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Item Open Access 2018 Land Trust Communication Guide(2018-04-26) Hanway, HayleyCommunications is a critical component of a land trust’s success. Since land trusts are mainly private, non-profit organizations, they are heavily dependent on donors and volunteers. A strong communications strategy will attract new donors and volunteers while retaining old ones. This project for the Land Conservancy of West Michigan (LCWM) evaluates different communications platforms and strategies and provides a list of recommendations for an effective communication’s plan. Research was conducted via a survey disseminated to LCWM members and informational interviews with other environmental organizations. Final recommendations include prioritizing Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube/Vimeo over other forms of social media, investing in an annual (or five-year) professional paper magazine product, strengthening partnerships with local organizations, and holding more events for outreach.Item Open Access A Formative Evaluation of the Mount Kilimanjaro Roots & Shoots Community-based Conservation Project: Re-integrating participatory approaches into the program(2009-12-03T19:38:51Z) Gorczyca, AngelaThe purpose of my Masters project was to conduct a formative evaluation of the Mount Kilimanjaro Roots & Shoots Community-based Conservation Partnership Project (Conservation Site) in Northeast Tanzania. After one year of operation in 2008, Roots and Shoots staff sought to assess the Conservation Site’s initial progress in providing demonstration workshops on tree nurseries, beekeeping, fuel-efficient stoves, and fish farming to the students, teachers and members of the Mweka Village. A formative evaluation was especially pertinent because Roots & Shoots made significant changes to the original Community-based initiative for the Conservation Site. Due to a limitation in human and financial resources, Roots & Shoots did not conduct a Community assessment before the Conservation Site was established in 2007. I implemented a participatory survey that focused on three research questions: Awareness/Adoption of selected sustainable practices, Conservation Site Awareness/Participation and Conservation Site Effectiveness/Recommendations. The 223 participants were selected using the snowball method. I coded the responses to the questions in the NVivo8 qualitative data software program and calculated the frequencies. Chi-square analyses were conducted to test for significant associations between participant demographics and environmental behavior. The results of this evaluation indicate the Conservation Site’s limited progress in engaging the Community and promoting the adoption of the four activities. Beekeeping and tree nurseries were more familiar and established, while a minority of the sample was aware of and using the recently introduced activities, fish farming (42 %) and fuel-efficient stoves (30 %). Only 40 percent of the sample was familiar with the conservation site. The respondents’ main recommendations for the Conservation Site were to improve Community participation, outreach and management. Education, property size, years lived in village, age and gender were demographic variables that were found to be significantly associated with environmental behavior. The results of this formative evaluation are indicative of the lack of Community involvement during the formulation and implementation stages of the Conservation Site. I encourage Roots & Shoots to reintegrate participatory approaches at the Conservation Site through training of trainer seminars, a Conservation Site board of Community stakeholders, and a participatory rural appraisal.Item Open Access A meta-analysis of the value of marine protected areas for pelagic apex predators(2015) DunphyDaly, MeaganA vast range of theoretical and empirical studies now suggests that MPAs can conserve marine biodiversity and, under some circumstances, increase fishery yields. However, despite the importance of pelagic apex predators to ecosystem function, the effectiveness of spatial management for the conservation of pelagic apex predator species is still unknown. I used fishery-dependent logbook and observer datasets to assess fishing effort and both the catch and size of pelagic apex predator species around five different MPAs. The US Hawaii-based deep-set or Atlantic pelagic longline fisheries fish the waters around these MPAs; both of these fisheries have experienced multiple management measures over time to protect species and maximize fishery yield. The MPAs selected for this study range in size, age, level of protection, and reason for establishment. I found that only two MPAs of the five appeared to be benefitting the pelagic apex predator species that I selected: the DeSoto Canyon and East Florida Coast MPAs, both in the Atlantic Ocean. The size of yellowfin tuna around the DeSoto Canyon MPA borders has increased over time, as has fishing effort. In contrast, the size of swordfish has decreased near the boundary of the East Florida Coast MPA, although the catch of swordfish has increased. The increase in catch of smaller swordfish was not a surprise because the East Florida Coast MPA was established around an area that is a nursery habitat for swordfish. These results are promising for the use of static MPAs for the conservation of pelagic apex predators, but three of the MPAs in my study did not show any indication of increased fishing effort, increased catch, or changes in pelagic apex predator size near their boundaries over time. Therefore, the characteristics of the DeSoto Canyon and East Florida Coast MPAs may provide a template for how to best design new MPAs for pelagic apex predators. Both of these MPAs were established with the specific intent of reducing pelagic apex predator bycatch, in areas where there were historically high catch rates. Both areas are relatively large (> 85,000 km2) and are also closed year-round. In combination, these characteristics may provide protection for pelagic apex predators.
Item Open Access A Preliminary Assessment of the Blue Carbon Capacity of Belizean Mangroves with Ecological, Economic, and Policy Perspectives(2015-04-24) Chang, Sylvia; Green, Ashley; Kelley, EmmaIn recent years, mangrove forests have experienced increasing deforestation rates in Belize due to coastal development. Our client, the Belize Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries, and Sustainable Development, wants to determine the potential for Belizean mangrove blue carbon to provide funding opportunities through international financing schemes for the conservation and enhancement of mangroves. Mangrove forests are coastal wetlands along the intertidal zone of tropical and subtropical coastlines. Mangrove, salt marsh, and seagrass ecosystems have significant abilities to sequester and store carbon in their biomass and sediments – the carbon stored in these coastal ecosystems is referred to as “blue carbon.” The impact of mangrove deforestation on carbon sequestration in Belize could be significant, but little is known about how much carbon is stored in Belizean mangroves. The goal of this project was to provide a preliminary assessment of the potential of blue carbon in Belize. This project was broken down into three objectives: ecology, economic, and policy. The goal of the ecology portion of this study was to provide preliminary estimates of the blue carbon stocks of Belize’s mangroves. This required data on the extent of Belizean mangroves, which were obtained from a 2010 study by Emil Cherrington and colleagues, as well from a 2014 update provided by Mr. Cherrington. Using this spatial data, four different approaches were applied to estimate the mangrove blue carbon stocks. The first was a meta-analysis evaluating the pre-existing knowledge of belowground carbon storage in mangrove ecosystems in the Caribbean. This analysis identified a linear relationship between belowground carbon storage and latitude, which was used to estimate that approximately 9.4 Tg are stored in the belowground blue carbon pool in Belize. The Blue Carbon Initiative’s Coastal Blue Carbon guidebook was used to make another estimate and this method suggests that approximately 23.3 Tg of blue carbon are stored in the mangrove forests of Belize. Using physiographic mangrove type-specific estimates from carbon studies in Mexico (Adame et al. 2013), a third estimate approximated that there are 29.6 Tg of blue carbon stored in the mangrove forests of Belize. The large variation between these initial estimates emphasized the need to complete in-country mangrove blue carbon sampling. Thus, a study was undertaken combining aboveground mangrove biomass data from the University of Belize’s Environmental Research Institute and soil carbon data from a field study we completed in August 2014. Although this estimate is limited in scope due to its inclusion of only two of the four blue carbon pools, this methodology suggests that there are 13.0 Tg of blue carbon stored in Belize’s mangroves. The second goal of this study was to conduct a preliminary economic analysis of the value of the blue carbon stocks and identify the factors influencing the feasibility of a blue carbon offsets project. Having an estimate of the economic costs and benefits for a blue carbon offsets program helps show the net economic value of actions to conserve or enhance mangroves. Economic analysis will help show when carbon payments can justify the cost of changing local behavior and determine how might a carbon payments project might compete with alternative land uses in Belize. Using preliminary carbon stock estimates and project criteria estimates, we conducted a case study of a net present value (NPV) analysis to determine the economic feasibility of a blue carbon offsets project for 25% of the mangroves on Turneffe Atoll. Not surprisingly, the analysis shows that a blue carbon offsets project cannot outcompete coastal development on Turneffe when the cost for land acquisition is high. Under the scenario without accounting for land acquisition cost, a carbon price greater than $10 per tCO2e is necessary to generate enough revenue to sustain the blue carbon project. The potential for Belize to enter the blue carbon market depends on three factors: the future risk of mangrove deforestation, price of land acquisition, and success of blue carbon credits. The bundling of blue carbon credits with payments for ecosystem services is a potential avenue worth exploring for future blue carbon projects. The third and final objective was to complete a preliminary assessment of the status of mangroves and mangrove conservation in Belize and policies that could promote a reduction of emissions generated by destruction of vegetation as well as increase blue carbon sequestration. We provide an assessment of the threats to mangroves and discussed issues confronting mangrove conservation in Belize. This is followed by an outline of the relevant laws, policies, agencies, and actors. We then used the Blue Carbon Policy Framework 2.0 (Herr et al. 2012) - a report that outlines options for the assimilation of blue carbon into existing policy initiatives - to identify specific actions Belize can take at the national level to facilitate blue carbon activities. We also discuss potential sources of funding for blue carbon initiatives in Belize, and potential obstacles to implementing blue carbon initiatives. A literature review coupled with interviews with officials from the Government of Belize, researchers from the field, and non-governmental organization representatives served to inform the development of this section of the report. According to the Blue Carbon Initiative, there are three high priority activities national governments should undertake to incorporate blue carbon priorities and activities into climate change mitigation efforts at the national level (Herr and Pidgeon 2012). These activities include: (1) “development of national blue carbon action plans, outlining specific national circumstances, opportunities, needs and limits;” (2) “conducting national scientific carbon, ecological and socio-economic assessments of shallow coastal marine ecosystems;” and (3) “conducting national cost-benefit analysis of including blue carbon activities into national climate change mitigation strategies” (Herr and Pidgeon 2012). In addition to these three high priority activities, the Blue Carbon Initiative brief (Herr and Pidgeon 2012) also describes additional measures developing countries should undertake to ensure mitigation activities at the national level effectively incorporate blue carbon activities. This report identifies specific actions from that brief that are applicable for Belize and provides additional actions we recommend based on our analysis.Item Open Access A Review of Successful Practices in Environmental Education to apply in the design of a Marine Science Curriculum(2020-04-23) Wright, WalterConnecting people to natural systems has become an important way of addressing current environmental issues. The need for conservation and protection of these natural systems will have a much greater chance of success if environmental education for students is designed to help link human actions to environmental impacts. This can be a challenge for educators when environmental issues are not directly related to a student’s lifestyle or understood. How to connect environmental issues to anyone that may have little or no understanding of an issue is a challenge for environmental educators. This MP will provide a short review of environmental education - the past, current themes and methods, and ideas for the future. This review will also assist in helping the client, SAILwind (an educational organization which focuses on coastal ecology and environmental issues) by developing an understanding of how environmental education developed and what is currently happening in several selected learning institutions and organizations. Obtaining the background for environmental education, helps in providing appropriate and accurate curriculum for the educational organization SAILwind, to assist them with their goals of protection and conservation. SAILwind is a highly interactive, educational non-profit, using science, adventure, and fun to help people learn about natural systems and to connect their individual actions and habits with impacts on the natural world. This is accomplished through “play with a purpose”, a tagline of the organization. Sailing and kayak trips, stream bed exploration and coastal excursions all are part of the platform using a nature based experience to learn about an ecosystem and to see how humans affect these natural systems. SAILwind needs more curriculum designed around school aged kids to help expand their educational efforts and this MP includes three educational models/programs to be used for school kids in SAILwind’s educational and conservation efforts.Item Open Access A spark for collective action: Challenges and opportunities for self-governance in temporary fisher-designed Fish Refuges in Mexico(2020) Quintana, Anastasia Compton ElunedDespite decades of study, the question of how to achieve sustainable small-scale fisheries is unresolved. Because small-scale fishing is diverse and hard to control, one management approach places fishers at the center of decision-making. Common-pool resource theory has assembled a large body of evidence that resource users, without top-down state control, are able to devise and enforce rules that lead to long-term sustainable resource harvest. The social and ecological characteristics (“design principles”) are well known for systems where this collective action is predicted to spontaneously emerge. However, it is poorly known what precipitates collective action when these design principles are absent. This dissertation draws insights about this question from a seemingly successful case from Baja California Sur, Mexico, where fishers have voluntarily created no-fishing areas (“Fish Refuges” or “Zonas de Refugio Pesquero”) in collaboration with the government fisheries agency and a non-governmental organization, Niparajá, in the absence of the design principles. This work is based on an in-depth study of these Fish Refuges including 180 days in the field from 2016-2018, participant observation, informal interviews, journaling, and semi-structured interviews (n=66). First, I found that collective action was possible because stakeholders had three competing visions about what the Fish Refuges were, each associated with criteria and evidence of whether the Fish Refuges were effective. This implies that policy flexibility to accommodate competing goals and evaluation criteria could facilitate collaboration for fisheries management. Second, I found that fishers’ knowledge was integrated in a process that did not recognize its legitimacy though what I call “ping-pong hybridization”, where the locus of decision making moved between stakeholders who could draw on their own knowledge systems. This implies that policies may be able to integrate multiple knowledge systems if the locus of decision-making moves back and forth. Third, I found that the property rights regime change away from de facto open access was possible because fishers were able to trade formal fishing rights for informal management rights, closing a fishing area to gain government trust and partnership. This work implies that insecure, unofficial, and tenuous property rights may be a first step of property rights regime change to achieve sustainable fisheries. In conclusion, bottom-up approaches to fisheries management may benefit from processes where different stakeholders can define the goals and methods used, and draw on their own knowledge systems to assess success. Shifts away from open access may be precipitated when fishers demand decision-making rights, even if these rights are tenuous.
Item Open Access Advancing Drone Methods for Pinniped Ecology and Management(2022) Larsen, Gregory DavidPinniped species undergo a life history, unique among marine mammals, that includes discrete periods of occupancy on land or ice within a predominantly marine existence. This makes many pinniped species valuable sentinels of marine ecosystem health and models of marine mammal physiology and behavior. Pinniped research has often progressed hand-in-hand with advances at the technological frontiers of wildlife biology, and drones represent a leap forward in the long-established field of aerial photography, heralding opportunities for data collection and integration at new scales of biological importance. The following chapters employ and evaluate recent and emerging methods of wildlife surveillance that are uniquely enabled and facilitated by drone methods, in applied research and management campaigns with near-polar pinniped species. These methods represent advancements in abundance estimation and distribution modeling of pinniped populations that are dynamically shifting amid climate change, fishing pressure, and recovery from historical depletion.Conventional methods of counting animals from aerial imagery—typically visual interpretation by human analysts—can be time-consuming and limits the practical use of this data type. Deep learning methods of computer vision can ease this burden when applied to drone imagery, but are not yet characterized for practical and generalized use. To this end, I used a common implementation of deep learning for object detection in imagery to train and test models on a variety of datasets describing breeding populations of gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) in the northwest Atlantic Ocean (Chapter 2). I compare standardized performance metrics of models trained and tested on different combinations of datasets, demonstrating that model performance varies depending on both training and testing data choices. We find that models require careful validation to estimate error rates, and that they can be effectively deployed to aid, but not replace, conventional human visual interpretation of novel datasets for gray seal detection, location, age-classification and abundance estimation. Spatial analysis and species distribution modeling can use fine-scale drone-derived data to describe local species–habitat relationships at the scale of individual animals. I applied structure-from-motion methods to a survey of three pinniped species, pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii), northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus), and Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), in adjacent non-breeding haul-outs to compare occupancy and habitat selection (Chapter 3). I describe and compare fitted occupancy models of pacific harbor seals and northern fur seals, finding that conspecific attraction is a key driver of habitat selection for each species, and that each species exhibits distinct topographic preferences. These findings illustrate both opportunities and limitations of spatial analysis at the scale of individual pinnipeds. Ease of deployment and rapid data collection make drones a powerful tool for monitoring populations of interest over time, while animal locations, revealed in high-resolution imagery, and contextual habitat products can reveal spatial relationships that persist beyond local contexts. I designed and carried out a campaign of drone surveillance over coastal habitats near Palmer Station, Antarctica, in the austral summer of 2020 to assess the seasonal abundance and habitat use of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) in the Palmer Archipelago and adjacent regions (Chapter 4). I modeled abundance as a function of date, with and without additional terms to capture variance by site, and used these models to estimate peak abundance near Palmer Station in the 2020 summer season. These findings leverage the spatial and temporal advantages of drone methods to estimate species phenology, distribution and abundance. Together, these chapters describe emerging applications of drone technology that can advance pinniped research and management into new scales of analytical efficiency and ecological interpretation. These studies describe methods that have been proven in concept, but not yet standardized for practical deployment, and their findings reveal new ecological insights, opportunities for methodological advancement, and current limitations of drone methods for the study of pinnipeds in high-latitude environments.
Item Open Access An Information Systems Strategy for the Environmental Conservation Community(2008-04-25T20:55:48Z) Barker, KristinAs the cause of environmental conservation emerges as a global priority, the need for a practical information systems strategy shared among conservation organizations becomes imperative. Historically, researchers and practitioners in conservation have met their own information management and analysis needs with inevitable variation in methodology, semantics, data formats and quality. Consequently, conservation organizations have been unable to systematically assess conditions and set informed priorities at various scales, measure performance of their projects and improve practices through adaptive management. Moreover, the demands on conservation are changing such that the bottom-up approach to information systems will become an increasing constraint to effective environmental problem solving. Where we have historically focused on the protection of “important” places and species and more recently “biodiversity,” conservation is moving to a systems view, specifically ecosystem-based management, where relationships and process are as important as the individual elements. In parallel, awareness of the human dependency on functioning natural systems is on the rise and with it the need to explicitly value ecosystem services and inform tradeoffs. Climate change requires conservation to develop dynamic adaptation scenarios at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Finally, the business of conservation is under increased pressure to account for its spending and objectively measure outcomes of its strategies. All of these changes translate to growing, not shrinking, demands on information and information systems. In response to these challenges, this research presents an information systems strategy for the environmental conservation community. It proposes the development of a distributed systems infrastructure with end-user tools and shared services that support standardized datasets. Key strategies include removing the barriers to information sharing, providing valuable tools to data producers and directly supporting heterogeneity in conservation datasets. The strategy concludes with a call for high-level management involvement in information systems strategy and collaborative investment in implementation by the conservation community, partners in government and donors. Without these steps, conservation as an industry may find itself ill-equipped to meet the changing needs of people and nature.Item Open Access An organizational framework for effective conservation organizations(Biological Conservation, 2022-03-01) Jiménez, I; Basurto, XThere is a scarcity of studies on how to design conservation organizations to improve biodiversity outcomes. We use information from four conservation organizations (African Parks, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, and Rewilding Argentina) to update and describe an organizational framework for effective conservation organizations. This framework includes (1) clear and shared proactive vision inspired by innovative on-site senior leadership; (2) high contextuality based on shared leadership, on-the-ground administrative autonomy, and practice-based learning; (3) outstanding and well-communicated conservation outcomes; (4) linkages across-scales to access varied types of resources (i.e. political, social and economic); and (5) long-term financial viability. All these attributes form a dynamic and self-reinforcing “virtuous cycle,” with each attribute being both cause and effect at different moments in time, though the whole process is jump-started by on-site senior leaders. We believe that our framework can help to identify key questions that will facilitate the design and assessment of private and public conservation organizations towards improved effectiveness.Item Open Access AN UPDATED ANALYSIS OF PRIORITY LANDS FOR CONSERVATION IN THE ELLERBE CREEK WATERSHED(2022-04-21) Shapiro, Shana; Keller, SashaTraditionally, conservation organizations sought to protect the most pristine land from the pressures of conversion and degradation. The conserved lands were identified by their inherent ecological value such as biodiversity or their proximity to bodies of water. The legacy of protecting important ecological areas often overlooked natural spaces in urban areas because they were near developed areas or were themselves developed and required restoration. The contrast between urban and rural land protection led to more conservation outside urban areas and made the spaces and ecosystem services even more difficult to access. Our client, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association (ECWA), is a Durham nonprofit organization looking to contend with the conservation of natural spaces in an urban area in a more equitable way. Founded in 1999, ECWA was born from the realization that invasive species were proliferating in Durham. Through the use of conservation easements, fee simple acquisition, and transfers ECWA now owns and manages 450 acres of conserved lands. They work to protect and improve the Ellerbe Creek with the help of volunteers, and they are working to expand their efforts with equity and environmental justice at the forefront. ECWA first partnered with The Nicholas School to prioritize conservation lands in 2012. Yacobson (2013) constructed ECWA’s first geospatial tool to identify target areas, and our project works to update and reconstruct the model with both ecological and equity perspectives. Following a multi-criteria decision analysis framework, we constructed an adjustable model that will allow ECWA to find the most opportune areas for conservation according to their needs. Additionally, we emphasized equity as a core component of the analysis. Like many land trusts, ECWA has limited time and resources to devote to geospatial expertise. A driving goal for the project was to create a usable tool for ECWA’s limited GIS infrastructure. We created an easy-to-access, standardized, and easy-to-update model that includes datasets that are reliably funded and managed. Additionally, we synchronized our data with regional conservation efforts and built on established research in the Durham area. In collaboration with ECWA, we decided to base the prioritization on four main themes: (1) Water quality, (2) Habitat, (3) Equity, and (4) Accessibility potential. We combined the criteria from each theme in both equally weighted and adjusted weighting scenarios, resulting in different parcel conservation score rankings. Overall, the prioritization tool fulfills the need for a usable and adjustable tool that identifies the most opportune parcels for conservation. We provide maps and tables of the contributing criteria scores as well as the overall scores for different weighting scenarios. We find that when equity or accessibility are emphasized and weighted more heavily in the model, the resulting parcels with the highest conservation values are in distinctly different locations from model results where water quality or habitat are weighed more heavily. When equity and accessibility are weighed slightly higher than water quality or habitat, the parcels with the highest conservation value are located in more urban areas with lower socioeconomic status. The differences in conservation value based on the weighting scheme reflect how the priorities of a conservation organization can affect which parcels are most sought for conservation. The results can then inform conservation planning, project evaluation, educational outreach, and communication efforts for ECWA as they continue their work to protect the Ellerbe Creek watershed’s quality and provide more equitable access to green space.Item Open Access An Urban Conservation Strategy to Preserve Cuyahoga County’s Eco-Valued Landscapes(2007-05) Garrity, Lynn M.The land conservancy movement in the United States has increased significantly over the past twenty years. The increased number and activity of local land trusts is especially notable. Rural and suburban land has been the most important conservation targets for these groups. However, there is growing interest in the conservation of urban land, and interest in the values and viability of natural areas in urban environments. To assess these values and viability, Cuyahoga County, Ohio is evaluated on its present and future potential for an urban land conservation program. Cuyahoga County’s human population has declined the past ten years but land development continues to increase. Loss of valuable ecological areas including riparian lands, wetlands and diverse plant communities continues at an alarming pace. An urban land conservation strategy that targets small parcels (<10 acre) is needed to combat the loss of the ecological resources and to provide natural areas to an urbanizing county as a social and economic benefit. To determine the viability of an urban land conservation effort in Cuyahoga County, the following activities were evaluated. 1. The success and challenges of current urban land conservation efforts throughout the country and within Cuyahoga County; 2. The similarities and differences of approaches to rural land conservation and urban land conservation; 3. Defining eco-valued landscapes and their presence for conservation opportunities in Cuyahoga County; and 4. Organizational structures in Cuyahoga County that could institute an urban land conservation program. As our human population continues to move into and transform metropolitan areas, an urban land conservation strategy will provide an opportunity to establish natural areas where it is most needed and to lessen the pressure of the unwavering desire to live outside of the City.Item Open Access ANALYZING LANDSCAPE CONNECTIVITY FOR FELIDAE IN OAXACA GIVEN CURRENT AND POTENTIAL COMMUNITY LAND USE TRENDS(2021-04-30) Meca van den Berg, ClaudiaOaxaca state in southern Mexico lies adjacent to the Mesoamerican biological corridor and is comprised of a uniquely diverse landscape. It is further home to many indigenous peoples who possess autonomy and communal land rights. Tropical and deciduous forest ecosystems are essential to maintain landscape connectivity, and are becoming increasingly threatened by agricultural expansion, land privatization and urbanization. Suitable habitat within the range of the jaguar, Panthera onca, and other Felidae species is increasingly fragmented. Indigenous and rural community land management may play an important role in habitat integrity through mixed-use and traditional agroecological practices. This study examines the current distribution of key felid species and analyzes potential scenarios of land use change which may affect future fragmentation. Current land use and connectivity is modeled at both the state scale and for regional areas of interest. Scenario-based models are further used to help explore landscape connectivity in Oaxaca, through the relationship between land cover change, land use and presence of wildlife. Increased understanding of landscape connectivity for felids may inform future management of habitat conservation and restoration at various levels.Item Open Access Animal Movement in Pelagic Ecosystems: from Communities to Individuals(2009) Schick, Robert SchillingInfusing models for animal movement with more behavioral realism has been a goal of movement ecologists for several years. As ecologists have begun to collect more and more data on animal distribution and abundance, a clear need has arisen for more sophisticated analysis. Such analysis could include more realistic movement behavior, more information on the organism-environment interaction, and more ways to separate observation error from process error. Because landscape ecologists and behavioral ecologists typically study these same themes at very different scales, it has been proposed that their union could be productive for all (Lima and Zollner, 1996).
By understanding how animals interact with their land- and seascapes, we can better understand how species partition up resources are large spatial scales. Accordingly I begin this dissertation with a large spatial scale analysis of distribution data for marine mammals from Nova Scotia through the Gulf of Mexico. I analyzed these data in three separate regions, and in the two data-rich regions, find compelling separation between the different communities. In the northernmost region, this separation is broadly along diet based partitions. This research provides a baseline for future study of marine mammal systems, and more importantly highlights several gaps in current data collections.
In the last 6 years several movement ecologists have begun to imbue sophisticated statistical analyses with increasing amounts of movement behavior. This has changed the way movement ecologists think about movement data and movement processes. In this dissertation I focus my research on continuing this trend. I reviewed the state of movement modeling and then proposed a new Bayesian movement model that builds on three questions of: behavior; organism-environment interaction; and process-based inference with noisy data.
Application of this model to two different datasets, migrating right whales in the NW Atlantic, and foraging monk seals in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, provides for the first time estimates of how moving animals make choices about the suitability of patches within their perceptual range. By estimating parameters governing this suitability I provide right whale managers a clear depiction of the gaps in their protection in this vulnerable and understudied migratory corridor. For monk seals I provide a behaviorally based view into how animals in different colonies and age and sex groups move throughout their range. This information is crucial for managers who translocate individuals to new habitat as it provides them a quantitative glimpse of how members of certain groups perceive their landscape.
This model provides critical information about the behaviorally based movement choices animals make. Results can be used to understand the ecology of these patterns, and can be used to help inform conservation actions. Finally this modeling framework provides a way to unite fields of movement ecology and graph theory.
Item Open Access Assessing Fishing Pressure in a Small-Scale Fishery in St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean(2020-04-24) Cullinan, GraceWorld fisheries are an important source of food and income for millions of people around the world, and represents a billion dollar industry (FAO, 2018). As a result, research on fisheries has mainly focused on large, commercial fisheries and less on small-scale, subsistence and artisanal fisheries (Anticamara et al., 2011). The result is a perceived lack of data from small-scale fisheries, and therefore less is known about their impact on the surrounding environment and importance to the communities that utilize them. Recent research on small-scale fisheries (SSF) has shown that data deficiencies can impact sustainability efforts, and have a large impact on small island developing states (Nash et al. 2016, Gill et al. 2019). Global fisheries are at risk, and SSF even more so, as anthropogenic effects reduce catch, change the range distribution of fish, change productivity, and drive the decline of fish stocks (Brander, 2010; Doney et al., 2012; Hanich et al., 2018). In order to curb these potentially dangerous declines, more research and capital needs to be invested in researching small-scale fisheries. St. Eustatius, a small island developing nation, which is part of the Dutch Caribbean, has a marine park surrounding the entire island from the high water line down to 30 meters, as well as two marine reserves. As a small developing island territory, maintaining their coral reef ecosystem and their reef fisheries is important for the island economy, nutrition, and food security (de Graaf et al., 2015). However, up until now the effects of different gear types and fishing pressure on the surrounding coral reefs, fish populations, fish size, and how those trends have changed over time in St. Eustatius has been poorly understood. In this Masters Project, we will utilize the fisheries landings data and GCRMN data collected by STENAPA to assess fishing intensity and its potential effects on the surrounding reef ecosystem, in an effort to help with future management strategies, and offer a cost effective approach to addressing some of the knowledge gaps surrounding St. Eustatius fisheries.Item Open Access Assessing Vertebrate Abundance and the Effects of Anthropogenic Disturbance on Tropical Forest Dynamics(2012-04-27) Rosin, CooperThe Madre de Dios river basin in southeastern Peru is one of the largest and most diverse forest ecosystems on the planet. Though conservation zones with strict protection do exist in the basin, human population growth and development are having a considerable effect on forest dynamics. One major threat is the hunting-induced reduction or local extinction of large-bodied vertebrates. Vertebrate fauna contribute substantially to the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem processes – most notably through the dispersal of seeds by frugivores – and their loss may have disastrous consequences both to forest community composition and to the human populations which rely on ecosystem health and functioning. On the basis of 300km of standardized line-transect sampling, I documented the current densities of vertebrate frugivores across three forest sites under varying degrees of hunting pressure. I compared results across sites and interpreted them in terms of current pressures as well as site-specific trends in seedfall and tree recruitment. Increasing hunting pressure reduced large-bodied frugivores, corresponding with distinct shifts in vertebrate community composition and seedfall patterns. In response to these results, future efforts should promote strict protection of large-bodied vertebrate frugivores, with continued expansive multi-taxa forest monitoring across ontogenetic stages.Item Open Access Assessment of Sea Turtle Rehabilitation in North Carolina(2019-04-26) Stevens, BAs is the case with all sea turtle species, the five species that occur within North Carolina waters are listed as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Due to their endangered/threatened status, rehabilitation efforts are key for their long-term conservation since the release of healthy individuals helps promote more sustainable populations. In order to ensure rehabilitation efforts are concentrated properly and to assess their success rates, in-depth studies must be done on the stranding records available for each rehabilitation facility within the state. While other states such as Florida and Queensland, Australia have conducted studies to determine their rehabilitation characteristics and success rates, a comprehensive study of a similar nature has never been done with the sea turtle rehabilitation records for the state of North Carolina. This study analyzes the rehabilitation records for the state of North Carolina to determine the most common characteristics of sea turtles admitted for rehabilitation as well as the successful release rates over time. Sea turtle rehabilitation efforts and record keeping began at the North Carolina Aquariums back in the mid-1980s which was soon followed by the opening of the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in 1997. The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island partnered early with the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (N.E.S.T.) which eventually became the Sea Turtle Animal Rescue(STAR) Center in 2014. Both the North Carolina Aquariums and the KBSTRRC largely outsourced any necessary veterinary care through a collaboration with North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine though the North Carolina Aquariums hired its first full-time veterinarian for sea turtle care in 2015. This study reviews the rehabilitation records of North Carolina to date, presented as two datasets taken from the public North Carolina Aquariums and the private, non-profit Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center (KBSTRRC). A total of 2707 rehabilitation records were available which was narrowed down to 2594 records for data analysis after a variety of factors including the restriction of the time period used to only include those records from January 1997 to October 2018. Characteristics were determined for the majority of rehabilitation records such as: life stage, sex, stranding causation, stranding location, species, rehabilitation location, rehabilitation outcome, and release location. The successful rate of release was determined and compared against studies done in Florida and Queensland, Australia for comparative purposes. Based on the 2707 records available, both life stage and sex were removed as variables in future data analysis due to skewed proportions for turtles in their juvenile life stage as well as those that did not have their sex determined during rehabilitation. When looking at the restricted 2594 records, the most common sea turtle brought in for rehabilitation in North Carolina was a green sea turtle species, stranded in inshore waters (landward of the Coast Guard’s COLREGS line) due to cold stunning, and successfully released. The most common rehabilitation facility used was the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island and its affiliates followed by the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, and the North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine based in the Center For Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST). When compared to the other studies looked at, the successful release rate for North Carolina was nearly double the successful release rates seen in both Florida and Queensland, Australia. The results discussed in this study will help rehabilitation facilities in North Carolina better tailor resources and funds to accommodate the most commonly seen characteristics as well as provide a baseline to be compared against for future data analysis within North Carolina, other states, or when looking specifically at one rehabilitation facility.Item Open Access Avian Distribution Patterns and Conservation in Amazonia(2007-10-19) Vale, Mariana MIn this dissertation, I address the distribution and conservation of the Amazonian avifauna at several different scales. In Chapter 1, I looked at how the spatial bias in ornithological collections affects our understanding of the patterns of diversity in Amazonia. I showed that Amazonia is massively under-collected, that biological collection sites cluster around points of access, and that the richness at collection localities is higher than would be expected at random. This greater richness in collected areas was associated with a higher proportion of species with small geographical ranges as compared to uncollected areas. These small range species are relevant for conservation, as they are especially prone to extinction. I concluded that the richness of the uncollected areas of Amazonia is seriously underestimated, and that current knowledge gaps preclude accurate selection of areas for conservation in Amazonia. With this in mind, I modeled the impacts of continued deforestation on the Amazonian endemic avifauna. To overcome knowledge gaps, I complemented bird range maps with a "bird-ecoregions." I identified several taxa and bird-ecoregions likely to face great threat in the near future, most of them associated with riverine habitats. To evaluate these predictions, I conducted a detailed study on two riverine species: the Rio Branco Antbird (Cercomacra carbonaria) and the Hoary-throated Spinetail (Synallaxis kollari). Both are threatened and endemic to the gallery forests of Roraima, Brazil. I predicted that both would lose critical habitat in the near future. I concluded that neither is categorized correctly in by The World Conservation Union and recommend the down-listing of the Rio-Branco-Antbird and the up-listing of the Hoary-throated Spinetail. I also explored the importance of indigenous reserves for the conservation of both species and emphasized the need for greater involvement of conservation biologists in the social issues related to their study organisms.Item Open Access A Multiscale Investigation of Snake Habitat Relationships and Snake Conservation in Illinois(2008-02-11) Cagle, Nicolette Lynn FloccaSnake populations in the North American tallgrass prairie appear to be declining, yet data unavailability impedes the development of enhanced ecological understanding of snake species-habitat relationships and also hinders snake conservation efforts. This study addresses both issues for the snakes of Illinois in two steps. In a two-year mark-recapture study at twenty-two sites within six northern Illinois prairie preserves, I investigated snake species-habitat relationships using habitat variables at three scales: microhabitat (< 100 m), landscape (1 - 10 km), and regional (> 10 km). A total of 120 snakes representing seven species was captured using drift fence arrays associated with funnel traps and sheet metal cover. The low numbers and diversity of snakes captured, when compared to historic evidence, indicate that Illinois snake populations have declined. At the microhabitat scale, non-metric multidimensional scaling and Mantel tests revealed a relationship between snake species composition and elevation. At the landscape-scale, snake species composition varied along an agricultural-urban cover gradient. Classification and regression trees and maximum entropy models (Maxent) were used to identify the scales at which snake species-habitat relationships were strongest. Six of seven regression trees for individual snakes species contained habitat variables at the landscape scale. Important landscape characteristics included patch size, isolation, and land cover, metrics that strongly covary with habitat loss. Microhabitat features only appeared in the regression trees of two species and in three Maxent models. This study indicates that habitat loss has shaped the current distribution of snake species in Illinois's remnant prairies and that snake conservation efforts should emphasize the landscape-scale. Finally, I developed a risk ranking system based on natural and life history characteristics to assess the conservation status of Illinois's 38 snake species. Cluster analysis identified eight groups of snakes, similar in terms of risk factors, with high risk species sharing characteristics such as large body size, long life span, limited habitat breadth, and a high anthropogenic threat ranking. Here, I emphasize the need for basic demographic studies on snakes and suggest that ranking systems be used with population data (when available) and expert opinion to identify snake species of conservation concern in other regions.Item Open Access Balancing the good and the bad: Assessing the positive and negative effects of alien species on native plant demography(2022) Loomis, AlexanderAlien species are considered one of the primary threats to native plant populations and their control is often prominent among proposed management actions. While negative alien effects are well documented, there are also many ways that alien species can have positive effects on native plant populations that may actually contribute to their persistence. Moreover, the effect of alien species on native plants can change in magnitude and direction over varying abiotic conditions. The success of native plant populations is determined by a mix of ecological and genetic factors. Alien (and native) species and abiotic conditions could also drive selection of plant traits. In order to understand the drivers of native plant population success in the face of changing climate and increasing prevalence of alien species, it is vital to understand the relationship between genotype, phenotype, and fitness of native plants. In chapter one, I quantified the effects of neighboring alien and native plants on all demographic rates in a population of the Hawaiian endemic plant Schiedea globosa, performing biannual censuses for 4 years to encompass relatively harsh and as well as benign seasons and years. The effects of alien neighbors were mixed but most often positive across many demographic rates in both harsh and more benign abiotic conditions, suggesting that alien neighbors benefit S. globosa plants through multiple mechanisms, such as nurse plant effects and associational resistance. The effects of heterospecific native neighbors were less often positive, indicating fundamentally different effects of native and alien neighbors on the demography of the focal native. These mixed effects highlight the need to consider potential benefits of alien species in the management of threatened native plants and that those benefits may be altered by changing abiotic conditions. In chapter two, I constructed population models for multiple Schiedea species across populations and years, using demographic rate regressions driven by the effects of alien and native neighbors, integrating the mixed effects of alien and native species on demographic rates of populations to project the net effect on population growth of native populations. The effects of alien and heterospecific native plant neighbors were mixed but most often positive across many demographic rates in both harsh and more benign abiotic conditions, suggesting that alien and native neighbors benefit native plants through multiple mechanisms, such as nurse plant effects and associational resistance. The effect of alien and heterospecific native neighbors on population growth was generally positive-- the mixed, but largely positive, net effects of alien and native neighbors on population growth highlight the need to consider potential benefits of alien, as well as native, species in the management of at-risk native plant populations, and that those benefits may be altered by changing abiotic conditions, as indicated by differing effects across (and within) years and populations. In chapter 3, I used paternal half-sibship pairs to measure the heritability of morphological traits under field conditions of the critically endangered Schiedea adamantis, which were found to be heritable in prior studies in greenhouse conditions, in reintroduced populations. I also performed a selection analysis, regressing fitness components against traits of outplants that I hypothesized might influence response to climate and alien and native neighbors to study the relationship between genotype, phenotype, and fitness of plants in restoration outplantings and assessing potential for evolutionary rescue. I found no significant heritability of any of the morphological traits. I did find evidence of selection, as leaf shape, area, and whole plant morphology had significant effects on fitness components (growth, survival, and reproduction), and significant interaction effects showing traits influenced fitness components differently at different levels of shade. Together, these results suggest that while variation in traits benefit individual plants in differing field conditions, these outplantings may not have the ability to respond to selection through evolution.
Item Open Access Broad Scale Conservation: Protected Areas and Species Interactions(2009) Joppa, Lucas N.This dissertation consists of four chapters. The first three chapters examine protected areas (or parks) from multiple perspectives. Parks are the first, and often only, line of defense in efforts to conserve biodiversity. Understanding of their promise and problems is necessary to achieve conservation outcomes. Chapter One determines vegetation patterns in and around parks of differing management categories across the Amazon, Congo, South American Atlantic Coast, and West African forests. Within these forests, protected areas are the principle defense against forest loss and species extinctions. In the Amazon and Congo, parks are generally large and retain high levels of forest cover, as do their surroundings. In contrast, parks in the Atlantic Coast forest and West Africa show sharp boundaries in forest cover at their edges. This effective protection of forest cover is partially offset by their very small size: little area is deep inside park boundaries. Compared to West Africa, areas outside parks in the Atlantic Coast forest are unusually fragmented.
Chapter Two addresses a human dimension of protected areas. Given certain characteristics, parks areas may either attract or repel human settlement. Disproportionate increases in population growth near park boundaries may threaten their ability to conserve biodiversity. Using decadal population datasets, we analyze population growth across 45 countries and 304 parks. We find no evidence for population growth near parks to be greater than growth of rural areas in the same country. Furthermore, we argue that what growth does occur near parks likely results from a general expansion of nearby population centers. Parks may experience unusual population pressures near their edges; indeed, individual case studies provide examples. There is no evidence, however, of a general pattern of disproportionate population growth near their boundaries.
Chapter Three provides a review of common approaches to evaluating protection's impact on deforestation, identifies three hurdles to empirical evaluation, and notes that matching techniques from economic impact evaluation address those hurdles. The central hurdle derives from the fact that protected areas are distributed non-randomly across landscapes. Matching controls for landscape characteristics when inferring the impact of protection. Applications of matching have revealed considerably lower impact estimates of forest protection than produced by other methods. These results indicate the importance of variation across locations in how much impact protection could possibly have on rates of deforestation.
Chapter Four departs from the focus of protected areas and instead addresses a more theoretical aspect of community ecology. Ecological theories suggest that food webs might consist of groups of species forming blocks, compartments or guilds. Chapter Four considers ecological networks (subsets of complete food webs) involving species at adjacent trophic levels. Reciprocal specializations occur when (say) a pollinator (or group of pollinators) specializes on a particular flower species (or group of such species) and vice versa. We characterize the level of reciprocal specialization for various classes of networks. Our analyses include both antagonistic interactions (particularly parasitoids and their hosts), and mutualistic ones (such as insects and the flowers that they pollinate). We also examine whether trophic patterns might be palimpsests. That is, there might be reciprocal specialization within taxonomically related species within a network, but these might be obscured when these relationships are combined. Reciprocal specializations are rare in all these systems even when tested using the most conservative null model.