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Results for “Biological Conservation”

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At least 757 records · Page 42Linked to original sources
USGS2009

Guiding concepts for park and wilderness stewardship in an era of global environmental change

The major challenge to stewardship of protected areas is to decide where, when, and how to intervene in physical and biological processes, to conserve what we value in these places. To make such decisions, planners and managers must articulate more clearly the purposes of parks, what is valued, and what needs to be sustained. A key aim for conservation today is the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity, but a broader range of values are also likely to be considered important, including ecological integrity, resilience, historical fidelity (ie the ecosystem appears and functions much as it did in the past), and autonomy of nature. Until recently, the concept of “naturalness” was the guiding principle when making conservation‐related decisions in park and wilderness ecosystems. However, this concept is multifaceted and often means different things to different people, including notions of historical fidelity and autonomy from human influence. Achieving the goal of nature conservation intended for such areas requires a clear articulation of management objectives, which must be geared to the realities of the rapid environmental changes currently underway. We advocate a pluralistic approach that incorporates a suite of guiding principles, including historical fidelity, autonomy of nature, ecological integrity, and resilience, as well as managing with humility. The relative importance of these guiding principles will vary, depending on management goals and ecological conditions.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment↗
USGS2014

Freshwater mussels of Florida

An exhaustive guide to all aspects of the freshwater mussel fauna in Florida, Freshwater Mussels of Florida covers the ecology, biology, distribution, and conservation of the many species of bivalve mollusks in the Sunshine State. In the past three decades, researchers, the public, businesses that depend on wildlife, and policy makers have given more attention to the threatened natural diversity of the Southeast, including freshwater mussels. This compendium meets the increasingly urgent need to catalog this imperiled group of aquatic organisms in the United States.

Florida↗
USGS2006

A system to evaluate the scientific quality of biological and restoration objectives using National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plans as a case study

It is widely accepted that plans for restoration projects should contain specific, measurable, and science-based objectives to guide restoration efforts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is in the process of developing Comprehensive Conservation Plans (CCPs) for more than 500 units in the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS). These plans contain objectives for biological and ecosystem restoration efforts on the refuges. Based on USFWS policy, a system was developed to evaluate the scientific quality of such objectives based on three critical factors: (1) Is the objective specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and time-fixed? (2) What is the extent of the rationale that explains the assumptions, logic, and reasoning for the objective? (3) How well was available science used in the development of the objective? The evaluation system scores each factor on a scale of 1 (poor) to 4 (excellent) according to detailed criteria. The biological and restoration objectives from CCPs published as of September 2004 (60 total) were evaluated. The overall average score for all biological and restoration objectives was 1.73. Average scores for each factor were: Factor 1-1.97; Factor 2-1.86; Factor 3-1.38. The overall scores increased from 1997 to 2004. Future restoration efforts may benefit by using this evaluation system during the process of plan development, to ensure that biological and restoration objectives are of the highest scientific quality possible prior to the implementation of restoration plans, and to allow for improved monitoring and adaptive management.

Journal for Nature Conservation↗
USGS2023

A science and management partnership to restore coregonine diversity to the Laurentian Great Lakes

Similar to many freshwater ecosystems, the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America have undergone numerous anthropogenic stressors resulting in considerable loss of biodiversity and habitat. Among Great Lakes fishes, the coregonine sub-family has endured the most extensive declines, including extinction of several species ( Coregonus johannae, C. alpenae , and C. kiyi orientalis ) and at least 10 instances of local extirpations of other species ( C. nigripinnis, C. reighardi, C. zenithicus, C. hoyi , and C. artedi ) across all 5 lakes, much of which occurred prior to the 1960s owing to overfishing, interactions with non-indigenous species, and habitat loss. Despite these declines, no federal-, provincial-, or state-mandated actions were ever implemented to conserve coregonine diversity, potentially because so much of the coregonine declines occurred prior to the enactment of federal conservation legislation. Possible explanations for inaction since enactment of that legislation include insufficient data on biological vulnerability or threats, unresolved taxonomy, and limited support from the fishery management agencies and their stakeholders prior to the 2000s. In recent decades, however, several fishery management agencies have undertaken efforts to re-introduce coregonine diversity. These efforts helped lead to development of a science-based framework to restore coregonines that was universally endorsed by fishery managers representing eight U.S. states, four U.S. tribal organizations, and the province of ON, Canada, in May 2018. The basin-wide framework is based on principles of conservation biology and adaptive management. We describe details of its key steps, including planning, restoring, and evaluating, while also describing recent implementation efforts to develop methods, improve available resources, and enhance coordination across the basin. Although our paper describes a regional effort to restore native coregonines, our adaptive-management approach could be used by other multi-agency stakeholders seeking to conserve or restore native fishes.

Laurentian Great Lakes↗
USGS2003

Effect of different sampling schemes on the spatial placement of conservation reserves in Utah, USA

We evaluated the effect of three different sampling schemes used to organize spatially explicit biological information had on the spatial placement of conservation reserves in Utah, USA. The three sampling schemes consisted of a hexagon representation developed by the EPA/EMAP program (statistical basis), watershed boundaries (ecological), and the current county boundaries of Utah (socio-political). Four decision criteria were used to estimate effects, including amount of area, length of edge, lowest number of contiguous reserves, and greatest number of terrestrial vertebrate species covered. A fifth evaluation criterion was the effect each sampling scheme had on the ability of the modeled conservation reserves to cover the six major ecoregions found in Utah. Of the three sampling schemes, county boundaries covered the greatest number of species, but also created the longest length of edge and greatest number of reserves. Watersheds maximized species coverage using the least amount of area. Hexagons and watersheds provide the least amount of edge and fewest number of reserves. Although there were differences in area, edge and number of reserves among the sampling schemes, all three schemes covered all the major ecoregions in Utah and their inclusive biodiversity. ?? 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biological Conservation↗
USGS2001

Applicability of NASQAN data for ecosystem assessments on the Missouri River

The effectiveness of ecological restoration efforts on large developed rivers is often unknown because comprehensive ecological monitoring programs are often absent. Although Eulerian water-quality monitoring programs, such as the National Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) program, are more common, they are usually not designed for ecological assessment. Therefore, this paper addresses the value of NASQAN for ecological assessments on the Missouri River and identifies potential program additions and modifications to assess certain ecological changes in physical habitat, biological structure and function, and ecotoxicity. Five additional sites: The analysis of chlorophyll, mercury, ATP, potential endocrine disruptors, total trace elements, and selected total hydrophobic organics; and the hourly measurement of dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and temperature are recommended. Hourly measurements would require an entirely new operational aspect to NASQAN. However, the presence of data loggers and satellite transmitters in the gauging stations at all NASQAN sites substantially improves the feasibility of continuous water-quality monitoring. The use of semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) to monitor dissolved bioaccumulating organics and trace elements, identification and enumeration of zooplankton, and characterization of the bioavailability of organic matter are also recommended. The effect of biological processes on the conservative assumptions that are used in flux and source determinations of NASQAN constituents are also evaluated. Organic carbon, organic nitrogen, dissolved phosphate, and dissolved inorganic nitrogen are the NASQAN constituents most vulnerable to biological processes and thus violation of conservative assumptions.

Hydrological Processes↗
USGS2006

Emerging concepts for management of river ecosystems and challenges to applied integration of physical and biological sciences in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Integration of biological and physical concepts is necessary to understand and conserve the ecological integrity of river systems. Past attempts at integration have often focused at relatively small scales and on mechanistic models that may not capture the complexity of natural systems leaving substantial uncertainty about ecological responses to management actions. Two solutions have been proposed to guide management in the face of that uncertainty: the use of “natural variability” in key environmental patterns, processes, or disturbance as a reference; and the retention of some areas as essentially unmanaged reserves to conserve and represent as much biological diversity as possible. Both concepts are scale dependent because dominant processes or patterns that might be referenced will change with scale. Context and linkages across scales may be as important in structuring biological systems as conditions within habitats used by individual organisms. Both ideas view the physical environment as a template for expression, maintenance, and evolution of ecological diversity. To conserve or restore a diverse physical template it will be important to recognize the ecologically important differences in physical characteristics and processes among streams or watersheds that we might attempt to mimic in management or represent in conservation or restoration reserves.

International Journal of River Basin Management↗
USGS2015

Strategic Grassland Bird Conservation throughout the annual cycle: Linking policy alternatives, landowner decisions, and biological population outcomes

Grassland bird habitat has declined substantially in the United States. Remaining grasslands are increasingly fragmented, mostly privately owned, and vary greatly in terms of habitat quality and protection status. A coordinated strategic response for grassland bird conservation is difficult, largely due to the scope and complexity of the problem, further compounded by biological, sociological, and economic uncertainties. We describe the results from a collaborative Structured Decision Making (SDM) workshop focused on linking social and economic drivers of landscape change to grassland bird population outcomes. We identified and evaluated alternative strategies for grassland bird conservation using a series of rapid prototype models. We modeled change in grassland and agriculture cover in hypothetical landscapes resulting from different landowner decisions in response to alternative socio-economic conservation policy decisions. Resulting changes in land cover at all three stages of the annual cycle (breeding, wintering, and migration) were used to estimate changes in grassland bird populations. Our results suggest that successful grassland bird conservation may depend upon linkages with ecosystem services on working agricultural lands and grassland-based marketing campaigns to engage the public. With further development, spatial models that link landowner decisions with biological outcomes can be essential tools for making conservation policy decisions. A coordinated non-traditional partnership will likely be necessary to clearly understand and systematically respond to the many conservation challenges facing grassland birds.

PLoS ONE↗
USGS2013

Book review: Conservation, ecology, and management of catfish: The second international symposium

This is the second publication in a series published by the American Fisheries Society devoted to catfish research, biology, and management, which was organized as a symposium held in St. Louis Missouri, in 2010 and builds upon the first symposium that was held in Davenport, Iowa, in 1998 (Irwin et al. 1999). The organizations of the second symposium stated that this was to "serve as an addendum to Catfish 2000" and "to cover the four corners of catfish science: catfish biology, ecology, management, and conservation" (p. xi). The book meets this standard easily. With 64 pages organized into nine sections (plenary, catfishes as sport fish, non-game catfishes, nonnative catfishes, movement and habitat use, sampling and population assessment, age and growth, behavior, and future directions), this publication covers these four corners and more. Review info: Conservation, Ecology, and Management of Catfish: The Second International Symposium. Edited by P. H. Michaletz and V. H. Travnichek, 2011. ISBN: 978-1934874257, 800 pp.

Fisheries↗
USGS2021

Genetic diversity is considered important but interpreted narrowly in country reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity: Current actions and indicators are insufficient

International agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have committed to conserve, and sustainably and equitably use, biodiversity. The CBD is a vital instrument for global conservation because it guides 195 countries and the European Union in setting priorities and allocating resources, and requires regular reporting on progress. However, the CBD and similar policy agreements have often neglected genetic diversity. This is a critical gap because genetic diversity underlies adaptation to environmental change and ecosystem resilience. Here we aim to inform future policy, monitoring, and reporting efforts focused on limiting biodiversity loss by conducting the largest yet evaluation of how Parties to the CBD report on genetic diversity. A large, globally representative sample of 114 CBD National Reports was examined to assess reported actions, progress, values and indicators related to genetic diversity. Although the importance of genetic diversity is recognized by most Parties to the CBD, genetic diversity targets mainly addressed variation within crops and livestock (a small fraction of all species). Reported actions to conserve genetic diversity primarily concerned ex situ facilities and legislation, rather than monitoring and in situ intervention. The most commonly reported status indicators are not well correlated to maintaining genetic diversity. Lastly, few reports mentioned genetic monitoring using DNA data, indigenous use and knowledge of genetic diversity, or development of strategies to conserve genetic diversity. We make several recommendations for the post-2020 CBD Biodiversity Framework, and similar efforts such as IPBES, to improve awareness, assessment, and monitoring of genetic diversity, and facilitate consistent and complete reporting in the future.

Biological Conservation↗
USGS2004

Assessment of current and proposed nature reserves of Mexico based on their capacity to protect geophysical features and biodiversity

Mexico currently has 144 nature reserves covering approximately 9.1% of its land area. These reserves were established for a variety of reasons - often unrelated to the protection of biodiversity. In 2000 in response to a growing concern about the lack of organized conservation reserve planning to protect the important threatened biological and physical features of Mexico, the Mexican Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) proposed the establishment of 151 new reserves for Mexico covering 51,429,500 ha. We compiled a GIS analysis using digital thematic maps of physical and biological features to examine how the existing and proposed reserves serve to protect the biodiversity and physical features of the country. Using a conservation target of placing a minimum of 12% of the land area of each important biophysical feature in nature reserves, we found that the 144 existing nature reserves covering 18 million ha (9% of the country) only meet that target for elevation ranges >3000 m and areas with poor soils. These mountainous areas represent less than 1% of the country. The gaps in the existing nature reserves network occur mainly at lower and intermediate elevations (<3000 m) areas with xeric, tropical, and temperate ecosystems, and high productivity soils. The areas proposed by CONABIO increase the proportion of protected lands in the country to over 27% and most of the conservation targets for geophysical features, and land cover, categories are met. Whether this area would be sufficient to maintain viable populations and ecological integrity of species and ecosystems is unknown. Even with the new reserves, low elevation coastal lands would be below the conservation target in the nature reserves. To include a representative sample of these lands would be difficult as these are the same areas where the majority of people live. ?? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biological Conservation↗
USGS2021

Riverscape-scale modeling of fundamentally suitable habitat for mussel assemblages in an Ozark River system, Missouri

Identifying the physical habitat characteristics associated with riverine freshwater mussel assemblages is challenging but crucial for understanding the causes of mussel declines. The occurrence of mussels in multispecies beds suggests that common physical factors influence or limit their occurrence. Fine-scale geomorphic and hydraulic factors (e.g., scour, bed stability) are predictive of mussel-bed occurrence, but they are computationally challenging to represent at intermediate or riverscape scales. We used maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling to evaluate associations between riverscape-scale hydrogeomorphic variables and mussel-bed presence along 530 river km of the Meramec River basin, USA, to identify river reaches that are fundamentally suitable for mussels as well as those that are not. We obtained the locations of mussel beds from an existing, multiyear dataset, and we derived river variables from high-resolution, open-source datasets of aerial imagery and topography. Mussel beds occurred almost exclusively in reaches identified by our model as suitable; these were characterized by laterally stable channels, absence of adjacent bluffs, proximity to gravel bars, higher stream power, and larger areas of contiguous water (a proxy for drought vulnerability). We validated our model findings based on model sensitivity using a set of mussel-bed locations not used in model development. These findings can inform how resource managers allocate survey, monitoring, and conservation efforts.

Missouri↗
USGS2023

Four conservation challenges and a synthesis

Conservation and management of biological systems involves decision-making over time, with a generic goal of sustaining systems and their capacity to function in the future. We address four persistent and difficult conservation challenges: (1) prediction of future consequences of management, (2) uncertainty about the system's structure, (3) inability to observe ecological systems fully, and (4) nonstationary system dynamics. We describe these challenges in terms of dynamic systems subject to different sources of uncertainty, and we present a basic Markovian framework that can encompass approaches to all four challenges. Finding optimal conservation strategies for each challenge requires issue-specific structural features, including adaptations of state transition models, uncertainty metrics, valuation of accumulated returns, and solution methods. Strategy valuation exhibits not only some remarkable similarities among approaches but also some important operational differences. Technical linkages among the models highlight synergies in solution approaches, as well as possibilities for combining them in particular conservation problems. As methodology and computing software advance, such an integrated conservation framework offers the potential to improve conservation outcomes with strategies to allocate management resources efficiently and avoid negative consequences.

Ecology and Evolution↗
USGS2006

Linking the concept of scale to studies of biological diversity: evolving approaches and tools.

Although the concepts of scale and biological diversity independently have received rapidly increasing attention in the scientific literature since the 1980s, the rate at which the two concepts have been investigated jointly has grown much more slowly. We find that scale considerations have been incorporated explicitly into six broad areas of investigation related to biological diversity: (1) heterogeneity within and among ecosystems, (2) disturbance ecology, (3) conservation and restoration, (4) invasion biology, (5) importance of temporal scale for understanding processes, and (6) species responses to environmental heterogeneity. In addition to placing the papers of this Special Feature within the context of brief summaries of the expanding literature on these six topics, we provide an overview of tools useful for integrating scale considerations into studies of biological diversity. Such tools include hierarchical and structural-equation modelling, kriging, variable-width buffers, k -fold cross-validation, and cascading graph diagrams, among others. Finally, we address some of the major challenges and research frontiers that remain, and conclude with a look to the future.

Diversity and Distributions↗
USGS2017

Declining occurrence and low colonization probability in freshwater mussel assemblages: A dynamic occurrence modeling approach

Mussel monitoring data are abundant, but methods for analyzing long-term trends in these data are often uninformative or have low power to detect changes. We used a dynamic occurrence model, which accounted for imperfect species detection in surveys, to assess changes in species occurrence in a longterm data set (1986–2011) for the Tar River basin of North Carolina, USA. Occurrence of all species decreased steadily over the time period studied. Occurrence in 1986 ranged from 0.19 for Utterbackia imbecillis to 0.60 for Fusconaia masoni . Occurrence in 2010–2011 ranged from 0.10 for Lampsilis radiata to 0.40 for F. masoni . The maximum difference between occurrence in 1986 and 2011 was a decline of 0.30 for Alasmidonta undulata . Mean persistence for all species was high (0.97, 95% CI ¼ 0.95–0.99); however, mean colonization probability was very low (,0.01, 95% CI ¼ ,0.01–0.01). These results indicate that mussels persisted at sites already occupied but that they have not colonized sites where they had not occurred previously. Our findings highlight the importance of modeling approaches that incorporate imperfect detection in estimating species occurrence and revealing temporal trends to inform conservation planning.

North Carolina↗
USGS2024

Too simple, too complex, or just right? Advantages, challenges, and guidance for indicators of genetic diversity

Measuring genetic diversity of wild species using DNA-based data remains resource intensive and time consuming for nearly all species. However, genetic assessments are needed for global conservation commitments, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, and for governments and managers to evaluate conservation progress, as well as prioritizing species and populations to preserve and recover genetic diversity (e.g., via genetic rescue). Recently, indicators were developed for tracking and reporting genetic diversity status and trends for hundreds of species. The indicators quantify two simple proxies of within-population and among-population genetic diversity and adaptive potential: small effective population size ( N e < 500) and the loss of genetically distinct populations. The indicators must balance scientific credibility, practicality, and simplicity. In the present article, we summarize the advantages of these pragmatic indicators, address critiques by scientists for simplifying assumptions and by policymakers for complexity, and propose potential solutions and next steps. We aim to support practitioners putting indicators into policy, action, legislation, and reporting.

BioScience↗
USGS2009

Climate change adaptation for the US National Wildlife Refuge System

Since its establishment in 1903, the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) has grown to 635 units and 37 Wetland Management Districts in the United States and its territories. These units provide the seasonal habitats necessary for migratory waterfowl and other species to complete their annual life cycles. Habitat conversion and fragmentation, invasive species, pollution, and competition for water have stressed refuges for decades, but the interaction of climate change with these stressors presents the most recent, pervasive, and complex conservation challenge to the NWRS. Geographic isolation and small unit size compound the challenges of climate change, but a combined emphasis on species that refuges were established to conserve and on maintaining biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health provides the NWRS with substantial latitude to respond. Individual symptoms of climate change can be addressed at the refuge level, but the strategic response requires system-wide planning. A dynamic vision of the NWRS in a changing climate, an explicit national strategic plan to implement that vision, and an assessment of representation, redundancy, size, and total number of units in relation to conservation targets are the first steps toward adaptation. This adaptation must begin immediately and be built on more closely integrated research and management. Rigorous projections of possible futures are required to facilitate adaptation to change. Furthermore, the effective conservation footprint of the NWRS must be increased through land acquisition, creative partnerships, and educational programs in order for the NWRS to meet its legal mandate to maintain the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of the system and the species and ecosystems that it supports.

Environmental Management↗