Historical forest management can heavily affect contemporary forest management and conservation. Yet, relatively little is known about century-long changes in forests, and that limits the understanding of how past management and land tenure affect current forestry practice and ecosystem conservation. Our goal here was to examine the relationship between historical forest management (as depicted by historical forest cover, species composition, age structure and harvesting data) and contemporary forest patterns in Romania. Romania represents an ideal case-study to examine the effects of historical forest management, because it experienced multiple shifts in forest management regimes since the 1800s due to Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Romanian, Soviet and later EU policy influences, and because it is both a conservation hotspot harboring some of the largest old-growth forest in Europe, and an important source of timber for international markets. We reviewed forestry literature and statistics since the 19th century to reconstruct a time-series of forest cover, composition, disturbance patterns, and ownership patterns and interpreted these data in light of institutional changes. We further assessed changes in forest cover, forest harvest, species composition and age structure between two points in time (1920s and 2010s) at the county level, using a combination of historical forest statistics, remote sensing data and modeled forest composition. We complemented our national data with three case studies for which we had stand-level historical and contemporary forest management data. We found that forest area increased in Romania since 1924 by 5% and that the annual rate of forest harvest between 2000 and 2013 was half of the annual rate between 1912 and 1922, which indicates high potential for forest biodiversity conservation. However, the composition, distribution, and age structure of contemporary forests is also substantially different from historical forests. We found an overall increase in coniferous species and several deciduous species (such as Tilia, Populus, Betula, Alnus sp.), a spatial homogenization of species composition, and more even-aged stands. We also observed a drop from 14% to 9% in the relative abundance of old forests (>100 years). Spikes in forest harvest coincided with times of widespread forest privatization, and drastic institutional changes, such as agrarian reforms, or the onset and collapse of the Soviet Regime. Overall, our results suggest that effects of past management, land ownership and institutional changes can persist for centuries, and affect forest ecosystem composition, health and structure, and consequently ecosystem services and habitat availability. Our findings are scientifically important because they provide evidence for legacies of past management and for the effects of forest privatization on harvesting rates. Our findings are also relevant to forest management and conservation practice, because they highlight that environmentally sound management over long time periods is essential for sustainable forestry and old-growth forest protection in Europe and elsewhere.
File: munteanu_et_al_2016_FOM.pdf
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Wetland loss is a global concern because wetlands are highly diverse ecosystems that provide important good and services, thus threatening both biodiversity and human well-being. The Paraná River Delta is one of the larges and most important wetland ecosystems of South America, undergoing expanding cattle and forestry activitie with widespread water control practices. To understand the patterns and drivers of land cover change in th Lower Paraná River Delta, we quantified land cover changes and modeled associated factors. We developed lan cover maps using Landsat images from 1999 and 2013 and identified main land cover changes. We quantified th influence of different socioeconomic (distance to roads, population centers and human activity centers), lan management (area within polders, cattle density and years since last fire), biophysical variables (landscap unit, elevation, soil productivity, distance to rivers) and variables related to extreme system dynamics (floodin and fires) on freshwater marsh conversion with Boosted Regression Trees. We found that one third of the freshwate marshes of the Lower Delta (163,000 ha) were replaced by pastures (70%) and forestry (18%) in only 14 years. Ranching practices (represented by cattle density, area within polders and distance to roads) were th most important factors responsible for freshwater marsh conversion to pasture. These rapid and widesprea losses of freshwater marshes have potentially large negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services A strategy for sustainable wetland management will benefit from careful analysis of dominant land use and related management practices, to develop an urgently needed land use policy for the Lower Delta
File: Sica_etal_2016_Science of the Total Environment.pdf
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A variety of land-use and land-cover (LULC) models operating at scales from local to global have bee developed in recent years, including a number of models that provide spatially explicit, multi-class LUL projections for the conterminous United States. This diversity ofmodeling approaches raises the question:how consistent are their projections offuture land use?We compared projections from six LULC modelin applications for the United States and assessed quantitative, spatial, and conceptual inconsistencies. Eac set of projections provided multiple scenarios covering a period from roughly 2000 to 2050. Given th unique spatial, thematic, and temporal characteristics of each set of projections, individual projection were aggregated to a common set of basic, generalized LULC classes (i.e., cropland, pasture, forest, range and urban) and summarized at the county level across the conterminous United States. We found ver little agreement in projected future LULC trends and patterns among the different models. Variabilit among scenarios for a given model was generally lower than variability among different models, i terms of both trends in the amounts of basic LULC classes and their projected spatial patterns. Eve when different models assessed the same purported scenario, model projections varied substantially Projections of agriculturaltrends were often far above the maximum historical amounts, raising concern aboutthe realismofthe projections. Comparisons amongmodels were hindered bymajor discrepancies i categorical definitions, and suggest a need for standardization of historical LULC data sources. To capture broader range of uncertainties, ensemble modeling approaches are also recommended. However,the vas inconsistencies among LULC models raise questions about the theoretical and conceptual underpinning of current modeling approaches. Given the substantial effects thatland-use change can have on ecologica and societal processes, there is a need for improvement in LULC theory and modeling capabilities t improve acceptance and use of regional- to national-scale LULC projections for the United States an elsewhere.
File: Sohl_etal_2016_EcologicalModeling.pdf
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Conservation planning is designed to optimize conservation actions when only limited resources ar available for managing habitats and mitigating threats, and excels at selecting reserve networks tha protect the largest number of species. However, the spatial optimization of the protection of multipl species can be complicated by interactions among those species and incompatibilities in their habita needs. The challenge is to identify an optimal solution when two species with similar habitat needs canno co-occur. We propose here a new approach to find the optimal conservation planning solution i cases of species incompatibilities, and demonstrate this solution for a 144 km2 area (a 160,000-cell grid in northern Wisconsin. Specifically, our study objectives were to simultaneously (a) identify the smalles area needed to meet minimum habitat requirements for every species considered, (b) maximize th compactness of that area, and (c) avoid any overlap between species with incompatible habitat requirements We found an optimized solution based on potential habitat models for 19 bird species using novel application of mixed integer linear programming, with a clustering approach suited for large cel arrays. Under this solution, 9.9% of the study plot was sufficient to meet the minimum requirement for every species considered, maximize the compactness of that area, and avoid any overlap betwee species with incompatible habitat requirements. Our results are useful to assist managers in providin well-connected, sufficient habitat to at-risk species while minimizing costs and land use conflicts.
File: Beaudryetal_2016_Ecological Modeling.pdf
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Coastal areas provide nesting habitat for marine turtles that is critical for the persistence of their populations. However, many coastal areas are highly affected by coastal development, which affects the reproductive success of marine turtles. Knowing the extent to which nesting areas are exposed to these threats is essential to guide management initiatives. This information is particularly important for coastal areas with both high nesting density and dense human development, a combination that is common in the United States. We assessed the extent to which nesting areas of the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), the green (Chelonia mydas), the Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), and leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coria-cea) in the continental United States are exposed to coastal development and identified conser-vation hotspots that currently have high reproductive importance and either face high exposure to coastal development (needing intervention), or have low exposure to coastal development, and are good candidates for continued and future protection. Night- time light, housing, and population density were used as proxies for coastal development and human disturbance. About 81.6% of nesting areas were exposed to housing and human population, and 97.8% were exposed to light pollution. Further, most (>65%) of the very high- and high- density nesting areas for each species/subpopulation, except for the Kemp’s ridley, were exposed to coastal development. Forty- nine nesting sites were selected as conservation hotspots; of those high- density nesting sites, 49% were sites with no/low exposure to coastal development and the other 51% were exposed to high- density coastal development. Conservation strategies need to account for ~66.8% of all marine turtle nesting areas being on private land and for nesting sites being exposed to large numbers of seasonal residents.
File: Fuentes_et_al-2016-Ecological_Applications.pdf
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The Tucuman Parrot (Amazona tucumana), which is restricted to Southern Yungas forest of Argentina and Bolivia, ha not recovered from severe population declines in the 1980s. We assessed habitat conservation targets for this specie and asked, ‘‘What constitutes the right target?’’ For species with small ranges, maximizing the proportion of the rang under protection is an established strategy to safeguard against threats. However, designating an amount fo protection based on range alone (i.e. a ‘representation target’) may set a misguided conservation target if critica resources are not considered. We used an ensemble model (‘biomod2’) to map suitable breeding and nonbreedin habitat of the Tucuman Parrot based on environmental variables and key resources (breeding) or the species’occurrence (nonbreeding). Pino blanco (Podocarpus parlatorei) seeds are critical food for Tucuman Parrot nestlings, s we modeled the distribution of this tree as a proxy for potential breeding habitat. We then examined the adequacy o current habitat protection relative to representation targets and in light of known threats, including forest degradatio and loss, and poaching. Overall, 17% of the 110,122 km2 Southern Yungas is protected, which is close to th proportion recommended (the target; 22%), based on the ecoregion’s size, for inclusion in a conservation network Similarly, 26% of the 46,263 km2 of nonbreeding habitat is protected, also relatively successful at 71% of the targe (36%). However, of the scant ~21,000 km2 of breeding habitat, only 15% is protected, much less than th representation target (49%) recommended for maximizing the probability of population persistence. Poaching o nestlings further undermines the value of some nesting habitat in Bolivia. For Tucuman Parrots, increased enforcemen of protection in Bolivia and protection of additional nesting habitat in Argentina are the most efficient ways t enhance persistence. Our results illustrate how habitat conservation targets based on area alone may be inadequate i important biological information is overlooked.
File: Pidgeon et al. 2015_condor-14-214.pdf
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Rapid and ongoing change creates novelty in ecosystems everywhere, bot when comparing contemporary systems to their historical baselines, and predicted futur systems to the present. However, the level of novelty varies greatly among places. Here w propose a formal and quantifiable definition of abiotic and biotic novelty in ecosystems, ma abiotic novelty globally, and discuss the implications of novelty for the science of ecology an for biodiversity conservation. We define novelty as the degree of dissimilarity of a system measured in one or more dimensions relative to a reference baseline, usually defined as eithe the present or a time window in the past. In this conceptualization, novelty varies in degree, i is multidimensional, can be measured, and requires a temporal and spatial reference. Thi definition moves beyond prior categorical definitions of novel ecosystems, and does no include human agency, self-perpetuation, or irreversibility as criteria. Our global assessment o novelty was based on abiotic factors (temperature, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition) plu human population, and shows that there are already large areas with high novelty toda relative to the early 20th century, and that there will even be more such areas by 2050 Interestingly, the places that are most novel are often not the places where absolute change are largest; highlighting that novelty is inherently different from change. For the ecologica sciences, highly novel ecosystems present new opportunities to test ecological theories, but als challenge the predictive ability of ecological models and their validation. For biodiversit conservation, increasing novelty presents some opportunities, but largely challenges Conservation action is necessary along the entire continuum of novelty, by redoubling effort to protect areas where novelty is low, identifying conservation opportunities where novelty i high, developing flexible yet strong regulations and policies, and establishing long-ter experiments to test management approaches. Meeting the challenge of novelty will requir advances in the science of ecology, and new and creative conservation approaches.
File: Radeloff_Williams_etal_EcoApps2015.pdf
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In an effort to increase conservation effectiveness through the use of Earth observation technologies, a group of remote sensing scientists affiliated with government and academic institutions and conservation organizations identified 10 questions in conservation for which the potential to be answered would be greatly increased by use of remotely sensed data and analyses of those data. Our goals were to increase conservation practitioners' use of remote sensing to support their work, increase collaboration between the conservation science and remote sensing communities, identify and develop new and innovative uses of remote sensing for advancing conservation science, provide guidance to space agencies on how future satellite missions can support conservation science, and generate support from the public and private sector in the use of remote sensing data to address the 10 conservation questions. We identified a broad initial list of questions on the basis of an email chain-referral survey. We then used a workshop-based iterative and collaborative approach to whittle the list down to these final questions (which represent 10 major themes in conservation): How can global Earth observation data be used to model species distributions and abundances? How can remote sensing improve the understanding of animal movements? How can remotely sensed ecosystem variables be used to understand, monitor, and predict ecosystem response and resilience to multiple stressors? How can remote sensing be used to monitor the effects of climate on ecosystems? How can near real-time ecosystem monitoring catalyze threat reduction, governance and regulation compliance, and resource management decisions? How can remote sensing inform configuration of protected area networks at spatial extents relevant to populations of target species and ecosystem services? How can remote sensing-derived products be used to value and monitor changes in ecosystem services? How can remote sensing be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation efforts? How does the expansion and intensification of agriculture and aquaculture alter ecosystems and the services they provide? How can remote sensing be used to determine the degree to which ecosystems are being disturbed or degraded and the effects of these changes on species and ecosystem functions?
File: Rose_etal_ConsBio_2015_0.pdf
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We estimate the impact of strict and multiple-use protected areas on forest disturbance in European Russia between 1985 and 2010. We construct a spatial panel dataset that includes five periods of change. We match protected areas to control observations and compare coefficients from fixedversus random-effects models. We find that protected areas have few statistically significant impacts on disturbance, with little difference across parks closer to or farther from major cities or roads. Random-effects estimates differ qualitatively and quantitatively from those of fixed effects in our study, serving as a cautionary note for evaluations where time-invariant unobservables are important.
File: Wendland_etal_LandEconomics_2015.pdf
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1. Biodiversity conservation is a primary function of protected areas. However, protected areas also attract people, and therefore, land use has intensified at the boundaries of these lands globally. In the USA, since the 1970s, housing growth at the boundaries (<1 km) of protected areas has increased at a rate far higher than on more distant private lands. Here, we designed our analyses to address our central hypothesis that increasing housing density in and near protected areas will increasingly alter their avian communities 2. We quantified the relationship between abundance and richness of protected-area avian species of greatest conservation need, land-cover affiliates (e.g. species associated with natural land cover such as forest breeders) and synanthropes (e.g. species associated with humans) with housing density on the boundary of protected areas and on more distant private lands from 1970 to 2010 in three ecoregions of the USA. We accomplished this using linear mixed-model analyses, data from the US Census Bureau and 90 routes of the North American Breeding Bird Survey 3. Housing density at the boundary of protected areas tended to be strongly negatively related with the abundance and richness of species of greatest conservation need and land-cover affiliates (upwards of 88% of variance explained) and strongly positively related with synanthropes (upwards of 83% of variance explained). The effect size of these relationships increased in most cases from 1970 to 2010 and was greatest in the densely developed eastern forests. In the more sparsely populated West, we found similar, though weaker, associations 4. Housing density on private lands more distant from protected areas had similar, but more muted negative effects 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results illustrate that as housing density has increased along the boundary of protected areas, the conservation benefit of these lands has likely diminished. We urge conservation planners to prioritize the purchase of private-land inhold-ings in order to maximize the extent of unfragmented natural lands within protected areas. Further, we strongly recommend that land-use planners implement boundary management strategies to alter the pattern of human access to protected areas, cluster development to con-centrate the footprint of rural housing, and establish conservation agreements through local land trusts to buffer protected areas from the effects of development along protected-area boundaries. To maximize the conservation benefit of protected areas, we suggest that housing development should be restricted within 1 km of their boundaries.
File: Wood_et_al-2015-Journal_of_Applied_Ecology.pdf
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