/2017. Link to article.

A River Was Just Granted the Same Legal Rights as a Human Being. By June Javelosa and Abby Norman. March 22, 2017.

Applications for the next quarter of the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals Onsite Mentor Program have just opened! If your tribe is struggling with a solid waste management activity (transfer station management, implementing recycling or composting operations, minimizing hazardous substances in your waste stream, making tribally-owned facilities more sustainable, or other related activities) please fill out the attached application to be considered for an Onsite Mentor opportunity. Applications for this quarter are due May 3, 2017. For more information please visit the Mentor page of our website: http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/Waste/waste_mentors.

——–LCC NEWS————————-

Appalachian:
* Executive Committee Meets to Thank Outgoing Chair and Vice Chair for Tremendous Leadership. Learn more
* Engaging State and Federal Agencies on Regional Science Information and Resources. Learn more
More News from Appalachian LCC

Gulf Coast Prairie:
* DU recognizes the conservation science that guides their programs. Learn more
* GCP LCC awards Landscape Conservation Design grant, plus 4 more projects. Learn more
More News from Gulf Coast Prairie LCC

Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks:
* A Holistic View of Gulf Coast Landscapes through the Strategic Conservation Assessment. Learn more
* A Marketing Approach to Conservation: the region’s first quantitative assessment of ecosystem service supply, demand, and values from private landowners. Learn more
More News from Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks LCC

Peninsular Florida:
* PostGIS Workshop. Learn more
* New Grant Opportunity! Learn more
More News from Peninsular Florida LCC

South Atlantic:
* Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) coordination. Learn more
* Five more opportunities to attend a Blueprint workshop. Learn more
More News from South Atlantic LCC

——–UPCOMING EVENTS————————-

NC State’s Earth Month starts April 1. This annual April focus on sustainability is a true campus-wide emphasis with 50+ sustainability-related events. From fairs and volunteer opportunities to workshops and concerts, there’s something for everyone. Learn more.

Story Collider: New Frontiers,Tuesday, April 18, 7p, The Red Room — Kinston, NC
Five true, personal stories about blazing new trails and exploring new territory in science told live on-stage. Free but RSVP required.

Creating Meaning from Information in Science and Storytelling, Wednesday, April 19, 12 pm, 216 Poe Hall. In this public talk, Liz Neeley, executive director of the Story Collider, will explore research on storytelling and narrative persuasion, highlight the value of personal stories in science, and consider how something like “narrative competency” might be conceptualized, taught and deployed in science communication efforts. Read more.

SCIENCE CAFE: Critical thinking in weather forecasting, climate science, and everything else: Why is it so critical? April 20 7:00 – 8:30 pm, Daily Planet Cafe, Nature Research Center, NC Museum of Natural History, 121 West Jones Street Raleigh, NC

NC State Music Dept and the Raleigh Civic Symphony present A River Runs Through It: Music of Rivers, Sunday, April 23 at 4 PM – 7 PM, Stewart Theatre, NC State

Earth Optimism Summit, April 21-23, 2017 — Washington D.C.

The first-ever Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium sponsored by EJ at the CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability will be held at the Lory Student Center in Ft. Collins, Colorado from Monday, April 24th through Tuesday, April 25th, 2017.

Citizen Science Association Conference, May 17 – 20, 2017, St. Paul, Minnesota. Join the Citizen Science Association for CitSci2017 and be part of conversations to create a field of citizen science. Additional information can be found here.

Climate-Smart Conservation with Scenario Planning, May 15, 2017. National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, WV. This five-day class is based on two guides: Climate‐Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice and Considering Multiple Futures: Scenario Planning to Address Uncertainty in Natural Resource Conservation. The first half of the course refers to the climate‐smart conservation guidance and is designed to demystify climate adaptation for application to on‐the‐ground conservation. It will provide guidance in how to carry out adaptation with intentionality, how to manage for change and not just persistence, how to craft climate‐informed conservation goals, and how to integrate adaptation into on‐going work. For more information, contact Jill Del Vecchio; jill_delvecchio@fws.gov, (304) 876-7424, jill_delvecchio@fws.gov.

One Water Summit 2017, June 27 – 29, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana. The One Water Summit 2017 gathers the nation’s brightest minds and most committed leaders to advance solutions that create a more sustainable water future for all. The summit is hosted by the Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans, a partner of the Lake Pontchartrain Urban Waters Federal Partnership. Find the preliminary agenda, sessions, and registration here.

Broward County hosts the 9th Annual Southeast Florida Regional Climate Leadership Summit on December 14-15, 2017, at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. Read more

——–OPPORTUNITIES————————-

REQUEST FOR statements of interest for Project Assessment Coordinator for the Strategic Conservation Assessment of Gulf Coast Landscapes (SCA) project. This project will coalesce existing conservation and socioeconomic priorities into conservation planning decision support tools to aid the Restore Council and other stakeholders in identifying high priority lands for voluntary conservation efforts. The SCA project team is seeking Statements of Interest (SOIs) from a qualified individual or contracting organization to take the lead role in coordinating this project. This individual or organization must have extensive experience in project management, organization of stakeholder meetings, and landscape-level natural resource conservation planning, preferably along the Gulf of Mexico coast. Additional information and detailed submission instructions can be found in the SOI description and template, which is available for direct download at: http://tinyurl.com/Gulf-SCA-Coordinator. Review of SOIs will begin May 15, 2017.

New Everglades Study Committee Slate Announced. As part of the continuing independent scientific review mandated by Congress, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has appointed a committee of experts to conduct the 7th biennial review of Everglades restoration progress. The committee will review the progress toward achieving the natural system restoration goals of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and consider issues that may impact progress in achieving the goals. The committee slate is provisional pending a 20-day comment period ending on April 25, 2017 and final approval. Sign up here to receive updates on the progress of the study.

USDA Regional Conservation Partnership Program, pre-applications due April 21, 2017. Through this fourth Regional Conservation Partnership Program Announcement for Program Funding, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will award up to $252 million dollars to locally driven, public-private partnerships that improve the nation’s water quality, combat drought, enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat and protect agricultural viability. Applicants must match or exceed the federal award with private or local funds. The NRCS national office will host multiple webinars about the pre-application and full project application processes. Additional information can be viewed here.

Patagonia Environmental Grant, due April 30, 2017. This grant, supports small, grassroots, activist organizations with provocative direct-action agendas, working on multi-pronged campaigns to preserve and protect our environment. Efforts should be quantifiable, with specific goals, objectives and action plans, and should include measures for evaluating success. Details here.

National Science Foundation CBET Request for Proposals, due May 1, 2017. The Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) invites proposals in Public Participation in Engineering Research, focusing on the use of citizen science and crowdsourcing, to enhance community engagement with water quality engineering research. The anticipated award size will be up to $100,000, with an anticipated duration of one year, pending availability of funds. Click here to learn more.

Changes to Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species Listings are proposed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and are offered for comments, opinions, or suggestions. Comment period ends May 15. Comments may be submitted at http://tinyurl.com/lcts2e6 or emailed to regulations@ncwildlife.org. Read the proposed changes.

The National Academy of Sciences is offering two awards to support the formation and development of collaborative science communication researcher-practitioner partnerships. With support from the Rita Allen Foundation, these awards are intended to facilitate the efforts of science communication researchers and practitioners to plan collaborative projects that pursue shared research interests aligned with the recently released consensus report, Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda. Those receiving awards will present details about their collaborations at a special session of the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on the Science of Science Communication III to be held on November 16-17, 2017. To apply for these awards, researchers and practitioners who have agreed to work in partnership should submit a proposal by June 1, 2017. Visit the colloquium website for more details.

FWS Coastal Program, due September 30, 2017. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced funding to provide direct technical assistance and financial assistance to coastal communities and landowners to restore and protect fish and wildlife habitat on public and private lands. Projects should specify benefits for species and habitats considering the expected effects of climate change. FWS will favor conservation activities and projects that incorporate ecosystem adaptation and help coastal ecosystems and communities adapt to the effects of sea level rise and greenhouse gases. More information can be found here.