Land-use change is a major cause of wildlife habitat loss. Understanding how changes in land-use policies and economic factors can impact future trends in land use and wildlife habitat loss is therefore critical for conservation efforts. Our goal here was to evaluate the consequences of future land-use changes under different conservation policies and crop market conditions on habitat loss for wildlife species in the southeastern United States. We predicted the rates of habitat loss for 336 terrestrial vertebrate species by 2051. We focused on habitat loss due to the expansion of urban, crop, and pasture. Future land-use changes following business-as-usual conditions resulted in relatively low rates of wildlife habitat loss across the entire Southeast, but some ecoregions and species groups experienced much higher habitat loss than others. Increased crop commodity prices exacerbated wildlife habitat loss in most ecoregions, while the implementation of conservation policies (reduced urban sprawl, and payments for land conservation) reduced the projected habitat loss in some regions, to a certain degree. Overall, urban and crop expansion were the main drivers of habitat loss. Reptiles and wildlife species associated with open vegetation (grasslands, open woodlands) were the species groups most vulnerable to future land-use change. Effective conservation of wildlife habitat in the Southeast should give special consideration to future land-use changes, regional variations, and the forces that could shape land-use decisions.
File: Martinuzzi_etal_EcoApps_2015.pdf
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Socioeconomic shocks can shape future landus trajectories. Armed conflicts are an extreme form of socioeconomic shock, but our understanding of how arme conflicts affect land-use change is limited. Our goal was t assess land-use changes related to the 1991–1994 NagornoKarabak conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in th Caucasus region. We classified multi-temporal Landsa imagery, mapped land-use changes during and after th conflict, and applied matching statistics to isolate the effec of the conflict from other potential drivers of land change In our study area, local land-use changes were dominate by high farmland abandonment rates of more than 60 % i the conflict zone. Concomitantly, we found a substantia displacement of agricultural activities into nearb Azerbaijani territory ([30 % of all abandoned land in th conflict zone was offset by new agricultural areas o Azerbaijani territory), likely as a consequence of refuge migrations. After the armed conflict ceased, only 17 % o the abandoned fields were re-cultivated, indicating that th land-use system may have transformed profoundly. Ou results showed that an armed conflict can have substantia impact on land use. Spatially, our results indicated tha armed conflicts may cause lasting land-use change in area distant from the actual battlegrounds, representing a example of a distant linkage in land systems, in our cas caused by refugee movements. Temporally, armed conflict appear to be able to cause a transition of the land-use syste into a new state, akin to other drastic socioeconomic shocks.
File: Bauman_etal_2015_RegEnvirCh.pdf
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In South American highland forests, domestic grazing can cause major changes in forest structure and soi quality thereby altering resources available to avian communities. However, the consequences of change in variability in plant growth forms after disturbance are little known. Understanding forest successio effects on avifauna is critical though, given that area in secondary forests is expected to increase in th future. We sampled bird communities at 172 sample points in Polylepis shrublands and forests patche in Argentina. For each of these points, we calculated vegetation variables (NDVI, NDVI texture indices) landscape pattern variables (patch area and connectivity), and human disturbance variables (erosion, distance to settlements and roads), based on a Landsat 5 TM image, a local land cover map, and topograph (slope and altitude) from a Digital Elevation Model. Bird communities in Polylepis forests include approximately twice as many species and double the abundance than those in shrublands. Species compositio strongly differed between the two growth forms as well, birds that use the ground vegetation t nest and forage were less abundant in shrubland patches, air foragers were also less abundant in shrublan patches. Soil erosion, proximity to human settlements and forest isolation were the best predictor of bird richness and abundance in Polylepis vegetation patches. Abundance of birds that use the groun for nesting and foraging were negatively related to soil erosion. We concluded that Polylepis avifaun communities are primarily influenced by human impact on soils rather than by vegetation structura characteristics. Polylepis vegetation restoration and reduction of livestock grazing would likely reduce soi erosion rates, promote natural regeneration, increase patch connectivity and enhance microhabitat condition for avifauna in high-altitude Polylepis forests and shrublands.
File: Bellis-et-al-2015_FEM.pdf
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Economic and social transition periods can have strong negative effects for the environment and for wildlife. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 provides a striking example of social turmoil and transition to a new society. It is unclear, however, how humans affected the environment in the course of the collapse, and if institutions designed to safeguard the environment continued to fulfill their intended role. Our goal was to assess the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on forest canopy removal rates in protected areas, and how these rates varied by protected area status and over time. We monitored forest canopy removal within and outside of protected areas using a 1985-2010 time series of Landsat satellite images from the Western Caucasus. On average, we found surprisingly low annual forest canopy removal rates of only 0.03%. The highest canopy removal inside of protected areas of all types occurred after 2000. Among the protected areas, we found the highest canopy removal rates within Sochi National Park, attributable to construction for the Olympic Games and in spite of the Park's protected status. Overall, it is encouraging that forest canopy removal rates in protected areas in the Western Caucasus are far lower than in other Russian regions. Because many local endemic plant and animal species are found in the Caucasus region, clear cuts are prohibited, and this regulation appears to be effective. However, forest canopy removal within protected areas caused by major social and political events such as the Olympic Games is of concern.
File: Bragina_etal_BioCons_2015.pdf
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Detailed knowledge of forest cover dynamics is crucial for many applications fromresource management to ecosystemservice assessments. Landsat data provides the necessary spatial, temporal and spectral detail to map and analyze forest cover and forest change processes. With the opening of the Landsat archive, new opportunities arise to monitor forest dynamics on regional to continental scales. In this study we analyzed changes in forest types, forest disturbances, and forest recovery for the Carpathian ecoregion in Eastern Europe. We generated a series of image composites at five year intervals between 1985 and 2010 and utilized a hybrid analysis strategy consisting of radiometric change classification, post-classification comparison and continuous index- and segment-based post-disturbance recovery assessment. For validation of the disturbance map we used a pointbased accuracy assessment, and assessed the accuracy of our forest type maps using forest inventory data and statistically sampled ground truth data for 2010. Our Carpathian-wide disturbance map achieved an overall accuracy of 86% and the forest type maps up to 73% accuracy.While our results suggested a small net forest increase in the Carpathians, almost 20% of the forests experienced stand-replacing disturbances over the past 25 years. Forest recovery seemed to only partly counterbalance thewidespread natural disturbances and clear-cutting activities. Disturbanceswere mostwidespread during the late 1980s and early 1990s, but someareas also exhibited extensive forest disturbances after 2000, especially in the Polish, Czech and Romanian Carpathians. Considerable shifts in forest composition occurred in the Carpathians, with disturbances increasingly affecting coniferous forests, and a relative decrease in coniferous and mixed forests. Both aspects are likely connected to an increased vulnerability of spruce plantations to pests and pathogens in the Carpathians. Overall, our results exemplify the highly dynamic nature of forest cover during times of socio-economic and institutional change, and highlight the value of the Landsat archive for monitoring these dynamics.
File: Griffith_etal_2014_RSE_0.pdf
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Drivers of biodiversity loss are increasingly broad in scale, requiring conservation planning to move towards range-wide assessments. This is especially challenging for migratory species, such as reindeer or caribou (Rangifer tarandus), which use only a small portion of their range at a given point in time, and for which some parts of their range, such as calving grounds, may be much more important than others. Our aim was to identify potential calving ground habitat of wild tundra reindeer populations throughout Russia, where scarce knowledge about seasonal reindeer habitat is an obstacle for conservation planning, and to assess possible impacts from oil and gas development and climate change.
File: Kuemmerle_etal_2014_DiversityandDistributions_0.pdf
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Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous United States to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared with a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and >10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and natural landscapes and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision.
File: Lawler_etal_2014_PNAS_0.pdf
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Freshwater ecosystems provide vital resources for humans and support high levels of biodiversity, yet are severely threatened throughout the world. The expansion of human land uses, such as urban and crop cover, typically degrades water quality and reduces freshwater biodiversity, thereby jeopardizing both biodiversity and ecosystem services. Identifying and mitigating future threats to freshwater ecosystems requires forecasting where land use changes are most likely. Our goal was to evaluate the potential consequences of future land use on freshwater ecosystems in the coterminous United States by comparing alternative scenarios of land use change (2001-2051) with current patterns of freshwater biodiversity and water quality risk. Using an econometric model, each of our land use scenarios projected greater changes in watersheds of the eastern half of the country, where freshwater ecosystems already experience higher stress from human activities. Future urban expansion emerged as a major threat in regions with high freshwater biodiversity (e.g., the Southeast) or severe water quality problems (e.g., the Midwest). Our scenarios reflecting environmentally oriented policies had some positive effects. Subsidizing afforestation for carbon sequestration reduced crop cover and increased natural vegetation in areas that are currently stressed by low water quality, while discouraging urban sprawl diminished urban expansion in areas of high biodiversity. On the other hand, we found that increases in crop commodity prices could lead to increased agricultural threats in areas of high freshwater biodiversity. Our analyses illustrate the potential for policy changes and market factors to influence future land use trends in certain regions of the country, with important consequences for freshwater ecosystems. Successful conservation of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services in the United States into the future will require attending to the potential threats and opportunities arising from policies and market changes affecting land use.
File: Martinuzzi-etal-GCB-2014_0.pdf
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Humans have altered land cover for centuries, and land-cover change is a main component of global change. Land use transition trajectories, such as the forest transition theory (i.e. switch from deforestation to stable or increasing forest cover), relate long term changes in land use to gradual changes in underlying drivers, such as economic development, demographic change, and urbanization. However, because only few studies examined land change over centuries, it is not clear how land cover changes during very long time-periods which are punctuated by shifts in socio-economics and policies, such as wars. Our goal here was to examine broad land change patterns and processes, and their main driving forces in Central and Eastern Europe during distinct periods of the past 250 years. We conducted a meta-analysis of 66 publications describing 102 case study locations and quanti?ed the main forest and agricultural changes in the Carpathian region since the 18th century. These studies captured gradual changes since the peak of the Austro-Hungarian Empire up to the accession to the European Union of most of the formerly socialist countries in the study region. Agricultural land-use increased during the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 70% of the case studies, but dropped sharply during and especially after the collapse of the Socialism (over 70% of the cases). The highest rates of abandonment occurred between 1990 and 2000. The Carpathian region experienced forest transition during the Interwar period (93% of the cases), and the forest expansion trend persisted after the collapse of Socialism (70% of the cases). In terms of the drivers, institutional and economic factors were most in?uential in shaping deforestation and agricultural expansion, while socio- demographics and institutional shifts were the key drivers of land abandonment. Our study highlights the drastic effects that socio-economic and institutional changes can have on land-use and land-cover change, and the value of longitudinal studies of land change to uncover these effects.
File: Munteanu_etal_LandUsePolicy_2014_0.pdf
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High rates of climate and land-use changes threaten biodiversity and ecosystem function, creating a need for integrated assessments and planning at regional to global scales. We develop a new approach to measure multivariate estimates of climate and land-use change that builds on recently developed measures of climate velocity, and apply it to assess the combined speeds of climate and land use for the conterminous US from 2001 to 2051. The combined speeds of climate and land-use change are highest in a broad north-to-south swath in the central US and in parts of the intermountain west. Climate speeds are roughly an order of magnitude higher than land-use speeds in most regions, but land-use speed is particularly high in the Appalachians and north-central forests. Joint speeds are low across much of the intermountain west. Our results highlight areas expected to be most vulnerable to changes in biodiversity and ecosystem function due to the individual or combined effects of climate and land-use change. The integration of climate and land-use scenarios suggests different conservation prioritization strategies from climate velocities and species alone.
File: Ordonez_etal_NatureClimateChange_2014.pdf
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