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Synopsis: Using multi-scale seasonal models, this study explored how broad scale landscape context and local resource heterogeneity influenced local resource selection among threatened forest-dwelling woodland caribou in southern Quebec. Caribou consistently avoided roads, however researchers identified thresholds in road proximity effects. The threshold distance at which caribou avoid roads is 1.25 km for active roads and 0.75 km from derelict roads. Open lichen woodlands were an important cover type for caribou during winter and spring, whereas deciduous forests, wetlands, and even young disturbed stands became important during calving and summer. Landscape cover type and amount explained more variation in habitat...
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Synopsis: This study analyzed the effects of vegetation change on hydrological fluctuations in the Columbia River basin over the last century using two land cover scenarios. The first scenario was a reconstruction of historical land cover vegetation, c. 1900. The second scenario was more recent land cover as estimated from remote sensing data for 1990. The results show that, hydrologically, the most important vegetation-related change has been a general tendency towards decreased vegetation maturity in the forested areas of the basin. This general trend represents a balance between the effects of logging and fire suppression. In those areas where forest maturity has been reduced as a result of logging, wintertime...
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Synopsis: This study evaluates whether previous observations of a higher percentage of parasitism and parasitoid diversity in a complex agricultural landscape, relative to a simple landscape, represent a general phenomenon. Rates of parasitism and parasitoid diversity of the armyworm (Pseudaletia unipuncta) were assessed in three replicate (Onondaga, Ingham, and Benton) regions in southern Michigan. Within each region, a simple landscape (primarily cropland) and a complex landscape (cropland intermixed with mid and late successional noncrop habitats) were identified through analysis of aerial photographs. In each landscape, three maize fields were selected, and second to fourth instar P. unipuncta were released...
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Conclusions: Grizzly bears can use roaded habitats, but spatial avoidance will increase and survival will decrease as traffic levels, road densities and human settlement increases. Road density standards and road closure programmes should be developed and that these programmes incorporate seasonal habitat requirements of grizzly bears. Thresholds/Learnings: More than 80% of bear sitings occurred in blocks of undisturbed habitat >900 ha Synopsis: The study examined the relationships between grizzly bears, habitat and roads in the Swan Mountains, Montana. The study showed complex spatial and temporal relationships between grizzly bears and habitat resources. Resource selection was expressed relative to strength...
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Conclusions: Report presents a framework for assessing the condition of Southern Alberta’s natural assets and their ability to provide ecosystem goods and services. Measurable indicators of ecosystem services, including broad and fine scale landscape indicators, were also distilled from a literature review. Thresholds/Learnings: Wetland cover should be maintained at >15% for watersheds with high potential for phosphorus loading & eutrophication. Impervious cover should be maintained at or below 25% in heavily urbanizing watersheds. Synopsis: This report develops a framework for assessing the condition of Southern Alberta’s natural assets and their resulting ability to provide ecosystem goods and services. The...
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Synopsis: Wind erosion control is typically needed in areas with low and variable precipitation and frequent droughts, and where high winds, high temperature and consequent high evaporation are common conditions, such as in southern Alberta. Potential average annual erosion rates from wind erosion are predicted using the wind erosion equation E= f(I, K, C, L, V) where I is the soil erodibility index, K is the soil-ridge-roughness factor, C is the climactic factor, L is the unsheltered, weighted travel distance of the wind across a field and V is the equivalent vegetated cover. Wind erosion can be controlled with one or more of the following five basic principles of wind erosion control: · Reduce field widths...
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This report is synthesizes and summarizes major findings from literature relating to the direct and indirect ecological impacts of paved highways on birds. It represents a meta-analysis of contributing factors of road mortality, effects of roadway lighting, traffic noise, traffic volume, and roadway contaminants on bird populations, which may help guide conservation efforts within the Yellowstone to Yukon ecoregion. Traffic volume and noise are believed to be the most important factors affecting breeding bird population densities near roads. The number of affected species increases with traffic volume but the relationship appears to reach threshold at an average daily traffic volume of 30,000 vehicles a day. In...
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Synopsis: Remotely sensed data and GIS were used to compare the effects of clear-cutting and road-building on the landscape pattern of the Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming. Landscape patterns were quantified for each of 12 watersheds on a series of four maps that differed only in the degree of clear-cutting and road density. Researchers analyzed several landscape pattern metrics for the landscape as a whole and for the lodgepole pine and spruce/fir cover classes across the four maps to determine the relative effects of clear-cutting and road building on the pattern of each watershed. At both the landscape and cover class scales, clear-cutting and road building resulted in increased fragmentation as represented...
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Synopsis: Recent reports clearly indicate that odor emitted from concentrated livestock production facilities in the Midwest of the US is a significant social problem that negatively impacts rural and state economies, human health, and the quality of rural life. A potential incremental approach to dealing with livestock odor is the use of shelterbelts arranged in strategic designs near and within livestock facilities. This review outlines the various ways that shelterbelts can be effective technology which biophysically mitigates odor thereby reducing social conflict from odor nuisance. The biophysical potential of shelterbelts to mitigate livestock odor arises from the tree/shrub impacts on the central characteristics...
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Conclusions: Caribou subpopulation persistence and landscape occupancy depends highly on the degree of forest cover, cover type, and distance from human presence. Thresholds/Learnings: Synopsis: This study evaluates factors influencing the persistence and landscape occupancy of caribou subpopulations in southern British Columbia. Data from 235 radio-collared caribou across 13 subpopulations were used to derive a landscape occupancy index. The index was analyzed against 33 landscape variables including, land cover, terrain, climate, and human influence. At the metapopulation level, the persistence of subpopulations correlated with the extent of wet climate conditions and the distribution of old forests and alpine...
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Conclusions: Elevation, slope and the percentages of bogs and fens in a landscape influence the degree to which mid-boreal lakes are sensitive to acidic deposition orignating from nearby mining operations. Thresholds/Learnings: Synopsis: This study evaluates the acid sensitivity of lakes in Saskatchewan within ~300km of Fort McMurray. The study area is downwind of atmospheric emissions sources from regional oil sands mining operations and there is concern that the lakes may be threatened by acidification. A helicopter sampling program was implemented in late September 2007 and 2008 to measure 16 chemical variables (e.g., Ca, Mg, Na, pH) and 15 environmental variables (e.g., latitude, elevation, slope, percent bog,...
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Synopsis: This study investigates the relationships of landscape disturbance, altered prey resources, and rattlesnake populations in the Upper Snake River Plain of southeastern. Researchers used radio telemetry to track rattlesnakes while concurrently conducting habitat sampling and small mammal trapping in areas used by snakes and in random locations. Disturbed areas (by grazing and/or burning) were characterized by lower biological crust cover, shrub cover, shrub height, and shrub dispersion, as well as higher grass and bare soil cover. Disturbed areas were also characterized by lower proportions of small animal biomass, abundance, and large prey species (such as chipmunks), while the proportions Conclusions:...
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Synopsis: A review of the scientific literature describing the effects of linear developments on wildlife, especially large mammals, was provided. Of particular interest were the types of roads and linear developments created by the oil and pipeline industries in western Canada. The effects of linear developments (roads, powerline/pipeline rights-of-way, deforested strips) on wildlife were examined in the context of regional and landscape ecology. The review describes the different classes of linear disturbances, the various response categories for animal species and the impacts on species for the different classes. The review also provides potential mitigations and recommendations for landscape scale planning...
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Synopsis: Recognizing that natural and human disturbances cause significant changes to landscape composition and ecosystem function, this report aims to identify and describe key indicators of environmental sustainability, categorized by vegetation, biodiversity, and watershed characteristics. Measurable indicators of environmental sustainability, including landscape indicators summarized in the vegetation indicators category, were distilled from a wide-ranging literature review. These indicators are intended to serve as metrics of environmental quality that assist land use planners in determining if management goals have been reached. As such, the report provides an overview, assessment, and recommended uses for...
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Synopsis: This report evaluates habitat requirements of the American badger according to parameters of soil texture, graminoid cover, slope, and proximity to roads. Badgers tend to prefer sandy loam and silty loam, medium and moderately coarse textured soils. In terms of graminoid coverage, badgers generally prefer open grassland habitat, but can also be found in agriculturally dominated landscapes containing isolated pockets of Richardson 's ground squirrel colonies. Graminoid coverage of 23% was chosen as the minimum requirement for suitable badger habitat. As slope increases, habitat suitability decreases to a point at which the likelihood of badgers existing there (i.e. cliffs and badlands) is extremely low...
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Synopsis: Agricultural intensification and expansion are major present and future causes of global ecosystem disruption. Natural and semi-natural reserve areas in agroecosystems are thought to be important for preservation of essential ecosystem services such as pollination, but data about land use patterns and pollinator abundance are lacking. We assessed wild bee populations in canola fields in an agriculturally intense area where virtually all land was either tilled agricultural fields or semi-natural grazed pasturelands, with the expectation that mosaics of land use types may better support ecosystem services than homogenous crop areas. Fields were chosen in two categories, five with little or no pastureland...
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Synopsis: The goal of this study was to examine contaminant loadings associated with stormwater runoff from recently burned areas in urban fringe areas of southern California, to derive regional patterns of runoff and contaminant loadings in this context. Postfire stormwater runoff was sampled from five wildfires that each burned between 115 and 658 km2 of natural open space between 2003 and 2009. The area is characterized by classic Mediterranean climate conditions of relatively mild to cool wet winter and warm to hot dry summers. Between two and five storm events were sampled per site over the first one to two years following the fires for basic constituents, metals, nutrients, total suspended solids, and polycyclic...
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Synopsis: Wind erosion is considered a problem when the erosion level exceeds the tolerable limit for the soil or when the erosion level is great enough to damage the crops being grown. Wind erosion control must be tailored to each farming situation and may be achieved through a combination of practices that ultimately create isolated fields, the key to wind erosion control systems. Wind erosion control measures can be grouped into four components: (1) tree and shrub windbreaks; (2) annual and perennial vegetative barriers; (3) strip cropping and trap strips; and (4) crop residues and cover crops. Wind control system design involves 4 basic principles: (1) erosion rates are predicted using the wind erosion equation;...
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Conclusions: The study recorded flushing responses (whether or not an animal fled in response to disturbance) and flush distances of 6 species of diurnal raptors exposed to walking and vehicle disturbances in order to calculate minimum distances for species-specific buffer zones. In general, walking disturbances resulted in more flushing than vehicle disturbances for all species except the prairie falcon. For walking disturbances, a linear relationship existed between flight distance and body mass, with lighter species flushing at shorter distances; however, this trend did not hold for vehicle disturbance. Birds flushed at much shorter distances in response to approaching vehicles. Thresholds/Learnings: Buffer...
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Synopsis: Windbreaks are a major component of successful agricultural landscapes. At the farm scale, they help control erosion and blowing snow, improve animal health and survival under winter conditions, reduce energy consumption of the farmstead, and enhance habitat diversity. At a landscape scale, they provide habitat for various types of wildlife and have the potential to contribute significant benefits to the carbon balance equation, thereby easing the economic burdens associated with climate change. The effectiveness of a windbreak is determined partially by its external structure including its height, length, orientation, continuity, width, and cross-sectional shape and partially by its internal structure...
map background search result map search result map Chemical characteristics and acid sensitivity of boreal headwater lakes in northwest Saskatchewan. Effects of paved roads on birds: a literature review and recommendations for the Yellowstone to Yukon Ecoregion Factors influencing the dispersion and fragmentation of endangered mountain caribou populations Ecosystem Goods and Services Southern Alberta Assessment of Natural Asset Condition Effects of land cover change on streamflow in the interior Columbia River Basin (USA and Canada). Assessing the influence of resource co-variates at multiple spatial scales: an application to forest-dwelling caribou faced with intensive human activity. Linking landscape disturbance to the population ecology of Great Basin rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus lutosus) in the Upper Snake River Plain Relationships among grizzly bears, roads, and habitat in the Swan Mountains, Montana. Landscape, Biodiversity, and Indicator Review and Assessment Watershed analysis of forest fragmentation by clearcuts and roads in a Wyoming forest The Effects of Linear Developments on Wildlife: A Review of Selected Scientific Literature Does agricultural landscape structure affect parasistism and parasitoid diversity? Can pastureland increase wild bee abundance in agriculturally intense areas? Response of wintering grassland raptors to human disturbance. Stormwater contaminant loading following southern California wildfires Windbreaks in North American Agricultural Systems Basic principles of wind erosion control Design and use of field windbreaks in wind erosion control systems Mitigating swine odor with strategically designed shelterbelt systems: a review. American Badger. Assessing the influence of resource co-variates at multiple spatial scales: an application to forest-dwelling caribou faced with intensive human activity. Relationships among grizzly bears, roads, and habitat in the Swan Mountains, Montana. Response of wintering grassland raptors to human disturbance. Does agricultural landscape structure affect parasistism and parasitoid diversity? Chemical characteristics and acid sensitivity of boreal headwater lakes in northwest Saskatchewan. Watershed analysis of forest fragmentation by clearcuts and roads in a Wyoming forest Factors influencing the dispersion and fragmentation of endangered mountain caribou populations Ecosystem Goods and Services Southern Alberta Assessment of Natural Asset Condition Landscape, Biodiversity, and Indicator Review and Assessment Linking landscape disturbance to the population ecology of Great Basin rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus lutosus) in the Upper Snake River Plain Stormwater contaminant loading following southern California wildfires Effects of land cover change on streamflow in the interior Columbia River Basin (USA and Canada). Effects of paved roads on birds: a literature review and recommendations for the Yellowstone to Yukon Ecoregion The Effects of Linear Developments on Wildlife: A Review of Selected Scientific Literature Windbreaks in North American Agricultural Systems Basic principles of wind erosion control Design and use of field windbreaks in wind erosion control systems Mitigating swine odor with strategically designed shelterbelt systems: a review.