Listen, Learn, Liaise: Taking the Species Out of Species-At-Risk Through Engagement

Jones, Patricia S.; Downey, Brad A.; Downey, Brandy L.; Taylor, Katheryn; Miller, Amanda; Demaere, Craig

doi:10.1016/j.rala.2019.05.001

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Our findings support those of previous literature, such as the key role landowner trust of those administering stewardship programs plays in ensuring participation (Brain et al 2014), the importance of stakeholder engagement in conservation research and policymaking (Aoyama and Huntsinger 2019; Jones et al 2019), and the importance of incentives to support voluntary conservation actions (Ramsdell et al 2016). We contend that trust may be built through the use of a local program delivery agency that engages in meaningful, long‐term stakeholder engagement and collaboration.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Lessons learnt from multiple private land conservation programs in Canada to inform species at risk conservation

Reiter

Pittman

Ayambire

et al. 2022

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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Action at local scales is needed to reduce documented declines in global biodiversity. Agricultural land constitutes 6.8% of the surface area of Canada, including more than 20 million hectares of grazing pasture alone, providing habitat to many species at risk of extinction. In Canada, where a voluntary stewardship approach is the main strategy for species at risk conservation on privately owned and managed lands, the challenge is to create conservation programs that maximize participation. We reviewed research on voluntary conservation programs on agricultural lands from five Canadian provinces to understand which approaches were most effective in maximizing participation. The objective of this paper is to contribute to policy development for conservation on private lands in Canada. We highlight common themes from all five regions. Key findings include the value of establishing a local delivery agent for the program, and the importance of designing the program to be in alignment with existing agricultural operations. Private landowners may build trust with local program managers, and are more open to making subtle adjustments to their land management rather than major changes. We conclude with eight recommendations to support the development of high impact species at risk stewardship programs on agricultural lands in Canada.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Lessons learnt from multiple private land conservation programs in Canada to inform species at risk conservation

Reiter

Pittman

Ayambire

et al. 2022

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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“…Conservation of grassland birds will require collaboration with landholders because the occurrence of grassland birds is intertwined and depends on well-managed rangelands , Jones et al 2019. Beneficial management practices and strategies within programs such as MULTISAR may be able to contribute to grassland bird conservation by promoting habitat heterogeneity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We used data collected through the MULTISAR (Multiple Species At Risk; http://multisar.ca) program, which works closely with landowners and land managers in Alberta's grasslands. The program has a primary focus of striving for multispecies conservation at a landscape level while simultaneously aiming to benefit ranching operations (Jones et al 2019). Like other programs (e.g., Wyoming Partners in Flight 2002, Hyde and Campbell 2012), MULTISAR promotes habitat heterogeneity to benefit the greatest number of species.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity in selection patterns of five grassland songbirds in dry-mixed grasslands of Alberta

Landry-DeBoer¹,

Jones²,

Downey³

et al. 2023

ACE

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Declining grassland bird populations across North America continue to be a concern. Understanding local relationships between grassland bird abundance and vegetative and landscape characteristics will enable more prescriptive recommendations to be made to land managers. We used point count survey data collected by the MULTISAR (Multiple Species At Risk) program along with field measurements of habitat and landscape characteristics on 15 ranches in the Dry Mixed-grass Subregion in southern Alberta to improve our understandings of habitat relationships for five grassland bird species: Baird's Sparrow (Centronyx bairdii), Sprague's Pipit (Anthus spragueii), Thick-billed Longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii), Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus), and Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum). We used generalized linear mixed models to examine the relationship between the predicted abundance of a species and covariates that represented vegetative structure (e.g., litter), management (e.g., range health), and anthropogenic features (e.g., energy development) of habitat site selection. Model results demonstrate four vegetation structure covariates were of most importance for predicting abundance, including litter, vegetation height, bare soil, and shrub cover. Quadratic relationships were found with litter amounts for the predicted abundance of Baird's Sparrow, Chestnut-collared Longspur, and Grasshopper Sparrow. Contrastingly, higher amounts of litter reduced the predicted abundance of Thick-billed Longspur. The relationship of vegetation height was quadratic for Sprague's Pipit and was positive for Baird's Sparrow, but negative for Thick-billed Longspur. As bare soil percentage increased, the predicted abundance of Baird's Sparrow and Chestnut-collared Longspur decreased, with Sprague's Pipit showing a quadratic association. Negative relationships were found with increased amounts of shrub cover for Chestnut-collared Longspur, Sprague's Pipit, and Thick-billed Longspur. Our results help to further understand individual grassland bird species' habitat requirements, enabling us to provide land management recommendations for maintaining, improving, or creating the heterogenic environments needed for a variety of grassland birds in the Dry Mixed-grass Subregion. Diversité des tendances de sélection chez cinq passereaux de prairies mixtes sèches de l'AlbertaRÉSUMÉ. Le déclin des populations d'oiseaux de prairies en Amérique du Nord reste préoccupant. La compréhension des relations locales entre l'abondance des oiseaux de prairies et les caractéristiques de la végétation et du paysage permettra de formuler des recommandations plus normatives à l'intention des gestionnaires de terres. Nous avons utilisé des données de dénombrement par points d'écoute recueillies dans le cadre du programme MULTISAR (Multiple Species At Risk) ainsi que des mesures sur le terrain de caractéristiques de l'habitat et du paysage dans 15 ranchs de la sous-région de prairies mixtes sèches dans le sud de l'Alberta pour améliorer notre compréh...

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“…In the NSS system, a matrix of private/publicly owned working rangelands that connect intact grasslands across the international boundary is likely more achievable and effective at maintaining ecosystem processes than large gains in protected areas (Tack et al, 2019). An alternative to protected areas that encompass intact grasslands would be to conserve working rangelands and reward private landowners for the ecosystem goods and services (Jones, Downey, et al, 2019). In addition, the allocation of funds to expand this land base via restoration practices (Downey et al, 2013) will be required, as this landscape is home to many declining species for which their currently available habitats fail to produce the templates necessary for recovery.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ultimately, partnerships that leverage funding across sources provide a roadmap for prioritizing future conservation actions. Non-governmental organizations, and biome-level initiatives that are not beholden to species centric objectives may be ideal brokers for conservation in these landscapes, and can work closely with agencies and private landowners to best facilitate species and associated habitats (Jones, Downey, et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassland intactness outcompetes species as a more efficient surrogate in conservation design

Tack,

Jakes,

Jones

et al. 2023

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Mapped representations of species−habitat relationships often underlie approaches to prioritize area‐based conservation strategies to meet conservation goals for biodiversity. Generally a single surrogate species is used to inform conservation design, with the assumption that conservation actions for an appropriately selected species will confer benefits to a broader community of organisms. Emerging conservation frameworks across western North America are now relying on derived measures of intactness from remotely sensed vegetation data, wholly independent from species data. Understanding the efficacy of species‐agnostic planning approaches is a critical step to ensuring the robustness of emerging conservation designs. We developed an approach to quantify ‘strength of surrogacy’, by applying prioritization algorithms to previously developed species models, and measuring their coverage provided to a broader wildlife community. We used this inference to test the relative surrogacy among a suite of species models used for conservation targeting in the endangered grasslands of the Northern Sagebrush Steppe, where careful planning can help stem the loss of private grazing lands to cultivation. In this test, we also derived a simpler surrogate of intact rangelands without species data for conservation targeting, along with a measure of combined migration representative of key areas for connectivity. Our measure of intactness vastly outperformed any species model as a surrogate for conservation, followed by that of combined migration, highlighting the efficacy of strategies that target large and intact rangeland cores for wildlife conservation and restoration efforts.

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Listen, Learn, Liaise: Taking the Species Out of Species-At-Risk Through Engagement

Cited by 5 publications

References 16 publications

Lessons learnt from multiple private land conservation programs in Canada to inform species at risk conservation

Lessons learnt from multiple private land conservation programs in Canada to inform species at risk conservation

Diversity in selection patterns of five grassland songbirds in dry-mixed grasslands of Alberta

Grassland intactness outcompetes species as a more efficient surrogate in conservation design

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