Journal
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
Volume 143, Issue 4, Pages 952-962Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.004
Keywords
Extinction threshold; Colonization threshold; Ecological threshold; Atlases; Habitat loss; Habitat fragmentation; New York State; Forest birds
Funding
- UMP-GIS
- Adirondack Ecological Center
- New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
- New York State Biodiversity Research Institute
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Mitigating the effects of habitat loss requires estimating the minimum amount of habitat necessary for the persistence of wildlife populations in a changing landscape Assessing minimum habitat amounts. however, relies on identifying ecological thresholds in species' responses to landscape change. Using two repeated state-wide atlases, our objective was to investigate the responses of 25 forest birds to a range of forest cover and fragmentation. Repeat atlases allow for the analysis of four population dynamics including: (1) colonization, (2) persistence, (3) extinction, and (4) absence Our objective was to test the hypothesis that forest birds demonstrated thresholds in these four basic dynamics to varying amounts of forest cover and fragmentation We found thresholds to be a common, though not pervasive, characteristic of how forest birds respond to forest cover and pattern We found that the probability of persistence was positively correlated with forest cover and 22 species demonstrated threshold responses. In addition, 15 of 25 birds demonstrated discrete thresholds in extinction dynamics The existence of a colonization threshold has received significantly less attention in ecology. We also found that 17 out of 25 species demonstrated thresholds in their colonization response to a greater amount of forest cover. The effects of forest fragmentation, independent of forest amount, were less clear. We found support for incorporating the effects of fragmentation, but this fragmentation effect was found both below and above threshold points We conclude that incorporating ecological thresholds in environmental planning should be species-specific and focus on populations on the verge of rapid ecological change. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available