In February 2024, Olivia LeDee, regional administrator of the Midwest Climate Adaptation Center, was featured on Minnesota Public Radio. Olivia discussed how climate change is impacting migratory birds and insects that spend time in Minnesota.
That is one of the things that we focus on at the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center — what's the science to support responding to challenges, especially in response to climate change? Sometimes we can't do anything directly to mediate increased temperatures or changes in precipitation, but we know that we can manage the land to offset some of those changes.
For grassland birds, there's what we call maintaining connectivity, having essentially highways for birds to move between patches of land, help them to move and find better opportunities in newer habitats. We also know that the size of those patches, those pieces of land, are really important, and that larger grassland patches help offset some of those negative effects of temperature and precipitation.