Spatial Analysis For Conservation and Sustainability
Conservation
Biodiversity is threatened, and conservation is urgent. The reality of limited resources for conservation requires prioritization among actions, species, and places, and the building of capacity in countries where threats are high.
Management of German roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) populations is a challenge for wildlife managers and foresters because population densities are difficult to estimate in forests and forest regeneration can be negatively affected when roe deer density is high. We describe a model to determine deer population densities compatible with forest management goals, and to assess harvest rates necessary to maintain desired deer densities. A geographic information system (GIS) was used to model wildlife habitat and population dynamics over time. Our model interactively incorporates knowledge of ?eld biologists and foresters via a graphical user interface (GUI). Calibration of the model with deer damage maps allowed us to evaluate density dependence of a roe deer population. Incorporation of local knowledge into temporally dynamic and spatial models increases understanding of population dynamics and improves wildlife management.
Rural, forested areas throughout the United States are experiencing strong housing growth with potentially detrimental impacts on the environment. In this paper, we quantify housing growth in Northern Wisconsin over the last sixty years to determine if growth rates were higher near public lands, which may represent an important recreational amenity. We used data from the U.S. Census to produce decadal housing density estimates, ''backcasts,'' from 1940 to 2000 for northern Wisconsin to examine ''rural sprawl'' in northern Wisconsin and its relationship to forested areas and public lands. We integrated housing density estimates with the 1992/1993 National Land Cover Dataset to examine the relationship between rural sprawl and land cover, especially forests. Between 1940 and 2000, private land with <2 housing units/km2 decreased from 47% to 21% of the total landscape. Most importantly, housing growth was concentrated along the boundaries of public lands. In 14 of the 19 counties that we studied, housing growth rates within 1 km of a public land boundary exceeded growth rates in the remainder of the county, and three of the five counties that did not exhibit this pattern, were the ones with the least amount of public land. Future growth can be expected in areas with abundant natural amenities, highlighting the critical need for additional research and effective natural resource management and regional planning to address these challenges
A growing trend in public forest management is the inclusion of the public in the decision making process. Visual representations of the management process can assist in conveying complex management treatments. A second trend has been the promotion of biological diversity as a management objective. Ecosystem managers and restoration ecologists are using pre-settlement landscape patterns and forest conditions as a reference point to encourage the recovery of rare or extirpated species and habitat types. The problem is that information about pre-settlement conditions is limited. Our research goal was to visualize pre-settlement forests inWisconsin and compare them with current forest conditions. Presettlement vegetation conditions were derived from computerized U.S. Public Land Survey records. Current forest conditions were derived from USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis data. We usedWorld Construction Set software (3D Nature, LLC) for the visualizations. Our results focus on ecosystems that are (a) still widespread but altered in structure and species composition (northern hardwoods communities) or (b) greatly diminished in extent (pine barrens communities). We found there are substantial visual differences between current and pre-settlement forests, most notably in species composition, density, and stand structural complexity. Our results highlight the potential of computer visualization as a tool to aid forest managers and restoration ecologists.
The concurrent discussions of landscape scale restora- tion among restoration ecologists, and of historic dis- turbance pattern as a guideline for forest management among forest scientists, offer a unique opportunity for collaboration between these traditionally separated fields. The objective of this study was to review the environmental history, early restoration projects, and current plans to restore landscape patterns at broader scales in the 450,000 ha northwest Wisconsin Pine Bar- rens. The Pine Barrens offer an example of a land- scape shaped by fire in the past. In northwestern Wis- consin historically the barrens were a mosaic of open prairie, savanna, and pine forests on very poor, sandy soils. The surrounding region of better soils was oth- erwise heavily forested. Six restoration sites have been managed since the middle of this century using prescribed burns to maintain the open, barrens habi- tat. However, these sites are not extensive enough to mimic the shifting mosaic of large open patches previ- ously created by fire. Extensive clear-cuts may be used as a substitute for these large fire patches so that pre- settlement landscape patterns are more closely ap- proximated in the current landscape. We suggest that such silvicultural treatments can be suitable to restore certain aspects of presettlement landscapes, such as landscape pattern and open habitat for species such as grassland birds. We are aware that the effects of fire and clear-cuts differ in many aspects and additional management tools, such as prescribed burning after harvesting, may assist in further approximating the effect of natural disturbance. However, the restoration of landscape pattern using clear-cuts may provide an important context for smaller isolated restoration sites even without the subsequent application of fire, in this formerly more open landscape.
1. Where populations are con?ned to fragmented, human-dominated landscapes, preventing declines and extirpations will often rely on metapopulation management. Spatially-explicit population viability analyses provide tools to evaluate how well the local management e?orts can be combined to conserve metapopulations across large areas. Yet, metapopulation models have rarely been combined with tools to assess the cost-e?ectiveness of di?erent conservation strategies. 2. European bison Bison bonasus only occur in small, fragmented populations, making their long-term survival dependent on establishing a metapopulation across eastern Europe. We parameterized a European bison metapopulation model based on time-series of bison demography and a habitat suitability map to assess the viability of bison populations in the Carpathians and the relative cost-e?ectiveness of (i) reintroductions, (ii) wildlife overpasses and (iii) anti-poaching measures in establishing a viable bison metapopulation. 3. Our results suggest that the Carpathians could support a viable metapopulation of European bison provided that active e?orts are taken to safeguard bison and connect isolated herds. With such steps, our model forecasts that bison numbers could increase substantially over the next 100 years as local populations increase and bison recolonize parts of the Carpathians. 4. Reintroductions appear to be the most cost-e?ective approach for establishing a viable bison metapopulation among our scenarios, especially when coupled with wildlife overpasses to improve connectivity among herds. The most promising region for a bison metapopulation in the Carpathians was south-eastern Poland, Ukraine and northern Romania. We identi?ed several candidate regions for reintroductions and wildlife overpasses, especially in the border region of Romania and Ukraine. Site-speci?c assessments of both habitat suitability, and the costs and bene?ts of a large bison population, should target those regions. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results highlight how careful conservation planning can identify solutions to preserve large mammals in human-dominated landscapes. Choosing the most e?ective option from a range of management strategies is a central challenge for wildlife managers. We have shown that incorporating cost-e?ectiveness analyses into metapopulation models can elucidate the relative value (gain per unit cost) of di?erent conservation management options, allowing decision makers to choose cost-e?ective options to preserve large mammals. Our model projections also provide hope for establishing a viable free-ranging European bison population in the Carpathians, one of the last relatively wild areas in Europe.
Habitat loss threatens large mammals worldwide and their survival will depend on habitat in human-dominated landscapes. Conservation planners thus face the challenge to identify areas of least conflict with land use, yet broad-scale species distribution models rarely incorporate real landscape patters nor do they identify potential conservation conflicts. An excellent example of such conservation challenges are European bison. Almost extinct by the early 20th century, bison can only survive in the wild if large metapopulations are established, but it is unclear where new herds can be reintroduced. Using European bison as an example we conducted a continental-scale habitat assessment based on real landscape patterns. Our specific aims here were to a) map European bison habitat throughout the species' former range, b) examine whether broad-scale habitat suitability factors differ from previously reported fine-scale factors, and c) assess where suitable habitat occurs in areas with low potential for conflict with land use. We assessed habitat suitability using herd range maps for all 36 free-ranging European bison herds as habitat use data. Habitat suitability maps were compared with maps of land cover, livestock density, agricultural constraints, and protected areas to assess potential conservation conflicts. Our models had high goodness-of-fit (AUC = 0.941) and we found abundant potential bison habitat. European bison prefer mosaic-type landscapes, with a preference for broadleaved and mixed forests. European bison metapopulations appear not limited by habitat availability. However, most potential habitat occurred outside protected areas and has substantial potential for conservation conflicts. The most promising areas to establish large bison metapopulations all occur in Eastern Europe (i.e., the Carpathians, the Belarus-Ukraine borderlands, and several regions in European Russia). The future of European bison and that of other large mammals in the wild thus clearly lies in Eastern Europe, because habitat there is most abundant and least fragmented, and because the potential for conflict with land use is lower. More generally we suggest that broad-scale habitat assessments that incorporate land use can be powerful tools for conservation planning and will be key if large herbivore and carnivore conservation is to succeed in a human-dominated world.
The federally endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides samuelis) is the focal species for a conservation plan designed to create and maintain barrens habitats. We investigated whether habitat management for Karner blue butterflies influences avian community structure at Fort McCoy Military Installation in Wisconsin, USA. From 2007 through 2009 breeding bird point count and habitat characteristic data were collected at 186 sample points in five habitat types including two remnant barrens types, barrens habitat restored from woodland and managed specifically for the Karner blue butterfly, and two woodland habitat types. Although the bird community of managed barrens was not identical to the communities of remnant barrens, the Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla), a species of conservation concern, and sparse canopy associated bird species, such as the Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) and Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) were predicted to occupy managed barrens and remnant barrens in similar proportions. Adjacent habitat was the most influential factor in determining the community of bird species using the managed barrens. In Wisconsin, and likely throughout the range of the Karner blue butterfly, management for the butterfly creates habitat that attracts a bird community similar to that of remnant barrens, and benefits several avian species of conservation concern. Additionally, the landscape context surrounding the managed habitat influences avian community composition. Managed barrens that are adjacent to remnant barrens, rather than adjacent to woodland habitats, have the highest potential for conserving barrens breeding birds.
1. Habitat conservation, particularly for large, multiple use areas, must account for the needs of multiple species. However, an unresolved issue is how to manage habitat when the needs of resident species con?ict and when the habitat can only be modelled at a coarse scale. Here, we illustrate an approach to optimizing habitat management using an example of a community of forest-breeding birds. 2. We used potential habitat maps for 20 bird species in northern Wisconsin and identi?ed a spatial arrangement that maximizes conservation value for multiple species, maximizes connectivity and minimizes the area needed for conservation. To do this, we ranked each cell of the study area using a nested percentage value, with for example the highest-ranking 1% holding lands of highest conservation value. 3. As we progressively increased the portion of landscape considered, starting with the highestranking habitat ?rst, the number of species for which the minimum habitat requirements were met reached plateaux at 3% and 20% of the landscape. To provide enough area to meet the minimum habitat requirements for all but two species, an estimated 20% of the habitat with the highest conservation value, c. 1 million hectares, would need to be maintained. Of that 20% highest-ranking area, 42% was on public lands, compared with 28% for the study area. 4. Tribal lands held a disproportionally large amount of area estimated to be of high conservation value: within the highest-ranking 1% of land, 14% consisted of tribal lands, while these lands held only 5% of the entire study area's forests. 5. Synthesis and applications. Hierarchical prioritization provided an e?cient mapping approach and the regional perspective necessary to identify management opportunities for a wide range of species. However, it could not explicitly address con?icts among species with overlapping potential habitat but incompatible ?ne-scale habitat needs. Ignoring this issue may lead to a failure to meet conservation objectives. This issue of habitat mischaracterization needs to be recognized in conservation planning objectives, preferably integrated in an optimization strategy, and can only be partly addressed with a post hoc, stepwise heuristic approach
Protected areas are cornerstones of biodiversity conservation, but they are in danger of becoming islands in a sea of human dominated landscapes. Our question was if protected areas may even foster devel- opment in their surroundings because they provide amenities that attract development, thus causing the isolation of the ecosystems they were designed to protect. Our study analyzed historic aerial photographs and topographical maps to reconstruct road development and building growth within and around Indiana Dunes and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshores in the U.S. Great Lakes region from 1938 to 2005, and to estimate the effects of park creation in 1966 on changes in landscape patterns. Historic U.S. census housing density data were used as a baseline to compare observed changes to. Our results showed that park establishment was effective in reducing and stopping the fragmenting impact of development within park boundaries. However, increased amenity levels following park establishment led to enhanced development in the surroundings of both parks. In the extreme case of Indiana Dunes, building density outside the park increased from 45 to 200 buildings/km2 and road density almost doubled from 3.6 to 6.6 km/km2 from 1938 to 2005. Development rates of change were much higher than in the broader landscape, particularly after park establishment. The potential amenity effect was up to 9500 new buildings in the 3.2-km zone around Indiana Dunes between 1966 and 2005. For Pictured Rocks the absolute effect was smaller but up to 70% of the observed building growth was potentially due to amenity effects. Our ? ndings highlight the need for conservation planning at broader scales, incorporating areas beyond the boundaries of protected areas.
Fire and wetlands are not concepts that we intuitively think about in conjunction with one another. Masters student Colleen Sutheimer is working to change that with the hope that her work will eventually inform future wetland management and conservation on a broad scale. By reconstructing the historic temporal and spatial scale of fires in forested wetlands in the upper Great Lakes region, Sutheimer believes her work will help managers make good decisions about the use of fire as a management tool in these extremely unique and important ecosystems.
Forested wetlands make up almost half of all freshwater wetlands in the United States, and forested wetlands declined by over 250,000 hectares between 2004 and 2009 alone. These areas are extremely important ecologically, though, as they are home to many unique plant and animal species, are important stores of organic carbon, and provide water filtration services. However, the historic role of fire in these systems is not well understood. Specifically, whether these systems developed with fire and how often fire happened in the past are questions Sutheimer is hoping to answer. “This is a really interesting time to be working on fire in the Great Lakes region, but especially in these wetland systems. A rigorous understanding of fire’s role in Wisconsin has not been achieved yet,” Sutheimer said of her research.
An example of a processed and dated remnant red pine stump. This tree originated in 1718 and was harvested around the 1850s. Each date corresponds to a different fire that scarred the tree while it was still alive.
Reconstructing historic fire regimes is not an easy job, however. In order to do it, Colleen and her colleagues at Wisconsin DNR target red pine stumps in forested wetlands that are remnants from the clear cut that took place over northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the 1800s. Using chainsaws, Sutheimer takes samples from these stumps and non-destructive samples from living trees and snags. These collected samples must then be dried, planed to create a flat surface, and finally sanded to smooth the surface and make the growth rings visible and ready for analysis. With a well-prepared sample, Sutheimer can determine the age of the tree, as well as examine fires scars as evidence of fire exposure in the growth rings of the tree. Targeting these old stumps allows Sutheimer to examine the frequency and intensity of fires that occurred up to 500 years in the past. Additionally, by taking samples at a large spatial scale, Sutheimer can get an idea of how intense specific fires were.
Sutheimer has already completed sampling at one of her study sites, near Betchler Lake in the Hiawatha National Forest, located in the upper peninsula of Michigan. At this site alone, Sutheimer took over 80 samples from both the periphery of the wetland as well as from “islands” of trees within the wetland. Using the samples she has collected from the Betchler Lake Area, Sutheimer will be able to reconstruct an entire fire history for this localized wetland area. Though Sutheimer has not aged these samples yet, a sample from another area yielded a tree that had originated in the 1500s, making Sutheimer optimistic that their sampling will successfully span a broad temporal range. This site is just the beginning. Sutheimer has plans to reconstruct fire histories for additional sites in the Hiawatha, Ottawa, and Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forests, giving her an unprecedented look at the history of fire in these wetland systems.
Location of where red pine stumps were sampled and peatland cores were taken within and around the Betchler Lake site.
Disturbances such as fire may be important shapers of forested wetlands by helping to stop vegetation encroachment and allowing them to continue to provide essential habitat to many amphibian and carnivorous plant species that are already threatened by other factors. These areas also serve as carbon sinks by storing carbon both in the trees and in the inundated organic soils. Threats like climate change make it even more imperative to understand past disturbance regimes to help scientists plan for future climate scenarios. Understanding the historic role and characteristics of the fire regime in these systems will allow Sutheimer not only to understand how fire has affected these systems in the past, but to provide recommendations for its use as a management tool in the future.
