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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Wildfire management now emphasizes fire-adapted communities that coexist wit wildfires, although it is unclear how communities will progress to this goal. Hazard research suggests that response to wildfire—specifically, rebuilding after fire—ma be a crucial opportunity for homeowner and community adaptation. We explor rebuilding after the 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire from Boulder, CO, that destroye 165 homes, to better understand individual and community adaptation after wildfire We examined changes in perception of fire risk and structural characteristics an vegetation mitigation of rebuilt homes, to examine how homes, homeowners, an communities changed after fire. We found evidence that adaptation is occurring as well as evidence that it is not. Overall, rebuilding was slow. More than 3 2 year after the fire, only 30% of those who had lost homes had rebuilt. Postfire rebuildin will only change a fraction of homes, but it is a critical process to understand
File: Mockrin_etal_2015_Soc&NatRes.pdf
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The number of communities exposed to and affected by wildfire, particularly in the Wildland Urban Interface, is increasing, and both losses from and prevention of wildfire entail substantial economic costs. However, little is known about post-wildfire response by communities after structures are lost. Our goal was to characterize patterns and rates of rebuilding and new development after wildfires across the conterminous United States. We analyzed all wildfires that occurred across the conterminous United States from 2000 to 2005. We mapped 38,440 structures prior to fires, out of which 3,604 were burned, and 39,120 structures after fires, out of which 2,403 were new development and 1,881 were rebuilt. Nationally, rebuilding rates were low; only 25% of burned homes were rebuilt within five years, but rates were higher in the West, the South, and in Kansas. New development rates inside fire perimeters were similar to development rates in surrounding areas unaffected by fire. As a result, the number of structures within the fire perimeters was higher within 5 years of the fire than before, indicating that people want to live in wildland areas and are either willing to face the risks or not aware of them.
File: Alexandre_etal_IJWF_2015.pdf
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Protected areas are a cornerstone for biodiversity conservation, but they also provide amenities that attract housing development on inholdings and adjacent private lands. We explored how this development affects biodiversity within and near protected areas among six ecological regions throughout the United States. We quantified the effect of housing density within, at the boundary, and outside protected areas, and natural land cover within protected areas, on the proportional abundance and proportional richness of three avian guilds within protected areas. We developed three guilds from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which included Species of Greatest Conservation Need, land cover affiliates (e.g., forest breeders), and synanthropic species associated with urban environments. We gathered housing density data for the year 2000 from the U.S. Census Bureau, and centered the bird data on this year. We obtained land cover data from the 2001 National Land Cover Database, and we used single- and multiple-variable analyses to address our research question. In all regions, housing density within protected areas was positively associated with the proportional abundance or proportional richness of synanthropes, and negatively associated with the proportional abundance or proportional richness of Species of Greatest Conservation Need. These relationships were strongest in the eastern forested regions and the central grasslands, where more than 70% and 45%, respectively, of the variation in the proportional abundance of synanthropes and Species of Greatest Conservation Need were explained by housing within protected areas. Furthermore, in most regions, housing density outside protected areas was positively associated with the proportional abundance or proportional richness of synanthropes and negatively associated with the proportional abundance of land cover affiliates and Species of Greatest Conservation Need within protected areas. However, these effects were weaker than housing within protected areas. Natural land cover was high with little variability within protected areas, and consequently, was less influential than housing density within or outside protected areas explaining the proportional abundance or proportional richness of the avian guilds. Our results indicate that housing development within, at the boundary, and outside protected areas impacts avian community structure within protected areas throughout the United States.
File: Wood_etal_2014_EcoApps.pdf
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As people encroach increasingly on natural areas, one question is how this affects avian biodiversity. The answer to this is partly scale-dependent. At broad scales, human populations and biodiversity concentrate in the same areas and are positively associated, but at local scales people and biodiversity are negatively associated with biodiversity. We investigated whether there is also a systematic temporal trend in the relationship between bird biodiversity and housing development. We used linear regression to examine associations between forest bird species richness and housing growth in the conterminous United States over 30 years. Our data sources were the North American Breeding Bird Survey and the 2000 decennial U.S. Census. In the 9 largest forested ecoregions, housing density increased continually over time. Across the conterminous United States, the association between bird species richness and housing density was positive for virtually all guilds except ground nesting birds. We found a systematic trajectory of declining bird species richness as housing increased through time. In more recently developed ecoregions, where housing density was still low, the association with bird species richness was neutral or positive. In ecoregions that were developed earlier and where housing density was highest, the association of housing density with bird species richness for most guilds was negative and grew stronger with advancing decades. We propose that in general the relationship between human settlement and biodiversity over time unfolds as a 2-phase process. The first phase is apparently innocuous; associations are positive due to coincidence of low-density housing with high biodiversity. The second phase is highly detrimental to biodiversity, and increases in housing density are associated with biodiversity losses. The long-term effect on biodiversity depends on the final housing density. This general pattern can help unify our understanding of the relationship of human encroachment and biodiversity response.
File: Pidgeon_etal_ConsBio_2014_0.pdf
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Land management agencies frequently develop plans to identify future conservation needs and priorities. Creation and implementation of these plans is often required to maintain funding eligibility. Agency conservation plans are typically expert-based and identify large numbers of priority areas based primarily on biological data. As conservation dollars are limited, the challenge is to implement these plans in a manner that is effective, efficient, and considers future threats. Our goal was to improve the utility of existing, expert- and biologically-based plans using a flexible approach for incorporating spatial data on vulnerability to and threat from housing development. We examined two conservation plans for the state of Wisconsin in the United States and related them to current and projected future housing development, a key cause of habitat loss and degradation. Most (54-73%) priority areas were highly vulnerable to future threat, and 18% were already highly threatened by housing development. Existing conservation investments were highly threatened in 8-9% of priority areas, and 25-34% of priority areas were highly vulnerable and highly threatened, meriting immediate conservation attention. Conversely, low threat levels in 20-26% of priority areas may allow time for new, large-scale conservation initiatives to succeed. Our results highlight that vulnerability to and threat from existing and future housing development vary greatly among expert- and biologically-based priority areas. The framework presented here can thus improve the utility of existing plans by helping to target, schedule, and tailor actions to minimize biodiversity loss in highly threatened areas, maximize biodiversity gains, and protect existing conservation investments.
File: Carter_etal_LandscapeUrbanPlanning_2014.pdf
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The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is the area in which human settlements adjoin or intermix with ecosystems. Although research on the WUI has been focused on wildfire risk to settlements, we argue here that there is a need to quantify the extent of areas in which human settlements interact with adjoining ecosystems, regardless of their ability to support fire spread. Besides wildfires, human settlements affect neighboring ecosystems through biotic processes, including exotic species introduction, wildlife subsidization, disease transfer, landcover conversion, fragmentation, and habitat loss. The effects of WUI settlements on ecosystems are two tiered, starting with habitat modification and fragmentation and progressing to various diffusion processes in which direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic activities spread into neighboring ecosystems at varying scales. New scientific, management, and policy tools are needed in order to better understand the WUI as a unique social-ecological zone and to mitigate negative consequences of its continued growth.
File: BarMassada_etal_2014_BioScience.pdf
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Over the past 60 years, housing growth has outpaced population growth in the United States. Conservationists are concerned about the far-reaching environmental impacts of housing development, particularly in rural areas. We use clustering analysis to examine the pattern and distribution of housing development since 1940 in and around the Northern Forest, a heavily forested region with high amenity and recreation use in the Northeastern United States. We find that both proximity to urban areas and an abundance of natural amenities are associated with housing growth at the neighborhood level in this region. In the 1970s, counterurbanization led to higher rates of growth across rural areas. The Northern Forest now has extensive interface between forest vegetation and residential development, which has the potential to profoundly alter the ecological and social benefits of these forests.
File: Mockrin_etal_2013.pdf
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Numerous measures of human influence on the environment exist, but one that is of particular importance is houses as they can impact the environment from species through the landscape level. Furthermore, because the addition of houses represents an important component of landscape change, housing information could be used to assess ecological responses (e.g., decline in wildlife habitat) to that change. Recently developed housing density data represents a potential source of information to assess landscape and habitat change over long periods of time and at broad spatial extents, which is critically needed for conservation and management. Considering the potential value of housing data, our goal was to demonstrate how changes in the number of houses leads to changes in the amount of habitat across the landscape, and in-turn, how these habitat changes are likely to influence the distribution and abundance for a species of conservation concern, the Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus). Using a relationship between Ovenbird abundance and housing density, we predict suitable habitat in the forests of Massachusetts (USA) from 1970 to 2030. Over this 60-year period, the number of houses was projected to increase from 1.84 to 3.32 million. This magnitude of housing growth translates into a 57 % decline in Ovenbird habitat (6,002 km2 to 2,616 km2), a minimum decline of ~850,000 (48 %) Ovenbirds, and an increase in the number of subpopulations across the landscape. Overall, housing data provide important information to robustly measure landscape and habitat change, and hence predict population change of a species. We suggest that time series of housing data linked to ecological responses (e.g., Ovenbird abundance) offers a novel and underutilized approach to estimating long-term and spatially broad predictions of ecosystem response to landscape change, which in turn can inform conservation and management.
File: Lepczyk-et-al-2013-HousingDynamics.pdf
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National-scale analyses of ?re occurrence are needed to prioritize ?re policy and management activities across the United States. However, the drivers of national-scale patterns of ?re occurrence are not well understood, and how the relative importance of human or biophysical factors varies across the country is unclear. Our research goal was to model the drivers of ?re occurrence within ecoregions across the conterminous United States. We used generalized linear models to compare the relative in?uence of human, vegetation, climate, and topographic variables on ?re occurrence in the United States, as measured by MODIS active ?re detections collected between 2000 and 2006. We constructed models for all ?res and for large ?res only and generated predictive maps to quantify ?re occurrence probabilities. Areas with high ?re occurrence probabilities were widespread in the Southeast, and localized in the Mountain West, particularly in southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Probabilities for large-?re occurrence were generally lower, but hot spots existed in the western and southcentral United States The probability of ?re occurrence is a critical component of ?re risk assessments, in addition to vegetation type, ?re behavior, and the values at risk. Many of the hot spots we identi?ed have extensive development in the wildland-urban interface and are near large metropolitan areas. Our results demonstrated that human variables were important predictors of both all ?res and large ?res and frequently exhibited nonlinear relationships. However, vegetation, climate, and topography were also signi?cant variables in most ecoregions. If recent housing growth trends and ?re occurrence patterns continue, these areas will continue to challenge policies and management efforts seeking to balance the risks generated by wild?res with the ecological bene?ts of ?re.
File: Hawbaker_etal_2013_EcoApps.pdf
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