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.
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.
Historic land use can exert strong land-use legacies, i.e., long-lasting effects on ecosystems, but the importance of land-use legacies, alongside other factors, for subsequent forest-cover change is unclear. If past land use affects rates of forest disturbance and afforestation then this may constrain land use planning and land management options, and legacies of current land management may constrain future land use. Our goal was to assess if and how much land-use legacies affect contemporary forest disturbance, and the abundance of different forest types in the Carpathian region in Eastern Europe (265,000 km2 , encompassing parts of Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and Czech Republic). We modeled contemporary forest disturbance (based on satellite image analysis from 1985 to 2010) as a function of historic land use (based on digitized topographic maps from 1860 and 1960). Contemporary forest disturbance was strongly related to historic land use even when controlling for environmental, accessibility and socio-political variation. Across the Carpathian region, the odds of forest disturbance were about 50% higher in areas that were not forested in 1860 (new forests) compared to areas that were forested then (old forests). The forest disturbance in new forests was particularly high in Poland (88% higher odds), Slovakia (69%) and Romania (67%) and persisted across the entire range of environmental, accessibility and socio-political variation. Reasons for the observed legacy effects may include extensive plantations outside forest ranges, predominantly spruce, poplar, and black locust, which are prone to natural disturbances. Furthermore, as plantations reach harvestable age of about 70 years for pulp and 120 year for saw-timber production, these are likely to be clear-cut, producing the observed legacy effects. Across the Carpathians, forest types shifted towards less coniferous cover in 2010 compared to the 1860s and 1960s likely due to extensive historic conifer harvest, and to recent natural disturbance events and clear-cuts of forest plantations. Our results underscore the importance of land-use legacies, and show that past land uses can greatly affect subsequent forest disturbance for centuries. Given rapid land use changes worldwide, it is important to understand how past legacies affect current management and what the impact of current land management decisions may be for future land use.
Protected areas are crucial for biodiversity conservation because they provide safe havens for species threatened by land-use change and resulting habitat loss. However, protected areas are only effective when they stop habitat loss within their boundaries, and are connected via corridors to other wild areas. The effectiveness of protected areas is threatened by development; however, the extent of this threat is unknown. We compiled spatially-detailed housing growth data from 1940 to 2030, and quantified growth for each wilderness area, national park, and national forest in the conterminous United States. Our findings show that housing development in the United States may severely limit the ability of protected areas to function as a modern “Noah’s Ark.” Between 1940 and 2000, 28 million housing units were built within 50 km of protected areas, and 940,000 were built within national forests. Housing growth rates during the 1990s within 1 km of protected areas (20% per decade) outpaced the national average (13%). If long-term trends continue, another 17 million housing units will be built within 50 km of protected areas by 2030 (1 million within 1 km), greatly diminishing their conservation value. US protected areas are increasingly isolated, housing development in their surroundings is decreasing their effective size, and national forests are even threatened by habitat loss within their administrative boundaries. Protected areas in the United States are thus threatened similarly to those in developing countries. However, housing growth poses the main threat to protected areas in the United States whereas deforestation is the main threat in developing countries.
Protected areas are crucial for biodiversity conservation because they provide safe havens for species threatened by land-use change and resulting habitat loss. However, protected areas are only effective when they stop habitat loss within their boundaries, and are connected via corridors to other wild areas. The effectiveness of protected areas is threatened by development; however, the extent of this threat is unknown. We compiled spatially-detailed housing growth data from 1940 to 2030, and quantified growth for each wilderness area, national park, and national forest in the conterminous United States. Our findings show that housing development in the United States may severely limit the ability of protected areas to function as a modern “Noah’s Ark.” Between 1940 and 2000, 28 million housing units were built within 50 km of protected areas, and 940,000 were built within national forests. Housing growth rates during the 1990s within 1 km of protected areas (20% per decade) outpaced the national average (13%). If long-term trends continue, another 17 million housing units will be built within 50 km of protected areas by 2030 (1 million within 1 km), greatly diminishing their conservation value. US protected areas are increasingly isolated, housing development in their surroundings is decreasing their effective size, and national forests are even threatened by habitat loss within their administrative boundaries. Protected areas in the United States are thus threatened similarly to those in developing countries. However, housing growth poses the main threat to protected areas in the United States whereas deforestation is the main threat in developing countries.
Land-use change significantly contributes to biodiversity loss, invasive species spread, changes in biogeochemical cycles, and the loss of ecosystem services. Planning for a sustainable future requires a thorough understanding of expected land use at the fine spatial scales relevant for modeling many ecological processes and at dimensions appropriate for regional or national-level policy making. Our goal was to construct and parameterize an econometric model of land-use change to project future land use to the year 2051 at a fine spatial scale across the conterminous United States under several alternative land-use policy scenarios. We parameterized the econometric model of land-use change with the National Resource Inventory (NRI) 1992 and 1997 land-use data for 844 000 sample points. Land-use transitions were estimated for five land-use classes (cropland, pasture, range, forest, and urban). We predicted land-use change under four scenarios: business-as-usual, afforestation, removal of agricultural subsidies, and increased urban rents. Our results for the business-as usual scenario showed widespread changes in land use, affecting 36% of the land area of the conterminous United States, with large increases in urban land (79%) and forest (7%), and declines in cropland (16%) and pasture (13%). Areas with particularly high rates of landuse change included the larger Chicago area, parts of the Pacific Northwest, and the Central Valley of California. However, while land-use change was substantial, differences in results among the four scenarios were relatively minor. The only scenario that was markedly different was the afforestation scenario, which resulted in an increase of forest area that was twice as high as the business-as-usual scenario. Land-use policies can affect trends, but only so much. The basic economic and demographic factors shaping land-use changes in the United States are powerful, and even fairly dramatic policy changes, showed only moderate deviations from the business-as-usual scenario. Given the magnitude of predicted land-use change, any attempts to identify a sustainable future or to predict the effects of climate change will have to take likely land-use changes into account. Econometric models that can simulate land-use change for broad areas with fine resolution are necessary to predict trends in ecosystem service provision and biodiversity persistence.
Land-use change significantly contributes to biodiversity loss, invasive species spread, changes in biogeochemical cycles, and the loss of ecosystem services. Planning for a sustainable future requires a thorough understanding of expected land use at the fine spatial scales relevant for modeling many ecological processes and at dimensions appropriate for regional or national-level policy making. Our goal was to construct and parameterize an econometric model of land-use change to project future land use to the year 2051 at a fine spatial scale across the conterminous United States under several alternative land-use policy scenarios. We parameterized the econometric model of land-use change with the National Resource Inventory (NRI) 1992 and 1997 land-use data for 844 000 sample points. Land-use transitions were estimated for five land-use classes (cropland, pasture, range, forest, and urban). We predicted land-use change under four scenarios: business-as-usual, afforestation, removal of agricultural subsidies, and increased urban rents. Our results for the business-as usual scenario showed widespread changes in land use, affecting 36% of the land area of the conterminous United States, with large increases in urban land (79%) and forest (7%), and declines in cropland (16%) and pasture (13%). Areas with particularly high rates of landuse change included the larger Chicago area, parts of the Pacific Northwest, and the Central Valley of California. However, while land-use change was substantial, differences in results among the four scenarios were relatively minor. The only scenario that was markedly different was the afforestation scenario, which resulted in an increase of forest area that was twice as high as the business-as-usual scenario. Land-use policies can affect trends, but only so much. The basic economic and demographic factors shaping land-use changes in the United States are powerful, and even fairly dramatic policy changes, showed only moderate deviations from the business-as-usual scenario. Given the magnitude of predicted land-use change, any attempts to identify a sustainable future or to predict the effects of climate change will have to take likely land-use changes into account. Econometric models that can simulate land-use change for broad areas with fine resolution are necessary to predict trends in ecosystem service provision and biodiversity persistence.
Hillside of village sacred forest with view of valley below
In northwestern Yunnan, China, certain patches of forests are considered sacred. What does that mean? It means that people go into the forest to pray or to offer gifts to their same gods because they believe their lives will be blessed and successful if they do so. Jodi was interested in the biodiversity of sacred forests and inventoried which bird species occur there. Jodi end up publishing a bird field guide both in English and in Mandarin as a result of her work (Birds of Shangrila PDF). Later on, Teri conducted interviews with locals because she was interested in understanding how local people see sacred forests, but also to understand if an extra conservation status was necessary in order to preserve these little patches.
Conducting survey about sacred village forests
As a result of the interviews, Teri came to the conclusion that people do not see the forest as a wildlife habitat or as an area that provides other ecosystem service such as clean water or soil protection. Instead, the sacred forests serve the single purpose of pleasing the gods and thereby ensure that people’s lives go on smoothly. This perception of the forest is the same across genders and age groups, which indicates that unless there is a major shift in the local belief system, there is no immediate danger of losing village sacred forest areas.”
James and Martin Gilbert at a workshop organized by Wildlife Conservation Society to determine detectability of White-naped Cranes in eastern Mongolia
James Burnham is a Ph.D. student whose research questions came out of a conservation organization’s needs. James encountered firsthand experience how different and yet how connected the two worlds of academia and conservation are. The need from the conservation side was a “too broad”, open-ended question that needed to be split into several smaller research tasks to be scientifically feasible. However, the task of finding the specific research question that answers the conservation question was a challenge. Clearly conservation and research have different priorities and different time scales at which each operate. Reconciling the differences can be hard and it adds a layer of difficulty to both science and conservation, each of which is already difficult on its own.In a perfect world, conservation builds upon research. The idea is that conservation deals with limited resources of time and money and these have to be optimized. In order to do that, conservation decisions should be based on the best available research.
James and Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve collaborator Wu Xudong
However, conservation organizations and their supporters want to see results in the short to medium-term, but research takes months or years. Especially when conservation related questions require field work to inform and help shape conclusions and solutions, time is a major drawback and things can take up to several years before researchers can draw a solid conclusion.In addition to the time issue, academia creates peer pressure and the way the “Ivory tower” world is organized. Inferring conclusions from observable patterns is not accepted in science. The scientific method is ingrained in the minds of scientists. By default, scientists are more comfortable with situations that can be replicable and done in controlled environments. However, there is rarely a setting similar to a controlled environment in nature! “If Darwin was trying to publish his research today, he would most likely be rejected by most journals and by his peers”, says James. It may be necessary to change that mindset and be more mindful to the logistic constrains that are inherent in field-based conservation science.
A typical day in the field as James takes detailed location data of wintering Siberian Cranes at China’s Poyang Lake
Finally, the way conservationists and researchers deal and see each other adds another layer of complexity. On one hand, conservationists look at researchers as the genie in the bottle that can answer any question. On the other hand, researchers see conservationists as their validation tool, i.e., the means to test the researchers’ hypotheses and results. Both sides need to be more explicit on what they want and need and that, in James’s opinion, does not happen enough. Finding a way to balance the expectations on both sides would lead to more effective conservation, more effective use of time, applied research would go faster and therefore, make a difference faster!
Academia versus conservationists (From: https://allthingslearning.wordpress.com/tag/ivory-tower/)
The bottom line is that both sides have things to learn from each other. Conservationists are really good at highlighting that what they do is important and necessary without being caught up in the details of how they will do it. Public opinion on conservation is generally positive and there is a feeling of urgency. Researchers are good at being precise and methodic, and careful about drawing conclusions too fast. However, researchers need to learn to see past the methods. Poking holes in someone else’s methods is easy, and this is what researchers are trained to do. Ultimately though, researchers need to be able to see past it and listen to the message, while conservationists need to be patient and trust research more.Balancing these two worlds has the biggest potential benefit for all of us. And that is what James faces every day, and tries to balance in his own work.“
Many animal and plant species found in areas where they did not occur in the past. These newcomers are known as invasive species. The consequences of having a new species could benefit the system by bringing new ecosystem services to the areas such as new pollinators for crops. Unfortunately in many cases the new species can have negative impacts at the community level by competing with local species and even displacing them. Diana is particularly interested in a species that has had mainly negative consequences for other species in places wherever it was introduced, the mongoose. Mongooses ( Herpestes auropunctatus) are native from India, and were introduced to Caribbean and Pacific islands at the end of the 20th century. These predators were brought into the area to control rats (another invasive) that were affecting sugarcane plantations. However, mongooses didn’t only eat rats it also local island species such as birds, amphibians and reptiles. Therefore this new species caused the decline and extinction of local species without eradicating the rat problem.
Mongoose in the live trap will be checked for disease
Local and federal agencies have tried to remove or reduce populations of mongoose from the islands but have failed because mongoose populations grew rapidly. Although they are omnivorous, mongooses keep predate especially local populations of ground nesting birds and marine tortoises among other species. However, there is little knowledge of the extent of the problem: how mongooses behave, its biology in the island, which species is eating the most or how the populations are related within and between islands.
Diana is studying mongooses in Puerto Rico from multiple angles, to have a bigger picture of the problem. She wants to know where the mongooses populations are and how well connected the populations are to each other. She considers that populations that are connected are more difficult to manage, because removed mongooses will be easily replaced by individuals of adjacent connected populations. Diana will use molecular techniques to identify these connection patterns and how are natural or artificial barriers and other habitat features in the landscape limiting mongoose dispersal. She also wants to know what are preferred prey species of different populations of mongoose. By using stable isotopes, she will track the source of food of mongooses.
Probability of mongoose occupying habitats in eastern Puerto Rico. Connectivity prediction was done using 34 mongooses trapped on the eastern part of the island via CIRCUITSCAPE using structural resistance. (Data on Cabo Rojo NWR was excluded)
Ultimately, Diana will have a sense of how the overall island community of wildlife species is assembled, having this predator already stablished from over a century. This information will be useful for wildlife managers and biologist who will know how the mongoose is distributed and prioritize areas to control the populations. With information about the trophic position and links of this predator, she will provide the base for research questions related to novel animal community assemblies and resilience after species introductions.
Figure 1. Location of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere reserve in central Mexico
In central Mexico, there is a geographically and biologically unique space featuring a mosaic of a varied diversity of flora and fauna, the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Yet similar to other reserves in the world, human and climate drivers are changing the unique conditions of this area at an accelerated rate (Figure 2). However, this reserve remains home to important protected and endangered species that are struggling to find optimal habitat conditions elsewhere, thus it is important to identify potential areas that are suitable for keep these animal populations.Jaguar (Panthera onca) is one of these endangered species, and essential in the faunal community because of its position as a top predator (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Jaguar captured in a camera trap by Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda
Furthermore, the presence of jaguars is an indicator of the health of the ecosystems and by conserving its habitat we can also protect other species. However, is very difficult to allocate efforts to large areas and therefore we need to identify and prioritize the most important zones capable to host jaguars.In the SILVIS lab, Carlos Ramirez Reyes, created a potential species distribution model for jaguars based on presence data and using factors than can affect their distribution such as topography, landcover and precipitation among others (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Potential distribution for jaguars in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve
Based on this model, he identified areas inside within and outside the reserve that could host jaguars. Additionally, by adding connectivity parameters to the models (Figure 4), he evaluated if habitat connectivity actually improves the potential distribution model for the reserve. The goal was to find patches of potential habitat that are critical for connectivity of the entire reserve.
Figure 4. Relative importance of potential habitat patches to maintain the connectivity of the system
With his research Carlos hopes to gain better knowledge for the habitat requirements of the jaguar in the region. Ultimately, the project should serve to inform nongovernmental organizations and government agencies with interests in the reserve to make decisions on how to distribute resources for the management of the species and prioritize areas that should be protected. Furthermore, this project includes a new method for obtaining potential areas through the use of landscape connectivity. Similar projects that aim to model potential species distribution can benefit from this technique given that landscape connectivity is also important for animal dispersal and gene flow in fragmented landscapes. “
Max made a technological contribution to both the fields of wildlife ecology, and parks & recreation by developing a device to measure how heavily trails are used. His goal was to quantify both group size and frequency of groups (groups/hour) along a given trail, but the available solutions were more than his research budget could manage. Having someone count hikers all day along several trails required more personnel than was practical. Meanwhile, he worried that sampling use in small time periods would provide representative data, because trail use varies throughout the day. The idea to use an automatic sensor was desirable, but the options on the market were too expensive. So he collaborated with someone with technical expertise to invent a tool that met his needs.
Components of the Trail Monitor inside a protective weather-proof box
The solution was found in open source software and DIY hardware. First, he acquired a passive infrared (PIR) sensor that can detect warm-bodied objects that passed by (these are the same types of sensors that control automatic light switches by detecting when someone walks into a room). Then, he connected this sensor to an Arduino Uno board (http://www.arduino.cc/) that supports open source software. The board receives input from the sensor, and can be controlled by a user-written script. This is connected to a data logging shield (http://www.adafruit.com/product/1141) which contains a clock and an SD card to store data. Then, the data can be imported Excel sheet. Max used pivot tables to translate the sensor’s detections into his variables of interest. For example, the duration of time the sensor is activated can be used as an index of the number of people in a group passing by.
Installing a trail monitor along a trail
Max’s invention is a great alternative to what’s commercially available, in part due to the price point: one of Max’s units costs less than $250, in contrast to commercially available counters that cost about $1000/unit. Also, Max’s device can be left out in the woods for about a week between battery replacement. Its relatively small size means it can be easily hidden, which makes it relatively safe from tampering. Thus, Max continues to produce technology that will likely be used by many researchers in the future! “
