Strategic Grassland Bird Conservation throughout the Annual Cycle: Linking Policy Alternatives, Landowner Decisions, and Biological Population Outcomes

Abstract

Grassland bird habitat has declined substantially in the United States. Remaining grasslands are increasingly fragmented, mostly privately owned, and vary greatly in terms of habitat quality and protection status. A coordinated strategic response for grassland bird conservation is difficult, largely due to the scope and complexity of the problem, further compounded by biological, sociological, and economic uncertainties. We describe the results from a collaborative Structured Decision Making (SDM) workshop focused on linking social and economic drivers of landscape change to grassland bird population outcomes. We identified and evaluated alternative strategies for grassland bird conservation using a series of rapid prototype models. We modeled change in grassland and agriculture cover in hypothetical landscapes resulting from different landowner decisions in response to alternative socio-economic conservation policy decisions. Resulting changes in land cover at all three stages of the annual cycle (breeding, wintering, and migration) were used to estimate changes in grassland bird populations. Our results suggest that successful grassland bird conservation may depend upon linkages with ecosystem services on working agricultural lands and grassland-based marketing campaigns to engage the public. With further development, spatial models that link landowner decisions with biological outcomes can be essential tools for making conservation policy decisions. A coordinated non-traditional partnership will likely be necessary to clearly understand and systematically respond to the many conservation challenges facing grassland birds.

Effects of temperature and precipitation on grassland bird nesting success as mediated by patch size

“…Landscape-scale conservation is at the forefront of grassland bird conservation in North America. Management recommendations reflect the realities of grassland bird conservation operating in working landscapes; approximately 82% of grassland bird populations are on private lands (North American Bird Conservation Initiative 2014; Drum et al 2015). Current conservation models emphasize preserving or establishing large contiguous patches of core grassland habitat of >20 ha (Johnson & Igl 2001;Guttery et al 2017).…”

“…; Drum et al. ). These efforts operate under the assumptions that grassland bird occupancy and density are sensitive to grassland characteristics and that better breeding conditions are associated with contiguous, larger grassland patches.…”

“…The fragmentation of grassland ecosystems and their exposure to rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns pose significant threats to grassland species, including birds. Since the 1970s, grassland birds in North America have declined more than any other bird group (Sauer et al 2012), eliciting a wide variety of conservation efforts (Knutson et al 2001;Drum et al 2015). These efforts operate under the assumptions that grassland bird occupancy and density are sensitive to grassland characteristics and that better breeding conditions are associated with contiguous, larger grassland patches.…”

Quantifying specialist avifaunal decline in grassland birds of the Northern Great Plains

“…Most efforts to conserve grassland acreage to benefit bird populations are limited to the breeding grounds; however, many hypothesize that the limiting factor for North American grassland birds is availability and quality of wintering habitat (Drum et al. ) which can have negative consequences for grassland bird winter survival (Macías‐Duarte and Panjabi , Macías‐Duarte et al. ).…”

Migration and winter distribution of the Chestnutcollared Longspur

“…GPCAs within the Chestnut-collared Longspur wintering range vary in size from the 2.7 million ha Valles Centrales to the 153,098ha Cuatro Cienegas [57]. This scale of habitat need exceeds that provided under traditional forms of land protection [58]. We suggest that programs (e.g., U. S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, Quivira Coalition, World Wildlife Fund's Sustainable Ranching Initiative, National Audubon Society's Conservation Ranching Program, etc.)…”