Fragmentation effects on an endangered species across a gradient from the interior to edge of its range.

Autor: Valente JJ; Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.; U.S. Geological Survey, Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA., Rivers JW; Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA., Yang Z; U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden, Utah, USA., Nelson SK; Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA., Northrup JM; Wildlife Research and Monitoring Section, Ontario Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry, and Environmental and Life Sciences Graduate Program, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada., Roby DD; Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA., Meyer CB; Arcadis U.S., Inc., Highlands Ranch, Colorado, USA., Betts MG; Forest Biodiversity Research Network, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology [Conserv Biol] 2023 Oct; Vol. 37 (5), pp. e14091. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 25.
DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14091
Abstrakt: Understanding how habitat fragmentation affects individual species is complicated by challenges associated with quantifying species-specific habitat and spatial variability in fragmentation effects within a species' range. We aggregated a 29-year breeding survey data set for the endangered marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) from >42,000 forest sites throughout the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, and northern California) of the United States. We built a species distribution model (SDM) in which occupied sites were linked with Landsat imagery to quantify murrelet-specific habitat and then used occupancy models to test the hypotheses that fragmentation negatively affects murrelet breeding distribution and that these effects are amplified with distance from the marine foraging habitat toward the edge of the species' nesting range. Murrelet habitat declined in the Pacific Northwest by 20% since 1988, whereas the proportion of habitat comprising edges increased by 17%, indicating increased fragmentation. Furthermore, fragmentation of murrelet habitat at landscape scales (within 2 km of survey stations) negatively affected occupancy of potential breeding sites, and these effects were amplified near the range edge. On the coast, the odds of occupancy decreased by 37% (95% confidence interval [CI] -54 to 12) for each 10% increase in edge habitat (i.e., fragmentation), but at the range edge (88 km inland) these odds decreased by 99% (95% CI 98 to 99). Conversely, odds of murrelet occupancy increased by 31% (95% CI 14 to 52) for each 10% increase in local edge habitat (within 100 m of survey stations). Avoidance of fragmentation at broad scales but use of locally fragmented habitat with reduced quality may help explain the lack of murrelet population recovery. Further, our results emphasize that fragmentation effects can be nuanced, scale dependent, and geographically variable. Awareness of these nuances is critical for developing landscape-level conservation strategies for species experiencing broad-scale habitat loss and fragmentation.
(© 2023 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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