The Forest-Prairie Ecotone in Northeastern Illinois

Kilburn, Paul D.

doi:10.2307/2422551

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Historically, more than half of the county was tallgrass prairie (Kilburn 1957). Kane County's population was estimated at 472,000 in 2004 and is increasing by approximately 11% annually as a result of expansion from Chicago (http://www.nipc.org/forecasting/cnty2004.html).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat Acquisition Strategies for Grassland Birds in an Urbanizing Landscape

Miller

Skibbe

Haight

2007

Environmental Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Habitat protection for grassland birds is an important component of open space land acquisition in suburban Chicago. We use optimization decision models to develop recommendations for land protection and analyze tradeoffs between alternative goals. One goal is to acquire (and restore if necessary) as much grassland habitat as possible for a given budget. Because a viable habitat for grassland birds consists of a relatively large core area with additional parcels of grassland habitat nearby, the second goal is to minimize total pairwise distance between newly protected parcels and large existing reserves. We also use the concept of an effective grassland habitat area, which considers influences that neighboring land covers have on grassland habitat suitability. We analyze how the parcels selected for protection change as total protected effective area is traded off against total distance. As area is weighted more heavily, the selected parcels are scattered and unconnected. As total distance is weighted more heavily, the selected parcels coalesce around core reserves but protect less area. The differences in selected parcels as we change the objective function weights are caused by the differences in price per unit of effective habitat area across parcels. Parcels located in close proximity to the existing cores have relatively high prices per hectare of effective grassland area as a consequence of high restoration costs and adverse influences from roads, urban areas and/or forestland. As a result, these parcels have lower priority for selection when the area objective is weighted more heavily for a given budget.

show abstract

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat Acquisition Strategies for Grassland Birds in an Urbanizing Landscape

Miller

Skibbe

Haight

2007

Environmental Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…forests are thought to be maintained by fire (e.g., Bowles et al, 1994;Kilburn, 1959;Leitner et al, 1991), and fire suppression following European settlement has resulted in the replacement of oaks by shade-tolerant mesophytic tree species such as sugar maple (Acer saccharum L.) (e.g., Abrams, 1992;McIntosh, 1957;Schlesinger, 1976). Ground layer vegetation comprises most of the plant species in oak forests (Roberts, 2004;Whigham, 2004), and fire has been reported to help maintain its diversity (Bowles et al, 2000;Wilhelm, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two decades of low-severity prescribed fire increases soil nutrient availability in a Midwestern, USA oak (Quercus) forest

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…1). Prior to European settlement, approximately 60% of the county was tallgrass prairie, with the remainder comprising oak savannas, riparian woodlands, and wetlands (Kilburn, 1959). Widespread conversion to agricultural uses all but eliminated native land cover, particularly in the uplands, during the 19th and 20th centuries.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%