Improving Gis Based Wildlife Habitat Analysis
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Improving GIS-based Wildlife-Habitat Analysis
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide a powerful tool for the investigation of species-habitat relationships and the development of wildlife management and conservation programs. However, the relative ease of data manipulation and analysis using GIS, associated landscape metrics packages, and sophisticated statistical tests may sometimes cause investigators to overlook important species-habitat functional relationships. Additionally, underlying assumptions of the study design or technology may have unrecognized consequences. This volume examines how initial researcher choices of image resolution, scale(s) of analysis, response and explanatory variables, and location and area of samples can influence analysis results, interpretation, predictive capability, and study-derived management prescriptions. Overall, most studies in this realm employ relatively low resolution imagery that allows neither identification nor accurate classification of habitat components. Additionally, the landscape metrics typically employed do not adequately quantify component spatial arrangement associated with species occupation. To address this latter issue, the authors introduce two novel landscape metrics that measure the functional size and location in the landscape of taxon-specific ‘solid’ and ‘edge’ habitat types. Keller and Smith conclude that investigators conducting GIS-based analyses of species-habitat relationships should more carefully 1) match the resolution of remotely sensed imagery to the scale of habitat functional relationships of the focal taxon, 2) identify attributes (explanatory variables) of habitat architecture, size, configuration, quality, and context that reflect the way the focal taxon uses the subset of the landscape it occupies, and 3) match the location and scale of habitat samples, whether GIS- or ground-based, to corresponding species’ detection locations and scales of habitat use.
Evaluation of the Use and Effectiveness of Wildlife Crossings
Author: John A. Bissonette
language: en
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
Release Date: 2008
TRB¿s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 615: Evaluation of the Use and Effectiveness of Wildlife Crossings explores development of an interactive, web-based decision guide protocol for the selection, configuration, and location of wildlife crossings.
Applications for Advancing Animal Ecology
Practical guidance for wildlife professionals working to improve study design, data analysis, and the application of results to habitat and population management. Winner of the Wildlife Society Publications Book Award by The Wildlife Society Despite major advances in sampling techniques and analytical methods, many animal ecologists conduct research that is primarily relevant to a specific time and place. They also tend to focus more on the statistical analyses and nuances of modeling than actual study design. Arguing that studies of animal ecology should always begin with a focus on the behaviors and characteristics of individual organisms, including how they form into distinct biological populations, Applications for Advancing Animal Ecology takes a fresh and critical look at the field. Building from its companion volume, Foundations for Advancing Animal Ecology, this practical book presents readers with the principal methods used to observe animal behavior. Teaching them to assess resource abundance categories of species-environmental relationships models, it also explores • major aspects of measuring animal habitat: what to measure and how to measure it; • common sampling and estimation methods to assess population parameters; • when to measure and how to analyze data; • problems that will confront ecologists in the coming years—and how to gather information to adequately address them; and • how the experimental approach can be used to advance the science of animal ecology. Throughout the book, the authors stress the importance of speaking a common and well-defined language. Avoiding vague and misleading terminology, they assert, will help ecologists translate science into meaningful and lasting actions in the environment. Taking the perspective of the organism of interest in developing concepts and applications, the authors always keep the potentially biased human perspective in focus. They also provide a selection of suggested research projects, cautions, and caveats. A major advancement in understanding the factors underlying wildlife–habitat relationships, Applications for Advancing Animal Ecology will be an invaluable resource to natural resource management professionals and practitioners, including state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and environmental consultants.