Ten years ago, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies released the Vermont Atlas of Life, a compendium of all species found in the state. In a follow-up report, data suggests that about 6 percent of the state’s species will be lost by the year 2100.
The Center undertook a citizen science initiative to map nearly 12,000 species across the state and create the Vermont Atlas of Life to enhance conservation efforts in the state, according to Director Kent McFarland.
“In the last 10 years, we've had over 20,000 people join us in this adventure. We've discovered hundreds, if not thousands, of new species for Vermont. And we've brought conservation information up to a level for a lot of groups like bees, butterflies and others to a level that was not seen before the Vermont Atlas of Life. And along the way, we've learned a lot too. it's been 10 years. We're up to over almost 8 million records. We have what we can call big data now for conservation data for Vermont.”
Data Scientist Dr. Michael Hallworth helped assess the data and is the lead author of the updated report. Hallworth said the world is in the middle of a global biodiversity crisis, noting a 2019 UN report that nearly a million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction.
“In order to combat these declines, we need to have some knowledge of what species we have, how their populations are doing and how they're impacted by these drivers such as climate change and others.. And the reason for launching the Vermont Atlas of Life is because before that there was no reliable assessments of distributions or population trends for most organisms in this state outside of say birds. Vermont Atlas of Life really was launched to fill those critical knowledge gaps to start providing a biodiversity baseline for the state, so then we can measure changes in into the future, the impacts of say climate change and land use change. But really to help inform conservation across Vermont.”
Hallworth began data analysis in April 2022 after nearly 11,000 observers collected almost 8 million records on about 12,000 species across the state. He assessed critical areas for conservation and biodiversity and found that public and private conservation lands protect only about 12 percent of species across the state.
“Our conservation lands as currently configured, they may not be adequately protecting species of greatest conservation need, because critically imperiled species have the same value as the secure species. So we can make some improvements there. And luckily, now we have the data so that we're poised to kind of make informed decisions about conservation of where those areas should be targeted to the future. That is the next step for VAL.”
The analysis uses climate data to make predicted distribution maps 100 years into the future and Hallworth says they can make species-specific analysis to determine unique communities in the state. Researchers also determined that if there is no improved effort to stem climate change there will be impacts on species distribution and losses in Vermont.
“Falls by 6%. If we make no climate abatement, and to no surprise, perhaps that insects will be the ones that are predicted to be impacted by these climate change scenarios, in part because a lot of them respond are closely tied with climate drivers”.
Hallworth presented illustrations on how species diversity is expected to shift under two projected climate change scenarios.
“Both of these models suggests that the unique communities will move away from the Champlain Valley up into the main stem of the Green Mountains. So up in elevation, to the higher elevations along the along the stem of the Greens. This gives us at least some predictions of where we might want to consider conserving species in the future.”
