Linking lasers, land, and life: a multi-scale approach to species/habitat relationships and management

Forest breeding birds are a highly threatened group in the Northeast US, with many species suffering from habitat loss. Conservation and restoration efforts have been hindered by our poor understanding of the forest structure required by these species. Here we combine vegetation structure metrics extracted from lidar data, collected across northern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, with abundance data for twelve species of bird from the Breeding Bird Survey. Of these, six species were early successional breeding birds, and six were mature forest breeding birds. Forest structural metrics consisted of a range of height categories and differing measures of vegetation heterogeneity and texture. We used a bayesian hierarchical model to define relationships between habitat characteristics and abundance at each of five scales ranging from .2 to 50 ha. These Lidar derived habitat descriptions resulted in empirically-based habit models relating the influence of vegetation structure at different scales simultaneously. These results address two major questions in avian conservation research; what is the specific structure of forest vegetation influencing bird abundance for each species, and at what scales does vegetation structure influence these same bird abundances. Using these models enables land-managers to make specific decisions regarding how to augment or preserve forest characteristics to benefit threatened forest breeding bird species.

The Ross Sea is special. The National Science Foundation stated back in 1998, “Little, if any of the ocean remains unaffected by fisheries, agricultural runoff, sewage, aquaculture and industry.” The oceans are in serious trouble. The situation is getting worse. For one, we are catching fewer fish. Estimates are that we’ve eaten our way through 90% of the top predatory fish in the ocean since 1950. We have pushed many ocean ecosystems to the brink of collapse worldwide. The evidence, if we dare to look at it, is clear. But the Ross Sea, protected by its 500-mile-wide shield of ice, has remained largely insulated from this depletion. Many scientists have stated they believe that the Ross Sea may be the most healthy open ocean ecosystem left on earth. John started working on The Last Ocean, an outreach project directed specifically at the Ross Sea, with Antarctic Ecologist Dr. David Ainley in 2004. Since then he has worked full time on the project as fundraiser, organizer, designer, writer, photographer and filmmaker. His efforts have catalyzed an international movement to protect the Ross Sea. John is a SeaWeb Fellow and was awarded a prestigious Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation in 2009. Weller’s first short film on the Ross Sea was a finalist in the 2010 Blue Ocean Festival. The film has gained wide acclaim from peers in the photographic, filmmaking, and conservation worlds.

Scientists can have a special role in shaping civil society environmental policy issues because of their often unique understanding and insights of the workings of natural systems. Most scientists who are engaged in providing information to help in formulating sound environmental policy must do so on their own and without assistant in the best ways to communicate their knowledge to the public and policy makers. We describe here two science-policy think tanks, one in North America and one on Australia, that have operated over the last decade to bring top-level scientists from different disciplines together to develop communications that have been successful in influencing the public debate about environmental policy issues in Canada and Australia.

Although managers commonly use habitat restoration to conserve rare species, we rarely test whether we inadvertently create population sinks or ecological traps, which decrease population viability. The endangered Saint Francis' satyr butterfly (Neonympha mitchellii francisci) lives only on Ft. Bragg military base in North Carolina, USA and requires disturbance-dependent wetland habitat historically maintained by beavers and wildfires. We removed hardwoods and dammed creeks in a factorial design to experimentally test how restoration affects source-sink dynamics in a butterfly metapopulation. We demonstrate how top-down (predation) and bottom-up (host plant resources) processes change habitat quality for different life-stages. Predator exclusion experiments show that restoration increases egg predation and that partial inundation increases caterpillar survival. Hardwood removal made host plants less nutritious (higher %C) but more palatable (lower silica content) for caterpillars. We released butterflies and observed their movement behavior to measure how adults assess and respond to habitat quality. Movement behavior did not differ with restoration treatments. We discuss future experiments to determine which life-stages drive source-sink dynamics and share lessons for management of endangered species that are dependent on ephemeral habitat.

Climate change impacts fall disproportionately on the world's poorest, most marginalized communities, particularly those highly dependent on direct use of natural resources. In many countries, strategies to address vulnerability are still largely theoretical, with little meaningful field implementation. Furthermore, programming is still too often implemented in sectors and therefore does not adequately address the dynamic nature of vulnerability. We examine a program in rural Madagascar that incorporates both marine conservation and socioeconomic development activities in order to foster holistic resilience. Ecological resilience is supported through a combination of management tools, including no-take-zones and bans against destructive fishing practices. At the same time, sustainable octopus fishing and aquaculture are promoted as a means to increase food security and income. Further social resilience is fostered through initiatives that address maternal and child health, reproductive health, and hygiene and sanitation. Formal education is also a key element, which allows youth access to careers not dependent on a changing environment. Programs like this one successfully address multi-faceted vulnerability, and do so with higher community buy-in, at lower cost, and with better outcomes in all sectors. Such holistic community-based approaches should therefore play a key role in global adaptation efforts.

Presently, the great majority of scientific research never reaches a broader audience, contributing to mistrust and misunderstanding of science among the general public and hindering conservation initiatives. Crowdfunding is a new funding model that has the potential to shift this paradigm by encouraging scientific transparency and public involvement in the earliest stages of the research process. Since cultivating early connections with a wide audience often determines the success of crowdfunding drives, this type of funding model can foster ties between scientists and nonscientists and develop early and lasting support for conservation projects. This presentation will highlight the utility of crowdfunding for individuals and conservation groups, the determinants of success, and how social media can aid in establishing positive relationships among researchers, project supporters, and stakeholders.

Orchids are widely threatened or endangered worldwide and of the approximately 250 North American species, 24% are listed as globally threatened and 84% as threatened nationally. Orchid dependence on pollinators and mycorrhizal fungi makes them highly sensitive to habitat change and also makes conservation and restoration efforts especially challenging. Many orchids also have a dormant vegetative stage which makes population assessment difficult. We use monitoring and experimental approaches to identify critical life stages for Isotria medeoloides, a nationally threatened species that is declining through much of its range. Rates at which plants enter and emerge from dormancy and low seed germination and seedling establishment are two factors responsible for population declines. The availability and abundance of mycorrhizal fungi may contribute to each of these stages. Mycorrhizal fungi of Isotria are Russula and Lactarius, obligate ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with tree roots. The number of tree root tips is lower in sites with dormant plants and where plants have gone extinct. This implies that management efforts need to promote trees that host needed mycorrhizal fungi and to support adequate fine root tip densities. Management of light levels may also be an important management tool to increase individual plant performance (i.e., growth and sexual reproduction) and thus reduce the incidence of dormancy.

Ecosystem protection goals are increasingly the foundation of conservation policies worldwide, and assessments of ecosystem condition are being used to support evaluation of management effectiveness. However, assessing the condition, or ‘health’, of an ecosystem is not a straight-forward task. Often, managers rely on expert judgments, in which a diverse group of experts develops an assessment of condition based on a broad range of scientific data and results. These assessments are often communicated to policy-makers, managers and stakeholders using various report cards. Currently, despite some common theoretical underpinning, there is no clear framework for using expert judgment to develop such assessments. The lack of consistency of approach renders the tool of expert judgment, and the judgments themselves, vulnerable to attack and dismissal as “opinion”, jeopardizing the use of this essential tool just as the needed transition to ecosystem-based management approaches is gaining momentum globally. Using data collected in support of MPA monitoring in California, we are implementing an expert judgment process designed to provide assessments of the condition or ‘health’ of these regional ecosystems. A key outcome of this project is the development of a report card to communicate the results of these health assessments in a way that is clear, intuitive and useful for informing management.

Applied veterinary medicine can be a valuable tool in conservation efforts with wildlife and especially endangered species. There are increasing examples across the globe where veterinarians have played integral roles in helping to sustain and conserve wildlife at both the individual and population levels. For different reasons and under different scenarios pro-active involvement of veterinarians and applied in-situ veterinary care and interventions with wildlife are sometimes welcomed, and sometimes rejected. There are complex reasons for this relationship, some based on subjective feelings and dogmatic approaches, some based on objective science and risk assessments. This talk will explore some of those issues as we discuss successful efforts to increase veterinary involvement and applied veterinary medicine to western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in the Central African Republic. A partnership between multiple conservation institutions, individuals, and other local and global stakeholders has led to significant strides in applied veterinary medicine for this critically endangered species. Successful campaigns to deliver preventative medicine in the form vaccinations, to treat serious infectious disease group outbreaks, and to save an individual gorilla from a life threatening ensnarement have all been accomplished in the past two years and will be briefly presented.

Science-based recovery strategies are powerful tools with the potential to guide species recovery. In Canada, listed species require a finalized recovery strategy within one-two years of listing for endangered, threatened and extirpated species. We analyzed over 200 finalized recovery strategies produced since Canada’s Species at Risk legislation came into force in 2003. We scored the strategies for species traits, timeline to completion, threats, recovery objectives and description of critical habitat. We found that production of recovery strategies lags far behind set timelines, with the pace and likelihood of including critical habitat increasing since 2009. Analysis of threats reveals that recreation, and residential and commercial development are the most common threats in recovery strategies, and that certain threats decreased the probability of having received a finalized recovery strategy. Analysis of recovery objectives indictaes that the most common targets involve maintaining numbers of individuals, populations and area, with no apparent relationship of the objectives to the criteria used in status assessment. For example, species assessed as endangered based on population declines were no more likely to to target increases. On the whole, our analysis finds that a low bar is being set in the documents intended to set benchmarks for species recovery, raising serious concerns about the prognosis for recovery of Canada’s Species at Risk.

The northeast tidal marsh ecosystem provides critical ecological services to coastlines, including storm protection and erosion control. However, salt marshes have been continually subject to degrading forces and its unique wildlife requires immediate conservation action. We tested two methods to determine the optimal combination of parcels with unprotected tidal marsh habitat that would yield the greatest conservation benefit (bird abundance) per conservation dollar spent. Three budget level scenarios ($10M, $15M, and $20M) were applied to the models. For each scenario, the parcel portfolio developed by the binary linear programming optimization method consisted of a greater number of parcels, marsh area, and birds, than the traditional benefit targeting method. Across the scenarios, increases in total portfolio marsh area and bird abundance ranged from 7.2-9.6% and 7.3-12.8%, respectively, when optimization was used. The optimized portfolios represented the best use of conservation dollars to maximize conservation benefits and conserve important core areas inhabited by tidal marsh bird species in Delaware. Increases in inundation from sea level rise due to global climate change poses a real immediate challenge to the persistence of tidal marsh bird populations and the marshes themselves. Optimization models can be further employed to help develop comprehensive strategies that protect natural habitats that may serve as areas for future marsh migration.

Oysters (Crassostrea virginica) are important ecosystem engineers in Chesapeake Bay because of their capacity to modify coastal and estuarine habitats and the highly degraded status. However, models to predict dynamics of ecosystem engineers have not previously included the effects of exploitation. We developed a linked population and habitat model for autogenic ecosystem engineers undergoing exploitation and parameterized the model to represent eastern oyster in upper Chesapeake Bay. We evaluated the effects of a range of management and restoration options including sustainability of historical fishing pressure, effectiveness of a newly enacted sanctuary program, and relative performance of two restoration approaches. Historical fishing mortality rates in upper Chesapeake Bay for oysters were above the levels that would lead to extirpation. Reductions in fishing, such as was done with the recent implementation of large-scale sanctuaries, were projected to lead to long-term increases in abundance and habitat. For fisheries to become sustainable outside of sanctuaries, a substantial larval subsidy would be required from oysters within sanctuaries. Restoration efforts using high-relief reefs were predicted to allow recovery within a shorter period of time than low relief reefs. Models, such as ours, that allow for feedbacks between population and habitat dynamics can be effective tools for guiding management and restoration of autogenic ecosystem engineers.

Marine debris is a global pollution problem, and thought to be a major threat to biodiversity. Seabirds appear to be among the most heavily impacted taxa, with evidence for reduced body condition, fecundity, and direct mortality from both ingestion and entanglement in debris. We developed the first global risk assessment for marine debris impacts on seabirds. We use an oceanographic model to predict the distribution of debris in the ocean, considering both the sources of the debris and the likely pathways of movement. We overlay this with the distribution of all the major seabird taxa to evaluate the exposure of each species to debris based on spatial overlap. We compare these estimates of exposure to the results of a major review of seabird diet studies to evaluate whether exposure is a reliable predictor of debris ingestion. Based on a statistical analysis of differences between exposure and observed ingestion, we evaluated which ecological characteristics are likely to bias seabirds towards significantly higher or lower rates of debris ingestion. Our results speak directly to management actions to address debris impacts on seabirds, as we provide a list of the relative exposure to debris and predictions for which species are likely to be heavily impacted based on their ecological characteristics.

Application of climate science goes beyond research. Washington's Yakima Basin is the 12th largest agricultural producing region in America. Once home to fish runs upwards of 800,000, Yakima Basin numbers have plummeted due to land and water use. This tenuous situation is made worse by climate projections - already reality with five economically devastating drought years since 1995. Instream flow and water supply modeling demonstrate that adding 500,000 acre-feet of water storage could meet future supply needs for native fish recovery while accommodating agricultural and municipal needs. A multi-stakeholder group created the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, an innovative plan that meets water supply needs in the face of climate projections. Results indicate that agricultural demand can be met and fish recovery will result in the largest sockeye run in the lower 48 states. The presentation will explore key conservation components of the plan and lessons learned through development and early implementation. Conservation tools include land acquisition, headwaters protection, public lands designation, recreation management and habitat restoration. Conclusion: to implement the direction of climate science, skilled conservation biologists, negotiators, and advocates must engage tribes, local governments, and recreationists. Lessons: 1) Diverse stakeholders must sit at the table; 2) Internal and external communication is crucial; and 3) leaders must rapidly adapt to new developments.