TerrAdapt

Shirk A.J., Jones, G.M., Yang Z., et al. (2023). Automated habitat monitoring systems linked to adaptive management: a new paradigm for species conservation in an era of rapid environmental change. Landscape Ecology 38:7-22 

The northwest boreal region (NWB) of North America is a land of extremes. Extending more than 1.3 million square kilometers (330 million acres), it encompasses the entire spectrum between inundated wetlands below sea level to the tallest peak in North America. Permafrost gradients span from nearly continuous to absent. Boreal ecosystems are inherently dynamic and continually change over decades to millennia. The braided rivers that shape the valleys and wetlands continually change course, creating and removing vast wetlands and peatlands. Glacial melt, erosion, fires, permafrost dynamics, and wind-blown loess are among the shaping forces of the landscape. As a result, species interactions and ecosystem processes are shifting across time. The NWB is a data-poor region, and the intention of the NWB Landscape Conservation Cooperative is to determine what data are not available and what data are available. For instance, historical baseline data describing the economic and social relationships in association with...

Ambitious biodiversity goals to protect 30% or more of the Earth’s surface by 2030 (30x30) require strategic near-term targets. To define areas that must be protected to prevent the most likely and imminent extinctions, we propose Conservation Imperatives—16,825 unprotected sites harboring rare and threatened species and spanning ~164 Mha of the terrestrial realm. We estimate that protecting the Conservation Imperatives would cost approximately US$169 billion [90% probability: $146 — $228 billion]. Globally, 38% of the 16,825 sites are either adjacent to or within 2.5 km of an existing protected area, potentially reducing land acquisition and management costs. These sites should be prioritized for conservation action over the next five years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global protected area network. The expansion of global protected areas between 2018–2023 incorporated only 7% of sites harboring range-limited and threatened species, highlighting a renewed urgency to conserve these habitats. Permanently protecting only 0.74% of land found in the tropics, where Conservation Imperatives are concentrated, could prevent the majority of predicted near-term extinctions once adequately resourced. We estimate this cost to be US$29 billion to US$46 billion per year over the next five years. Multiple approaches will be required to meet long-term protection goals: providing rights and title to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) conserving traditional lands, government designation of new protected areas on federal and state lands, and land purchase or long-term leasing of privately held lands.

The northwest boreal region (NWB) of North America is a land of extremes. Extending more than 1.3 million square kilometers (330 million acres), it encompasses the entire spectrum between inundated wetlands below sea level to the tallest peak in North America. Permafrost gradients span from nearly continuous to absent. Boreal ecosystems are inherently dynamic and continually change over decades to millennia. The braided rivers that shape the valleys and wetlands continually change course, creating and removing vast wetlands and peatlands. Glacial melt, erosion, fires, permafrost dynamics, and wind-blown loess are among the shaping forces of the landscape. As a result, species interactions and ecosystem processes are shifting across time. The NWB is a data-poor region, and the intention of the NWB Landscape Conservation Cooperative is to determine what data are not available and what data are available. For instance, historical baseline data describing the economic and social relationships in association with...

Abstract

Founded in 1993, the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) vision was one of the earliest large‐landscape conservation visions. Despite growing recognition of large‐landscape conservation strategies, there have been few tests to date of conservation gains achieved through such approaches. We tested for conservation gains in the Y2Y region of North America following initiation of the Y2Y conservation vision in 1993 using a counterfactual spatiotemporal comparison and tracking change in five different conservation metrics. First, we enumerated the area of land within Y2Y in designated protected areas. We then compared the rate of change of protected area growth before‐ and after‐initiation of Y2Y in 1993 and to two adjacent counterfactual regions. Protected areas in the Y2Y grew by 7.8%, increasing by 107,289 km
2
, exceeding the Aichi target of 17% of the area under protection by 2018. More importantly, the rate of protected area growth increased 90% following initiation of the Y2Y large‐landscape conservation vision in 1993, whereas protected area growth declined in adjacent regions, or remained constant throughout North America. Sustained growth in protected areas and private land conservation was complemented by expansion of endangered grizzly bears in the U.S. portion of Y2Y, the greatest global expansion from zero to at least 117 wildlife road‐crossing structures and growing mainstreaming coverage of the Y2Y vision. Our counterfactual comparison provides valuable evidence that large‐landscape conservation strategies such as Y2Y can enhance protected area growth and other conservation metrics. We conclude that large‐landscape conservation strategies may be a useful model for achieving global large‐landscape conservation and biodiversity conservation targets.

Abstract
Populations in fragmented landscapes experience reduced gene flow, lose genetic diversity over time and ultimately face greater extinction risk. Improving connectivity in fragmented landscapes is now a major focus of conservation biology. Designing effective wildlife corridors for this purpose, however, requires an accurate understanding of how landscapes shape gene flow. The preponderance of landscape resistance models generated to date, however, is subjectively parameterized based on expert opinion or proxy measures of gene flow. While the relatively few studies that use genetic data are more rigorous, frameworks they employ frequently yield models only weakly related to the observed patterns of genetic isolation. Here, we describe a new framework that uses expert opinion as a starting point. By systematically varying each model parameter, we sought to either validate the assumptions of expert opinion, or identify a peak of support for a new model more highly related to genetic isolation. This approach also accounts for interactions between variables, allows for nonlinear responses and excludes variables that reduce model performance. We demonstrate its utility on a population of mountain goats inhabiting a fragmented landscape in the Cascade Range, Washington.

Abstract
Anthropogenic landscape changes have greatly reduced the population size, range and migration rates of many terrestrial species. The small local effective population size of remnant populations favours loss of genetic diversity leading to reduced fitness and adaptive potential, and thus ultimately greater extinction risk. Accurately quantifying genetic diversity is therefore crucial to assessing the viability of small populations. Diversity indices are typically calculated from the multilocus genotypes of all individuals sampled within discretely defined habitat patches or larger regional extents. Importantly, discrete population approaches do not capture the clinal nature of populations genetically isolated by distance or landscape resistance. Here, we introduce spatial Genetic Diversity (sGD), a new spatially explicit tool to estimate genetic diversity based on grouping individuals into potentially overlapping genetic neighbourhoods that match the population structure, whether discrete or clinal. We compared the estimates and patterns of genetic diversity using patch or regional sampling and sGD on both simulated and empirical populations. When the population did not meet the assumptions of an island model, we found that patch and regional sampling generally overestimated local heterozygosity, inbreeding and allelic diversity. Moreover, sGD revealed fine‐scale spatial heterogeneity in genetic diversity that was not evident with patch or regional sampling. These advantages should provide a more robust means to evaluate the potential for genetic factors to influence the viability of clinal populations and guide appropriate conservation plans.

Landscapes may resist gene flow and thereby give rise to a pattern of genetic isolation within a population. The mechanism by which a landscape resists gene flow can be inferred by evaluating the relationship between landscape models and an observed pattern of genetic isolation. This approach risks false inferences because researchers can never feasibly test all plausible alternative hypotheses. In this paper, rather than infer the process of gene flow from an observed genetic pattern, we simulate gene flow and determine if the simulated genetic pattern is related to the observed empirical genetic pattern. This is a form of inverse modeling and can be used to independently validate a landscape genetic model. In this study, we used this approach to validate a model of landscape resistance based on elevation, landcover, and roads that was previously related to genetic isolation among mountain goats (
Oreamnos americanus
) inhabiting the Cascade Range, Washington (USA). The strong relationship between the empirical and simulated patterns of genetic isolation we observed provides independent validation of the resistance model and demonstrates the utility of this approach in supporting landscape genetic inferences.

Behavioral and genetic adaptations to spatiotemporal variation in habitat conditions allow species to maximize their biogeographic range and persist over time in dynamic environments. An understanding of these local adaptations can be used to guide management and conservation of populations over broad extents encompassing diverse habitats. This understanding is often achieved by identifying covariates related to species' occurrence in multiple independent studies conducted in relevant habitats and seasons. However, synthesis across studies is made difficult by differences in the model covariates evaluated and analytical frameworks employed. Furthermore, inferences may be confounded by spatiotemporal variation in which habitat attributes are limiting to the species' ecological requirements. In this study, we sought to quantify spatiotemporal variation in resource selection by the American marten (
Martes americana
) in forest ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest, USA. We developed resource selection functions for both summer and winter based on occurrence data collected in mesic and xeric forest habitats. Use of a consistent analytical framework facilitated comparisons. Habitat attributes predicting marten occurrence differed strongly between the two study areas, but not between seasons. Moreover, the spatial scale over which covariates were calculated greatly influenced their predictive power. In the mesic environment, marten resource selection was strongly tied to riparian habitats, whereas in the xeric environment, marten responded primarily to canopy cover and forest fragmentation. These differences in covariates associated with marten occurrence reflect differences in which factors were limiting to marten ecology in each study area, as well as local adaptations to habitat variability. Our results highlight the benefit of controlled meta‐replication studies in which analyses of multiple study areas and seasons at varying spatial scales are integrated into a single framework.