"The Great Lakes region has an abundance of natural resources that are ecologically and socioeconomically valuable yet threatened by changing climate. To effectively address impacts of climate change within the Great Lakes region will require managers to mitigate the causes of climate change as well as adapt to current threats and to future changes in both social and ecological systems. This thesis addresses those needs by providing natural resource managers with strategies to increase support for climate change mitigation policies and by providing them with information on how social and ecological systems may change with changing climate so that they can develop and apply novel management strategies. Results from Chapter 1 show that while Michigan conservation organizations vary in their current engagement with climate change issues and in their willingness to increase engagement with their membership depending on perceived barriers, every organization expressed interest in receiving more information on how climate change will affect the state's fish and wildlife populations. In Chapter 2, we characterized how resilient Michigan river fish habitat may be to anticipated changes in climate. Our results indicate that while cumulative resilience is generally higher in the Upper Peninsula and in the Northern Lower Peninsula, resilient streams are also found in the Southern Lower Peninsula, suggesting that managers have opportunities in every part of the state for protecting and/or improving stream resiliency to changing climate. Collectively, outcomes of this research offer managers new information and strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change, ultimately facilitating the sustainable management of natural resources in a changing climate."--Page ii.
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