Effects of land use management on biotic integrity: An investigation of bird communities

Glennon, Michale J.; Porter, William F.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2005.06.029

Cited by 71 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Roads present barriers to wildlife movement, are a direct cause of mortality to wildlife, and act to increase introductions of non-native species (Fahrig et al, 1995;Forman & Alexander, 1998;Gibbs & Shriver, 2002;Mader, 1984). Conversely, roadless areas have higher levels of native diversity and fewer invasive species (Glennon & Porter, 2005). As development continues, we can expect core habitat areas to decrease in size, number, and quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connectivity Conservation

Crooks¹,

Sanjayan²

2006

477

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a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oThe exurbanization process, particularly rural residential development, is reducing the amount of roadless areas and remote habitat across the nation, with implications for biodiversity and ecosystem integrity of parks and protected areas. The need for connecting protected areas via existing habitat centers, or relatively undisturbed core areas, is greater than ever as exurbanization expands. Our objective was to make use of nationally available data sets on roads as well as information derived from satellite imagery, including impervious cover of the built environment and forest canopy density, to identify core habitat of the northeastern and mid-Atlantic USA. The identified core habitat areas, which covered 73,730 km 2 across 1177 discrete units, were stratified in terms of land ownership and management, and then analyzed in a landscape context using connectivity metrics derived from graph theory. The connectivity analysis made use of a suitability surface, derived from the land cover information, which approximated the costs incurred by hypothetical animals traversing the landscape. We show that protected areas are frequently identified as core habitat but are typically isolated, albeit sometimes buffered by adjacent multi-use lands (such as state or national forests). Over one third of the core habitat we identified has no protection, and another 42% is subject to motorized recreation or timber extraction. We provide maps showing the relative importance of core habitat areas for potentially connecting existing protected areas, and also provide an example of the vulnerability of connectivity to projected future residential development around one greater park ecosystem.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connectivity Conservation

Crooks¹,

Sanjayan²

2006

477

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“…The value of species assemblages as indicators of ecosystem health has been recognized by many other researchers (Karr and Chu 1997, Bradford et al 1998, Canterbury et al 2000, O'Connell et al 2000, Browder et al 2002, Bryce et al 2002, Glennon and Porter 2005, Howe et al 2007a. In this analysis we used all bird species that were adequately abundant and showed consistent responses to environmental disturbance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We then calculated the distance to the nearest road or railroad (U.S. Census Bureau 2000a, 2011b, 2012 using the ArcGIS 10.0 Near tool (Environmental Systems Research Institute 2011). Our road variables can be interpreted as indirect surrogates of human development (Glennon and Porter 2005) and forest management intensity, in the absence of more direct variables like tree size and forest structure.…”

Section: Model Development and Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of breeding birds to the “human footprint” in western Great Lakes forest landscapes

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Breeding birds in forest ecosystems are generally diverse, habitat selective, and easily sampled. Because they must integrate environmental variables over space and time, local populations of forest birds (like other animal and plant taxa) may provide meaningful signals of local forest health or degradation. We evaluated 949 breeding bird surveys in areas ranging from degraded urban/suburban forest remnants to relatively pristine old growth forests in the western Laurentian Great Lakes region of North America. The ''human footprint'' across this landscape was represented by a one-dimensional numeric gradient derived from land cover variables, forest fragmentation metrics, and publicly available data on housing density and transportation corridors. We used an iterative, maximum likelihood approach to quantify species-specific responses to this human disturbance gradient. Many species showed significant directional responses, consistent with known life history attributes. Other species were most commonly detected at intermediate levels of anthropogenic disturbance, yielding unimodal responses. Relationships between the ''human footprint'' and occurrences of 38 bird species were illustrated by general Gaussian functions that represented both unidirectional and unimodal patterns. These biotic response (BR) functions were combined into a bird-based index of ecological condition (IEC) ranging from 0 (maximally degraded) to 10 (minimally degraded). We described a successful application of the IEC method at the Wild Rivers Legacy Forest (WRLF), a .260 km 2 conservation landscape in northeastern Wisconsin, USA, managed primarily under a working forest conservation easement established in 2006. In general, areas within the WRLF yielded high IEC values (7.0-9.0), but nearby forest areas not under the conservation easement were characterized by significantly lower IEC values based on breeding bird assemblages.

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“…Karr and Dudley (1981) defined ecological integrity as " the capability of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of natural habitat of the region". This definition has been adopted by many authors including Andreason (2001), Bedoya (2009), Diffendorfer (2007) and Glennon (2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Quantitative Index of Integrity as a Comprehensive Measure in Ecological Change Analysis

2015

AEER

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Abstract. Ecological Integrity is one of the main scientific measures in the comprehensive assessment of ecosystems. The purpose of this study was to: (a) find a way to depict the disturbance gradient of our case study in northern Iran (b) develop an index of biotic integrity; (c) finally provide a baseline for assessing ecological integrity. Analytical metrics of spatial composition and configuration were applied to identify the disturbance gradient. Estimating of these metrics helped to define three levels of disturbance using the Ward's method of clustering analysis. A quantitative index of integrity was constructed, using three types of bird guilds including structural, functional and compositional .Results showed the range of integrity index at Miankaleh Peninsula was a value from 26 to 68. Statistical analysis including One-Way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation and paired sample t-test were conducted to investigate the validity and reliability of the Index. Findings of this research showed that biotic integrity in parts of the Miankaleh Peninsula was far from its intact condition. Developed index of biological integrity in this research can help to assess effects of the disturbance factors on the natural ecosystem of Miankaleh to prioritize the best management actions for restoring of this ecosystem.

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Effects of land use management on biotic integrity: An investigation of bird communities

Cited by 71 publications

References 34 publications

Connectivity Conservation

Connectivity Conservation

Sensitivity of breeding birds to the “human footprint” in western Great Lakes forest landscapes

Developing a Quantitative Index of Integrity as a Comprehensive Measure in Ecological Change Analysis

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