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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Himalayan forests are undergoing rapid changes due to population growth and economic development and their associated bird communities are among the most threatened and least-studied on earth. In the Chinese Himalaya, traditionally managed Tibetan sacred forests are keystone structures for forest bird conservation. Yet, it remains unclear which fine-scale habitat characteristics of the sacred forests are best associated with Himalayan forest bird species. Our goal here was to quantify the relationship between forest habitat characteristics and bird communities in Tibetan sacred forests to understand habitat associations of common forest birds in the Chinese Himalaya. In 2010 and 2011, we conducted bird point counts and habitat surveys at 62, 50-m radius, sample points distributed within and adjacent to six Tibetan sacred forests in northwest Yunnan, China. From this data, we constructed habitat-occupancy relationship models for 35 bird species and documented tree-use patterns of 14 common arboreal foraging bird species. Our modeling results revealed that large diameter trees and heterogeneity in vertical vegetation structure were the most important habitat characteristics, and were positively associated with occupancy of 63 % of the study bird species. Furthermore, we found that occupancy of eight bird species of conservation concern was related to specific thresholds of forest integrity characteristics. For example, predicted occupancy of three of eight species was high in forested habitats with[15 % bamboo cover and was greatly reduced when bare ground cover exceeded 5 %. We found that bird species foraged on pine (Pinus densata, 58 % more than it was available) and poplar (Populus davidiana, 41 %) in higher proportion to their availability, but that foraging success was highest on fir (Abies spp.), oak (Quercus spp.), willow (Salix spp.) and Chinese Larch (Larix potaninii). Our findings suggest that, although conservation is not a primary management goal of Tibetan sacred forests, these lands harbor critical habitat features for forest breeding birds of the Chinese Himalaya.
File: Wood_etal_2015_Birds_TibetanSacredForests_0.pdf
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Conservation plans are commonly used tools for prioritizing areas for protection, but plan implementation is ofte limited and rarely formally evaluated. Without evaluations of planning outcomes, it is difficult to justify expendin resources to develop new plans and to adapt future plans so they are more likely to achieve desired conservatio outcomes. We evaluated implementation of four conservation plans in Wisconsin, USA, by quantifying land protectio within plan boundaries over time. We found that 44% of lands inside plans are currently protected, compared t 5% outside plans. We then asked which environmental, institutional, and socio-economic factors explained implementatio of the most recent (2008) plan by the state natural resources agency. Institutional and environmenta metrics related to agency policy and past actions explained 61% of implementation variability among individual priorit areas within the plan: the agency having secured acquisition authority (a policy requirement) and subsequentl successfully protected land in the priority area prior to the conservation plan being completed, and acquiring lan near open water (a policy priority). Our findings suggest that implementation is possible under a wide variety o socio-economic settings and indicate that development of new conservation plans may not necessarily lead to actio in new locations in the near term, but rather may facilitate action in locations where the institutional groundwor for action has already been laid. Considering institutional policies of active conservation partners in the developmen of future conservation plans can facilitate identification of priority areas that are more likely to correspond with onthe-groun implementation opportunities.
File: Carter_etal_2015_BiologicalConservation.pdf
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Identifying the pollinators of Rhododendron species is of great interest due to potential conservation threats in the native range of the genus, but the pollinators of species in Rhododendron subgenus Hymenanthes section Pontica subsection Neriiflora are unknown. Bees (Hymenoptera; family Apidae) are thought to be the pollinators of many Rhododendron species; however, species in subsection Neriiflora have ornithophilous floral morphology. We studied R. floccigerum (subsection Neriiflora) to determine the identities of visiting, potentially pollinating, and robbing species through in-person and time lapsed camera trap observations. We compared floral morphological characteristics of R. floccigerum with visitor morphological measurements to determine if visitors could fit inside the corolla. Thirteen species were observed visiting R. floccigerum (two insects, two mammals, and nine birds) and this study provides the first empirical evidence of both bird and mammal visitors to Rhododendron species. We determined that the following species are potential pollinators: Bombus sp. (an insect genus), Aethopyga gouldiae, Garrulax affinis, Heterophasia melanoleuca, and Yuhina diademata (all bird species), and we suspect that Apis sp. (an insect genus), Dremomys pernyi, Tamiops swinhoei (two mammal species), Minla ignotincta, M. strigula, Parus major, and Phylloscopus affinis (four bird species) likely rob R. floccigerum. All visitors were able to fit their heads/bodies into the corolla. We also found that though predation is frequent, the number of robbers and variety of robbing methods is unlikely to contribute to floral morphological evolution or speciation. Further understanding of the pollination biology of species in subgenus Hymenanthes will allow for effective conservation.
File: Georgian_etal_2015_PollinationEcology.pdf
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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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The onset of spring plant growth has shifted earlier in the year over the past several decades due t rising global temperatures. Earlier spring onset may cause phenological mismatches between th availability of plant resources and dependent animals, and potentially lead to more false springs, whe subsequent freezing temperatures damage new plant growth. We used the extended spring indices t project changes in spring onset, defined by leaf out and by first bloom, and predicted false springs unti 2100 in the conterminous United States(US) using statistically-downscaled climate projections fro the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 ensemble. Averaged over our study region, the media shift in spring onset was 23 days earlier in the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario wit particularly large shifts in the Western US and the Great Plains. Spatial variation in phenology was du to the influence of short-term temperature changes around the time of spring onset versus seasonlon accumulation of warm temperatures. False spring risk increased in the Great Plains and portion of the Midwest, but remained constant or decreased elsewhere. We conclude that global climat change may have complex and spatially variable effects on spring onset and false springs, making loca predictions of change difficult.
File: Allstadt_etal_2015_EnvResLet.pdf
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In an increasingly human-dominated world, conservation requires the mitigation of conflicts between large mammals and people. Conflicts are particularly problematic when resources are limited, such as at wintering sites. Such conflicts have fragmented many large mammal populations, making reintroductions in suitable sites necessary. Broad-scale habitat suitability mapping can help to identify sites for species' reintroductions. The European bison is a good example of a large mammal that is restricted to only a fraction of its former range. The goal of our study was to identify and assess potential habitat for European bison in the Caucasus Mountains, which is a part of its former range and has the potential to harbor larger populations. Specifically, we used seasonal presence data from four reintroduced European bison populations and two sets of predictor variables to: (i) map habitat suitability for summer and winter, (ii) characterize habitat based on management-relevant categories that capture the potential for conflicts with people, and (iii) identify candidate sites for reintroductions. We found substantial areas of suitable habitat. However, areas of potential conflicts with people were widespread and often near highly suitable areas. We identified 69 potential reintroduction sites (10 230 km2 , 1.8% of the ecoregion) that have suitable summer and winter habitat with relatively low risk of human-wildlife conflict. These results can guide conservation efforts in establishing a viable European bison metapopulation in the Caucasus ecoregion. More broadly, our results highlight the need to map large mammal habitat suitability for different seasons in order to derive meaningful conservation recommendations.
File: Bleyhl_etal_2015_BioCons.pdf
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Anecdotal evidence suggests that socioeconomic shocks strongly affect wildlife populations, bu quantitative evidence is sparse. The collapse of socialism in Russia in 1991 caused a major socioeconomi shock, including a sharp increase in poverty. We analyzed population trends of 8 large mammals in Russi from 1981 to 2010 (i.e., before and after the collapse). We hypothesized that the collapse would first caus population declines, primarily due to overexploitation, and then population increases due to adaptation o wildlife to new environments following the collapse. The long-term Database of the Russian Federal Agenc of Game Mammal Monitoring, consisting of up to 50,000 transects that are monitored annually, provide an exceptional data set for investigating these population trends. Three species showed strong declines i population growth rates in the decade following the collapse, while grey wolf (Canis lupus) increased by mor than 150%. After 2000 some trends reversed. For example, roe deer (Capreolus spp.) abundance in 201 was the highest of any period in our study. Likely reasons for the population declines in the 1990s includ poaching and the erosion of wildlife protection enforcement. The rapid increase of the grey wolf populations i likely due to the cessation of governmental population control. In general, the widespread declines in wildlif populations after the collapse of the Soviet Union highlight the magnitude of the effects that socioeconomi shocks can have on wildlife populations and the possible need for special conservation efforts during suc times.
File: Bragina_et_al_CB_2015.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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Assessing landscape connectivity is important to understand the ecology of landscapes and to evaluate alternative conservation strategies. The question is though, how to quantify connectivity appropriately, especially when the information available about the suitability of the matrix surrounding habitat is limited. Our goal here was to investigate the effects of matrix representation on assessments of the connectivityamong habitat patches and of the relative importance of individual patches for the connectivity within a habitat network. We evaluated a set of 50 9 50 km2 test areas in the Carpathian Mountains and considered three different matrix representations (binary, categorical and continuous) using two types of connections among habitat patches (shortest lines and least-cost paths). We compared connections, and the importance of patches, based on (1) isolation, (2) incidencefunctional, and (3) graph measures. Our results showed that matrix representation can greatly affect assessments of connections (i.e., connection length, effective distance, and spatial location), but not patch prioritization. Although patch importance was not much affected by matrix representation, it was influenced by the connectivity measure and its parameterization. We found the biggest differences in the case of the integral index of connectivity and equally weighted patches, but no consistent pattern in response to changing dispersal distance. Connectivity assessments in more fragmented landscapes were more sensitive to the selection of matrix representation. Although we recommend using continuous matrix representation whenever possible, our results indicated that simpler matrix representations can be also used as a proxy to delineate those patches that are important for overall connectivity, but not to identify connections among habitat patches.
File: Ziolkowska_etal_LandscapeEcol_2014.pdf
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