GLORIA North American Synthesis

Project Summary

The North American GLORIA Synthesis project will assess how mountaintop ecosystems are changing across North America. This project will be the first North American-wide synthesis of GLORIA mountain summits, complementing syntheses in other continents and a current global GLORIA synthesis. For this project, data are being harmonized and analyzed at over 27 GLORIA target regions and over 100 summits from Alaska to Arizona. The overarching goals of the GLORIA North America Synthesis Project are twofold: conduct research and analyses of data collected across North American GLORIA sites to improve our overall understanding of the vulnerabilities of alpine ecosystems to current and future climate and other stressors, and build a stronger network of GLORIA researchers on the North American continent.

Core Synthesis Research Questions for the project include:

  • Can we assess vulnerability of plant taxa in a way that is applicable to management at both the target region and synthesis-wide scale? Are there species characteristics, such as evolutionary history, functional traits, or life-history traits, that are predictive of species vulnerability?
  • How do we best assess the impact of climate within the context of the data collection limitation? Are there key aspects of the methodology that need to be prioritized for future analyses (e.g., the 10 x 10 plots that some, but not all, GLORIA sites use)?
  • Are there specific drivers of variation for why changes are observed on some summits and not others? Do target regions geographically cluster in their response to climate?
  • Is there alpine greening or an increase in bare ground through time on GLORIA summits?
  • Do we see shifts in species distributions within the summit (across aspects or elevation)?
  • What are the soil temperature and moisture trends across time and space?

Project PI and partners

The core team members conducting this analysis are:
Kaleb A. Goff (North Carolina State University),
Alex Cisneros Carey (University of California Los Angeles),
Kristin Legg (Greater Yellowstone Network, National Park Service),
Dr. Meagan Oldfather (USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center),
Dr. Seema Sheth (North Carolina State University),
Dr. Brian Smithers (GLORIA Great Basin),
Dana Witwicki (Rocky Mountain Network, National Park Service, and
Abby Volk (Inventory and Monitoring Division, National Park Service).

Partners for this work include:
US National Park Service,
GLORIA Great Basin non-profit,
USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center,
Bureau of Land Management,
US Forest Service,
US Fish & Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge System, and
the GLORIA Coordination team.

Funding

US National Park Service Grant number P24AC00826-00

Duration

01.01.2025 - 12.31.2030

Participating GLORIA target regions:

29