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USGS2020

Multi-scale habitat selection by Northern Goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) in a fire-prone forest

Increasing frequency and severity of wildfire may jeopardize persistence of large tracts of late seral forest, raising concerns over population viability of forest-dependent species like the Northern Goshawk ( Accipiter gentilis ). We tracked 20 adult Northern Goshawks with GPS loggers over 4 years to investigate roosting (nocturnal) and foraging (diurnal) habitat selection in a heterogeneously burned forest landscape of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, United States. Goshawks selected late seral forest attributes for both roosting and foraging at multiple spatio-temporal scales, although at the finest (daily) scale, goshawks selected more diverse forest structure that included small trees and medium canopy cover. Less than 6% of roosts were in areas burned in the last 50 years and goshawks avoided areas burned at high severity when roosting and when foraging across spatial scales. Four goshawks (3 males, 1 female) undertook forays >5 km from their nest location, two of which forayed into burned areas during at least one season. High severity fire is likely to make forests unsuitable foraging or roosting habitat for Northern Goshawks, although lower severity fire may provide foraging opportunities for this generalist predator. Eighty percent of foraging space use and 87% of roost locations were considered high fire hazard potential, suggesting that goshawk habitat in western North America is likely to be reduced by predicted increases in fire frequency and severity in the region.

California↗

USGS2010

Landscape-level impact of tropical forest loss and fragmentation on bird occurrence in eastern Guatemala

Tropical forest destruction and fragmentation of habitat patches may reduce population persistence at the landscape level. Given the complex nature of simultaneously evaluating the effects of these factors on biotic populations, statistical presence/absence modelling has become an important tool in conservation biology. This study uses logistic regression to evaluate the independent effects of tropical forest cover and fragmentation on bird occurrence in eastern Guatemala. Logistic regression models were constructed for 10 species with varying response to habitat alteration. Predictive variables quantified forest cover, fragmentation and their interaction at three different radii (200, 500 and 1000 m scales) of 112 points where presence of target species was determined. Most species elicited a response to the 1000 m scale, which was greater than most species’ reported territory size. Thus, their presence at the landscape scale is probably regulated by extra-territorial phenomena, such as dispersal. Although proportion of forest cover was the most important predictor of species’ presence, there was strong evidence of area-independent and -dependent fragmentation effects on species presence, results that contrast with other studies from northernmost latitudes. Species’ habitat breadth was positively correlated with AIC model values, indicating a better fit for species more restricted to tropical forest. Species with a narrower habitat breadth also elicited stronger negative responses to forest loss. Habitat breadth is thus a simple measure that can be directly related to species’ vulnerability to landscape modification. Model predictive accuracy was acceptable for 4 of 10 species, which were in turn those with narrower habitat breadths.

Cerro San Gil Watershed Protection Reserve↗

USGS2018

Ghost forests of Marco Island: Mangrove mortality driven by belowground soil structural shifts during tidal hydrologic alteration

Land use changes often create in situ stress and eventual mortality in mangroves as unsuitable hydroperiods are created through tidal flow alterations. Here, we document mangrove forest and soil structural changes within transects established in tidally restricted areas on Marco Island (Collier County, Florida, USA), which has broad swaths of dead-standing or unhealthy mangroves (“ghost forests”). Transects (N = 4) were arranged to include full canopy, transitional, and open canopy (dead) forests, and compared to nearby reference forests. Aboveground and belowground carbon (C) stocks (Total C) ranged from 288 to 304 Mg C ha −1 on full canopy, transitional, and reference sites, which did not differ from each other. However, Total C was lower for dead sites (233 Mg C ha −1 ) dictated entirely by differences in aboveground C (live and dead trees, downed wood); no differences were found among forest condition in belowground C stocks. This belowground C has been persistent in the soil for 85 years since initial tidal restriction. Nevertheless, hydrologic rehabilitation has the potential to increase total C stocks on dead sites by 70–110 Mg C ha −1 . Collapse of the soil surface by 6–8 cm just under the active root zone in chronically stressed mangroves was evident within the bulk density profiles from transitional versus dead sites, suggesting that surface elevation loss as root turnover ceases may work correlatively with chronic stressors (anoxia, P limitation) to affect rapid mortality of forests over short periods of time many years after stress initiation. Hydrologic rehabilitation of stressed or denuded mangroves must also include an understanding of how these soil processes might be re-established.

Florida↗

USGS2013

Hierarchical Bayesian spatial models for predicting multiple forest variables using waveform LiDAR, hyperspectral imagery, and large inventory datasets

In this paper we detail a multivariate spatial regression model that couples LiDAR, hyperspectral and forest inventory data to predict forest outcome variables at a high spatial resolution. The proposed model is used to analyze forest inventory data collected on the US Forest Service Penobscot Experimental Forest (PEF), ME, USA. In addition to helping meet the regression model's assumptions, results from the PEF analysis suggest that the addition of multivariate spatial random effects improves model fit and predictive ability, compared with two commonly applied modeling approaches. This improvement results from explicitly modeling the covariation among forest outcome variables and spatial dependence among observations through the random effects. Direct application of such multivariate models to even moderately large datasets is often computationally infeasible because of cubic order matrix algorithms involved in estimation. We apply a spatial dimension reduction technique to help overcome this computational hurdle without sacrificing richness in modeling.

Maine↗

USGS2009

Dynamics of national forests assessed using the Landsat record: Case studies in eastern United States

The national forests (NFs) in the United States are protected areas managed for multiple purposes, and therefore are subject to both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Monitoring forest changes arising from such disturbances and the post-disturbance recovery processes is essential for assessing the conditions of the NFs and the effectiveness of management approaches. In this study, we used time series stacks of Landsat images (LTSS) to evaluate the dynamics of seven NFs in eastern United States, including the De Soto NF, the Talladega NF, the Francis Marion NF, and the Uwharrie NF in southeastern U.S., and the Chequamegon NF, the Hiawatha NF, and the Superior NF in northern U.S. Each LTSS consisted of 12–14 Landsat images acquired for the same location, spanning from 1984 to 2006 with a nominal interval of one image every 2 years. Each LTSS was analyzed using a vegetation change tracker (VCT) algorithm to map forest disturbance. Accuracy assessments of the derived disturbance maps revealed that they had overall accuracy values of about 80%, with most of the disturbance classes having user's accuracies ranging from 70% to 95%. The producer's accuracies were generally lower, with the majority being in the range between 50% and 70%. While this may suggest that the disturbance maps could slightly underestimate disturbances, a more detailed assessment of the omission errors revealed that the majority of the disagreements were due to minor disturbances like thinning or storm damages that were identified by the image analysts but were not captured by the VCT algorithm. The derived disturbance year maps revealed that while each of the seven NFs consisted of 90% or more forest land, significant portions of the forests were disturbed since 1984. Mapped disturbances accounted for about 30%–45% of total land area in the four NFs in southeastern U.S. and about 10%–20% in the three NFs in northern U.S. The disturbance rates were generally higher in the buffer zones surrounding each NF, and varied considerably over time. The time series approach employed in this study represents a new approach for monitoring forest resources using the Landsat or similar satellite data records. The disturbance products derived using this approach were spatially explicit and contained much more temporal details than conventional bi-temporal change products, and likely will be found more useful by many users including ecologists and resources managers. The high disturbance rates found in the southeastern U.S. suggest that this region may have a more significant role in modulating the atmospheric carbon budget than currently recognized.

Remote Sensing of Environment↗

USGS2009

Monitoring forest changes in the southwestern United States using multitemporal Landsat data

Landsat time series data sets were acquired for the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. This area includes the San Pedro Parks Wilderness area, which was designated as an official wilderness in 1964. Eight autumnal Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scenes acquired from 1988 to 2006 were analyzed to determine whether significant changes have occurred throughout the region during the past 18 years and, if so, to assess whether the changes are long-term and gradual or short-term and abrupt. It was found that, starting in about 1995, many of the conifer stands within the Wilderness area showed consistently gradual and marked increases in the Shortwave Infrared/Near Infrared Index. These trends generally imply decreases in canopy greenness or increases in mortality. Other high-elevation conifer forests located outside of the Wilderness area showed similar spectral trends, indicating that changes are potentially widespread. The spatial patterns of forest damage as inferred from the image analyses were very similar to the general patterns of insect defoliation damage mapped via aerial sketch mapping by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring Program. A field visit indicated that zones of spectral change are associated with high levels of forest damage and mortality, likely caused by a combination of insects and drought. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of using historical Landsat data for providing objective and consistent long-term assessments of the gradual ecosystem changes that are occurring within the western United States.

Remote Sensing of Environment↗

USGS2003

Evidence of change in a low-elevation forest bird community of Hawai'i since 1979

We evaluated the abundance and distribution of low-elevation forest birds on windward Hawai'i Island during August 1993-February 1994, and present evidence of changes in the species composition of the forest bird community since 1979. Endemic Hawaiian birds occurred in native-dominated forests as low as 120 m elevation. Non-native species were detected at all survey locations. We observed non-native Saffron Finch Sicalis flaveola , previously unrecorded in Puna. Variable circular plot surveys of Kahauale'a Natural Area Reserve indicated the disappearance of two native species ('I'iwi Vestiaria coccinea and 'O'u Psittitostra psittacea ), and two non-native additions (Red-billed Leiothrix Leiothrix lutea and Kalij Pheasant Lophura leucomelana ) to the study area since the Hawai'i Forest Bird Survey conducted in 1979. We present evidence that native 'Elepaio Chasiempsis sandwichensis has experienced a decrease in population density and an elevational range contraction since 1979. Surveys indicate Puna's forest bird community has had increasing aliens and declining native species since 1979. The persistence of some native bird species within the range of avian disease vectors such as Culex quinquefasciatus in forests below 1,000 m elevation presents an important enigma that requires additional study.

Hawai'i↗

USGS2013

Effects of mercury deposition and coniferous forests on the mercury contamination of fish in the south central United States

Mercury (Hg) is a toxic metal that is found in aquatic food webs and is hazardous to human and wildlife health. We examined the relationship between Hg deposition, land coverage by coniferous and deciduous forests, and average Hg concentrations in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)-equivalent fish (LMBE) in 14 ecoregions located within all or part of six states in the South Central U.S. In 11 ecoregions, the average Hg concentrations in 35.6-cm total length LMBE were above 300 ng/g, the threshold concentration of Hg recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the issuance of fish consumption advisories. Percent land coverage by coniferous forests within ecoregions had a significant linear relationship with average Hg concentrations in LMBE while percent land coverage by deciduous forests did not. Eighty percent of the variance in average Hg concentrations in LMBE between ecoregions could be accounted for by estimated Hg deposition after adjusting for the effects of coniferous forests. Here we show for the first time that fish from ecoregions with high atmospheric Hg pollution and coniferous forest coverage pose a significant hazard to human health. Our study suggests that models that use Hg deposition to predict Hg concentrations in fish could be improved by including the effects of coniferous forests on Hg deposition.

Arkansas;Louisiana;Mississippi;Oklahoma;Tennessee;↗

USGS2000

Forest gradient response in Sierran landscapes: the physical template

Vegetation pattern on landscapes is the manifestation of physical gradients, biotic response to these gradients, and disturbances. Here we focus on the physical template as it governs the distribution of mixed-conifer forests in California's Sierra Nevada. We extended a forest simulation model to examine montane environmental gradients, emphasizing factors affecting the water balance in these summer-dry landscapes. The model simulates the soil moisture regime in terms of the interaction of water supply and demand: supply depends on precipitation and water storage, while evapotranspirational demand varies with solar radiation and temperature. The forest cover itself can affect the water balance via canopy interception and evapotranspiration. We simulated Sierran forests as slope facets, defined as gridded stands of homogeneous topographic exposure, and verified simulated gradient response against sample quadrats distributed across Sequoia National Park. We then performed a modified sensitivity analysis of abiotic factors governing the physical gradient. Importantly, the model's sensitivity to temperature, precipitation, and soil depth varies considerably over the physical template, particularly relative to elevation. The physical drivers of the water balance have characteristic spatial scales that differ by orders of magnitude. Across large spatial extents, temperature and precipitation as defined by elevation primarily govern the location of the mixed conifer zone. If the analysis is constrained to elevations within the mixed-conifer zone, local topography comes into play as it influences drainage. Soil depth varies considerably at all measured scales, and is especially dominant at fine (within-stand) scales. Physical site variables can influence soil moisture deficit either by affecting water supply or water demand; these effects have qualitatively different implications for forest response. These results have clear implications about purely inferential approaches to gradient analysis, and bear strongly on our ability to use correlative approaches in assessing the potential responses of montane forests to anthropogenic climatic change.

Landscape Ecology↗

USGS2001

Restoration of biogeochemical function in mangrove forests

Forest structure of mangrove restoration sites (6 and 14 years old) at two locations (Henderson Creek [HC] and Windstar [WS]) in southwest Florida differed from that of mixed-basin forests (>50 years old) with which they were once contiguous. However, the younger site (HC) was typical of natural, developing forests, whereas the older site (WS) was less well developed with low structural complexity. More stressful physicochemical conditions resulting from incomplete tidal flushing (elevated salinity) and variable topography (waterlogging) apparently affected plant survival and growth at the WS restoration site. Lower leaf fall and root production rates at the WS restoration site, compared with that at HC were partly attributable to differences in hydroedaphic conditions and structural development. However, leaf and root inputs at each restoration site were not significantly different from that in reference forests within the same physiographic setting. Macrofaunal consumption of tethered leaves also did not differ with site history, but was dramatically higher at HC compared with WS, reflecting local variation in leaf litter processing rates, primarily by snails (Melampus coffeus). Degradation of leaves and roots in mesh bags was slow overall at restoration sites, however, particularly at WS where aerobic decomposition may have been more limited. These findings indicate that local or regional factors such as salinity regime act together with site history to control primary production and turnover rates of organic matter in restoration sites. Species differences in senescent leaf nitrogen content and degradation rates further suggest that restoration sites dominated by Laguncularia racemosa and Rhizophora mangle should exhibit slower recycling of nutrients compared with natural basin forests where Avicennia germinans is more abundant. Structural development and biogeochemical functioning of restored mangrove forests thus depend on a number of factors, but site-specific as well as regional or local differences in hydrology and concomitant factors such as salinity and soil waterlogging will have a strong influence over the outcome of restoration projects.

Restoration Ecology↗

USGS2010

Forest responses to increasing aridity and warmth in the southwestern United States

In recent decades, intense droughts, insect outbreaks, and wildfires have led to decreasing tree growth and increasing mortality in many temperate forests. We compared annual tree-ring width data from 1,097 populations in the coterminous United States to climate data and evaluated site-specific tree responses to climate variations throughout the 20th century. For each population, we developed a climate-driven growth equation by using climate records to predict annual ring widths. Forests within the southwestern United States appear particularly sensitive to drought and warmth. We input 21st century climate projections to the equations to predict growth responses. Our results suggest that if temperature and aridity rise as they are projected to, southwestern trees will experience substantially reduced growth during this century. As tree growth declines, mortality rates may increase at many sites. Increases in wildfires and bark-beetle outbreaks in the most recent decade are likely related to extreme drought and high temperatures during this period. Using satellite imagery and aerial survey data, we conservatively calculate that ≈2.7% of southwestern forest and woodland area experienced substantial mortality due to wildfires from 1984 to 2006, and ≈7.6% experienced mortality associated with bark beetles from 1997 to 2008. We estimate that up to ≈18% of southwestern forest area (excluding woodlands) experienced mortality due to bark beetles or wildfire during this period. Expected climatic changes will alter future forest productivity, disturbance regimes, and species ranges throughout the Southwest. Emerging knowledge of these impending transitions informs efforts to adaptively manage southwestern forests.

PNAS↗

USGS2020

Wildfire-driven forest conversion in western North American landscapes

Changing disturbance regimes and climate can overcome forest ecosystem resilience. Following high-severity fire, forest recovery may be compromised by lack of tree seed sources, warmer and drier postfire climate, or short-interval reburning. A potential outcome of the loss of resilience is the conversion of the prefire forest to a different forest type or nonforest vegetation. Conversion implies major, extensive, and enduring changes in dominant species, life forms, or functions, with impacts on ecosystem services. In the present article, we synthesize a growing body of evidence of fire-driven conversion and our understanding of its causes across western North America. We assess our capacity to predict conversion and highlight important uncertainties. Increasing forest vulnerability to changing fire activity and climate compels shifts in management approaches, and we propose key themes for applied research coproduced by scientists and managers to support decision-making in an era when the prefire forest may not return.

Alaska, Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, Califo↗

USGS2020

Forest restoration and fuels reduction: Convergent or divergent?

For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests. Perhaps the vital element in the compatibility of these treatments is that both need to incorporate the salient characteristics that frequent fire produced—variability in vegetation structure and composition across landscapes and the inability to support large patches of high-severity fire. These characteristics can be achieved with both fire and mechanical treatments. The possible key to convergence of fuel reduction and forest restoration strategies is integrated planning that permits treatment design flexibility and a longer-term focus on fire reintroduction for maintenance. With changing climate conditions, long-term forest conservation will probably need to be focused on keeping tree density low enough (i.e., in the lower range of historic variation) for forest conditions to adapt to emerging disturbance patterns and novel ecological processes.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New↗

USGS2018

Importance of riparian forest corridors for the ocelot in agricultural landscapes

Worldwide, private lands have attracted increased attention from conservationists, not only because most of the globe is privately owned, but also because private lands can be an asset to the protected area conservation strategy. In Brazil, the riverine Areas of Permanent Protection (APPs) is a key instrument of the Forest Code to protect native vegetation on private lands. Although APPs were conceived to function as potential wildlife corridors, this putative role has been rarely assessed. Further, recent debatable changes in the Forest Code have decreased the extent of APPs. Given this lack of information and the declining area being protected along with the growing demand for agricultural and biofuel production, which stimulate additional deforestation, it is timely to assess the role of APPs in wildlife conservation. We did this analyzing how ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) occurrence is influenced by covariates in 3 cerrado landscapes dominated by sugarcane and managed forests of eucalyptus and pine trees. We collected detection/non-detection data by camera trapping during 2 dry seasons (2013 and 2014) at 208 stations (6606 camera-days). We estimated ocelot detection and mean relative abundance using a single-species/single-season occupancy model that accounts for heterogeneous detection probability induced by variation in abundance. Modeling results showed that percentage of native forest was the most important covariate to explain ocelot mean relative abundance. This parameter was also affected positively by APPs, with ocelots being more abundant inside than outside APPs and, unexpectedly, by sugarcane. Given study design, however, the positive effect of this crop likely reflects the contact zone between sugarcane and native forest. Our findings show that landscape composition affects ocelot abundance and highlight the importance of APPs and Legal Reserves in agricultural landscapes. We conclude that, in such landscapes, compliance to the Forest Code by private land owners is key to supporting ocelot occurrence.

Journal of Mammalogy↗

USGS2023

Network analysis of a northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) maternity colony in a suburban forest patch

Many bat species are highly social, forming groups of conspecifics, particularly during the maternity season. In temperate North America, these social groups are typically comprised of closely related individuals or individuals that share some common trait (i.e. reproductive state or shared hibernacula from the previous winter). In the summer, when bats use forests for day-roosts, these social groups often demonstrate nonrandom patterns of periodically associating in common roosts and disassociating using different roosts as a ‘fission–fusion society’. As cave hibernating bat species in North America continue to decline due to the impacts of White-nose Syndrome, opportunities to describe these dynamics are becoming rare. Unfortunately, these patterns often are still poorly documented, yet understanding these behaviors is critical for species-specific habitat conservation and management. In our study, we tracked female northern long-eared bats ( Myotis septentrionalis ) to their day-roosts in a small, suburban forest fragment in coastal New York, USA, in the summers of 2018 and 2019. We confirmed that the bats shared roost sites and, using network analyses, analyzed social dynamics and space use. In contrast to previous research on this imperiled species in large, unfragmented core forests, we found a more dense, connected roost network that concentrated around forest patch edges. Unusual for this species, primary roosts were anthropogenic structures. Our findings suggest that northern long-eared bats can utilize small forest patches and that incorporation of specific types of anthropogenic roosts might be an effective strategy for long-term conservation in more urbanized landscapes where forest management actions to enhance day-roosting conditions a

New York↗

USGS2004

Bat activity in harvested and intact forest stands in the allegheny mountains

We used Anabat acoustical monitoring devices to examine bat activity in intact canopy forests, complex canopy forests with gaps, forests subjected to diameter-limit harvests, recent deferment harvests, clearcuts and unmanaged forested riparian areas in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia in the summer of 1999. We detected eight species of bats, including the endangered Indiana bat ( Myotis sodalis ). Most bat activity was concentrated in forested riparian areas. Among upland habitats, activity of silver-haired bats ( Lasionycteris noctivagans ) and hoary bats ( Lasiurus cinereus ) was higher in open, less cluttered vegetative types such as recent deferment harvests and clearcuts. Our results suggest that bat species in the central Appalachians partially segregate themselves among vegetative conditions based on differences in body morphology and echolocation call characteristics. From the standpoint of conserving bat foraging habitat for the maximum number of species in the central Appalachians, special emphasis should be placed on protecting forested riparian areas.

West Virginia↗

USGS2015

Linear models for airborne-laser-scanning-based operational forest inventory with small field sample size and highly correlated LiDAR data

Modern operational forest inventory often uses remotely sensed data that cover the whole inventory area to produce spatially explicit estimates of forest properties through statistical models. The data obtained by airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) correlate well with many forest inventory variables, such as the tree height, the timber volume, and the biomass. To construct an accurate model over thousands of hectares, LiDAR data must be supplemented with several hundred field sample measurements of forest inventory variables. This can be costly and time consuming. Different LiDAR-data-based and spatial-data-based sampling designs can reduce the number of field sample plots needed. However, problems arising from the features of the LiDAR data, such as a large number of predictors compared with the sample size (overfitting) or a strong correlation among predictors (multicollinearity), may decrease the accuracy and precision of the estimates and predictions. To overcome these problems, a Bayesian linear model with the singular value decomposition of predictors, combined with regularization, is proposed. The model performance in predicting different forest inventory variables is verified in ten inventory areas from two continents, where the number of field sample plots is reduced using different sampling designs. The results show that, with an appropriate field plot selection strategy and the proposed linear model, the total relative error of the predicted forest inventory variables is only 5%–15% larger using 50 field sample plots than the error of a linear model estimated with several hundred field sample plots when we sum up the error due to both the model noise variance and the model’s lack of fit.

IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing↗

USGS2016

Waterfowl populations are resilient to immediate and lagged impacts of wildfires in the boreal forest

Summary 1. Wildfires are the principal disturbance in the boreal forest, and their size and frequency are increasing as the climate warms. Impacts of fires on boreal wildlife are largely unknown, especially for the tens of millions of waterfowl that breed in the region. This knowledge gap creates significant barriers to the integrative management of fires and waterfowl, leading to fire policies that largely disregard waterfowl. 2. Waterfowl populations across the western boreal forest of North America have been monitored annually since 1955 by the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey (BPOP), widely considered the most extensive wildlife survey in the world. Using these data, we examined impacts of forest fires on abundance of two waterfowl guilds – dabblers and divers. We modelled waterfowl abundance in relation to fire extent (i.e. amount of survey transect burned) and time since fire, examining both immediate and lagged fire impacts. 3. From 1955 to 2014, >1100 fires in the western boreal forest intersected BPOP survey transects, and many transects burned multiple times. Nonetheless, fires had no detectable impact on waterfowl abundance; annual transect counts of dabbler and diver pairs remained stable from the pre- to post-fire period. 4. The absence of fire impacts on waterfowl abundance extended from the years immediately following the fire to those more than a decade afterwards. Likewise, the amount of transect burned did not influence waterfowl abundance, with similar pair counts from the pre- to post-fire period for small (1–20% burned), medium (21–60%) and large (>60%) burns. 5. Policy implications. Waterfowl populations appear largely resilient to forest fires, providing initial evidence that current policies of limited fire suppression, which predominate throughout much of the boreal forest, have not been detrimental to waterfowl populations. Likewise, fire-related management actions, such as prescribed burning or targeted suppression, seem to have limited impacts on waterfowl abundance and productivity. For waterfowl managers, our results suggest that adaptive models of waterfowl harvest, which annually guide hunting quotas, do not need to emphasize fires when integrating climate change effects.

Journal of Applied Ecology↗