measuring habitat and biodiversity outcomes
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Measuring Habitat and Biodiversity Outcomes . Sara Vickerman and Frank Casey September 26, 2013 . Defenders of Wildlife. What is biodiversity? Variety of life and its processes Genetic, species, habitat, large landscapes. Defenders of Wildlife. Biodiversity conservation requires: - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Measuring Habitat and Biodiversity Outcomes
Sara Vickerman and Frank Casey
September 26, 2013
Defenders of Wildlife
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Defenders of Wildlife
What is biodiversity?
Variety of life and its processesGenetic, species, habitat, large landscapes
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Defenders of Wildlife
Biodiversity conservation requires: • Right amount, configuration, and
management of land and water in each region (coarse filter)
• Attention to individual elements (fine filter)
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Defenders of Wildlife
Broad agreement that biodiversity is threatened by:
• Human development • Degradation, conversion of
native habitat• Invasive species• Toxics, other direct mortality • Climate change
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Defenders of Wildlife
Many approaches to tracking impacts and conservation outcomes to habitats and species but . . . Little progress reaching agreement on more consistent approach
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Defenders of Wildlife
Effectiveness of biodiversity conservation is difficult to measure• Goals often not stated or agreed upon • May conflict with human activities • Focus on single species, habitats • Need measures at multiple scales –
species to landscapes
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Defenders of Wildlife
Status and trends for biodiversity poorly monitored • Nobody is responsible for
comprehensive system• Biodiversity is not uniformly regulated• Tendency to re-invent the wheel • Low priority for public and policy-
makers
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Defenders of Wildlife
Why consistent metrics?
• To help improve conservation outcomes – what works, what doesn’t
• Work across land ownership boundaries
• Connect disparate program investments to address scale issues
• Align management plans • Apply adaptive management
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Defenders of Wildlife
Level of involvementCapture everything
PrecisionPracticalitySpeedCost
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Defenders of Wildlife
Purpose
• To examine a few efforts to date • Engage experts in conversation• Propose workable, practical
framework• Test alternative approaches
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Defenders of Wildlife
Three approaches with considerable overlap
• Individual habitat metrics • Ecological Integrity Assessments • Biodiversity Index
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Defenders of Wildlife
Site level metrics
• Developed by Willamette Partnership and others
• Prairie, wetland, salmon, water temperature
• Focus on regulations that drive trading or mitigation programs
• Measuring Up report outlined framework for biodiversity metrics
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Defenders of Wildlife
Defenders metrics
• Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bullitt funded
• Address unregulated biodiversity values in Western U.S.
• Oak, floodplain, sage brush / sage grouse• Percent of optimal ecological functioning
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• Site level conditions –Context–Vegetation–Species–Abiotic–Practices–Risk
Defenders of Wildlife
What the metrics measure
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Defenders of Wildlife
Sagebrush metric: Final scores
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Defenders of Wildlife
Where to find these metrics
• Marketplace for Nature web sitehttp://marketplace.conservationregistry.org
• Counting on the Environment – Willamette Partnership http://willamettepartnership.org/
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Defenders of Wildlife
Challenge with site level metrics
• Should they be habitat specific?• How many habitats? • Who develops, maintains, updates
them? • How do they connect to larger
landscape scale metrics?
• Not useful for landscape scale conservation planning
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Setting Ecological Integrity Goals
Rank A
Rank B
Rank C
Rank D
Increasing human disturbance
Incr
easi
ng e
colo
gica
l in
tegr
ityEcosystem
Conservation Goal
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Ecological Integrity Monitoring
Level 1) Remote assessmentLevel 2) Rapid field assessmentLevel 3) Intensive assessment
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Level 1: Remote assessment
Landscape context – Connectivity, surrounding land use, patch size, and stressors
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Level 2: Rapid field assessment
Landscape characteristicsVegetation cover and compositionSoil conditionDisturbance regimesWildlife abundance and compositionStressorsCalibration of remote techniques
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Level 2: Rapid field assessment
Photo plots as example
1957 2006
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Level 3: Intensive assessment
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Defenders of Wildlife
Application
• Initially to select priority conservation areas
• Useful where natural habitat of interest
• Also used for wetland assessment, monitoring
• Expanded to measure habitat quality • Can be applied at multiple scales• NatureServe network supports
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Defenders of Wildlife
Challenges
• Might not fit where biodiversity is a secondary goal
• Less useful where data are limited - like other methods, requires sustained investment
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Challenge of representing biodiversity
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Biodiversity is an ecosystem service
• People harvest, consume wild plants and animals
• Healthy ecosystems filter water, control erosion, pollinate crops
• Nature has cultural (existence) values
• Landscape pattern, functions, species, combine – Biodiversity Service Score
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Biodiversity can be characterized by: • Mapped features • Quantitative tabular data• Narrative description
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Assumptions underlying biodiversity framework• Coarse filter looks at habitat
abundance, type, integrity, rarity and distribution
• Fine filter looks at species needs not captured in coarse filter
• Ecological integrity characterizes functioning systems that support native biodiversity
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Ecological integrity
• Vegetation, structure, composition
• Ecological processes – fire, hydrology
• Species composition–Common species – Invasive species
• Rare, uncommon species not good indicators
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Species measures
• Rarity weighting applied – priority
• Relevant regulations • Migratory patterns for some
fish, wildlife• Population sizes • Biotic condition
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Defenders of Wildlife
Application for biodiversity index
• Broad scale conservation planning• Context of ecosystem service
assessments• Linked to social, economic factors • Impact of corporate sourcing decisions
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Defenders of Wildlife
Challenges
• May be too complex as presented• Needs translation for broad
application • Requires high quality, detailed
information
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Defenders of Wildlife
Questions for the group • Examples of habitat/biodiversity measures ?• Other approaches?• Field applications?• Collaborate to find creative solutions?
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Defenders of Wildlife
Sara VickermanDefenders of Wildlife
Svickerman@defenders
http://marketplace.conservationregistry.org/