Satellite-derived models of available vegetation nutrition: projected impacts of climate change on critical grizzly bear food resources in Alberta

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Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) are a threatened species in Alberta due to their decreasing population numbers. Understanding the impact of climatic influences on grizzly habitat is a serious management concern, especially considering the temporal brevity and spatial limitations of optimal vegetation forage sites. Plant life-cycle events such as flowering and fruiting are one of the most responsive and easily observed characteristics in nature impacted by changing climate. This study incorporates a network of remote time-lapse cameras and meteorological stations to monitor the life-cycle developments of critical bear food plants in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. Observations will be used to develop satellite-derived nutritional landscape maps that will show the timing and abundance of vegetation consumed by grizzly bears. Predictive models will be used to forecast the potential impacts of climate change on nutritional scarcity, and the effects on grizzly bear populations. Validating the models will occur through laboratory analysis, by growing bear food plants in climate simulation chambers that replicate changing environmental conditions such as temperature and atmospheric gases. Shifts in the timing of plant life-cycles due to climate change may have serious consequences for grizzly bears, and other species that depend on periodically available resources.