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Barber C, Graves SJ, Hall JS, Zuidema PA, Brandt J, Bohlman SA, Asner GP, Bailón M, Caughlin TT. Species-level tree crown maps improve predictions of tree recruit abundance in a tropical landscape. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 32:e2585. [PMID: 35333420 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2585] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2021] [Revised: 10/26/2021] [Accepted: 11/04/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Predicting forest recovery at landscape scales will aid forest restoration efforts. The first step in successful forest recovery is tree recruitment. Forecasts of tree recruit abundance, derived from the landscape-scale distribution of seed sources (i.e., adult trees), could assist efforts to identify sites with high potential for natural regeneration. However, previous work revealed wide variation in the effect of seed sources on seedling abundance, from positive to no effect. We quantified the relationship between adult tree seed sources and tree recruits and predicted where natural recruitment would occur in a fragmented, tropical, agricultural landscape. We integrated species-specific tree crown maps generated from hyperspectral imagery and property ownership data with field data on the spatial distribution of tree recruits from five species. We then developed hierarchical Bayesian models to predict landscape-scale recruit abundance. Our models revealed that species-specific maps of tree crowns improved recruit abundance predictions. Conspecific crown area had a much stronger impact on recruitment abundance (8.00% increase in recruit abundance when conspecific tree density increases from zero to one tree; 95% credible interval (CI): 0.80% to 11.57%) than heterospecific crown area (0.03% increase with the addition of a single heterospecific tree, 95% CI: -0.60% to 0.68%). Individual property ownership was also an important predictor of recruit abundance: The best performing model had varying effects of conspecific and heterospecific crown area on recruit abundance, depending on individual property ownership. We demonstrate how novel remote sensing approaches and cadastral data can be used to generate high-resolution and landscape-level maps of tree recruit abundance. Spatial models parameterized with field, cadastral, and remote sensing data are poised to assist decision support for forest landscape restoration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristina Barber
- Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA
| | - Sarah J Graves
- Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
| | - Jefferson S Hall
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, ForestGEO, Panama City, Panama
| | - Pieter A Zuidema
- Forest Ecology and Forest Management group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Jodi Brandt
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA
| | - Stephanie A Bohlman
- School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
| | - Gregory P Asner
- Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
| | - Mario Bailón
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
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2
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Spatial Prioritization for Wildfire Mitigation by Integrating Heterogeneous Spatial Data: A New Multi-Dimensional Approach for Tropical Rainforests. REMOTE SENSING 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/rs14030543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Wildfires drive deforestation that causes various losses. Although many studies have used spatial approaches, a multi-dimensional analysis is required to determine priority areas for mitigation. This study identified priority areas for wildfire mitigation in Indonesia using a multi-dimensional approach including disaster, environmental, historical, and administrative parameters by integrating 20 types of multi-source spatial data. Spatial data were combined to produce susceptibility, carbon stock, and carbon emission models that form the basis for prioritization modelling. The developed priority model was compared with historical deforestation data. Legal aspects were evaluated for oil-palm plantations and mining with respect to their impact on wildfire mitigation. Results showed that 379,516 km2 of forests in Indonesia belong to the high-priority category and most of these are located in Sumatra, Kalimantan, and North Maluku. Historical data suggest that 19.50% of priority areas for wildfire mitigation have experienced deforestation caused by wildfires over the last ten years. Based on legal aspects of land use, 5.2% and 3.9% of high-priority areas for wildfire mitigation are in oil palm and mining areas, respectively. These results can be used to support the determination of high-priority areas for the REDD+ program and the evaluation of land use policies.
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3
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Marconi S, Graves SJ, Weinstein BG, Bohlman S, White EP. Estimating individual-level plant traits at scale. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 31:e02300. [PMID: 33480058 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2019] [Revised: 07/22/2020] [Accepted: 08/16/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Functional ecology has increasingly focused on describing ecological communities based on their traits (measurable features affecting individuals' fitness and performance). Analyzing trait distributions within and among forests could significantly improve understanding of community composition and ecosystem function. Historically, data on trait distributions are generated by (1) collecting a small number of leaves from a small number of trees, which suffers from limited sampling but produces information at the fundamental ecological unit (the individual), or (2) using remote-sensing images to infer traits, producing information continuously across large regions, but as plots (containing multiple trees of different species) or pixels, not individuals. Remote-sensing methods that identify individual trees and estimate their traits would provide the benefits of both approaches, producing continuous large-scale data linked to biological individuals. We used data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to develop a method to scale up functional traits from 160 trees to the millions of trees within the spatial extent of two NEON sites. The pipeline consists of three stages: (1) image segmentation, to identify individual trees and estimate structural traits; (2) an ensemble of models to infer leaf mass area (LMA), nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus content using hyperspectral signatures, and DBH from allometry; and (3) predictions for segmented crowns for the full remote-sensing footprint at the NEON sites. The R2 values on held-out test data ranged from 0.41 to 0.75 on held-out test data. The ensemble approach performed better than single partial least-squares models. Carbon performed poorly compared to other traits (R2 of 0.41). The crown segmentation step contributed the most uncertainty in the pipeline, due to over-segmentation. The pipeline produced good estimates of DBH (R2 of 0.62 on held-out data). Trait predictions for crowns performed significantly better than comparable predictions on pixels, resulting in improvement of R2 on test data of between 0.07 and 0.26. We used the pipeline to produce individual-level trait data for ~5 million individual crowns, covering a total extent of ~360 km2 . This large data set allows testing ecological questions on landscape scales, revealing that foliar traits are correlated with structural traits and environmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergio Marconi
- School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611, USA
| | - Sarah J Graves
- School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32603, USA
- Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA
| | - Ben G Weinstein
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32603, USA
| | - Stephanie Bohlman
- School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32603, USA
| | - Ethan P White
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32603, USA
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4
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Requena-Mullor JM, Maguire KC, Shinneman DJ, Caughlin TT. Integrating anthropogenic factors into regional-scale species distribution models-A novel application in the imperiled sagebrush biome. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2019; 25:3844-3858. [PMID: 31180605 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14728] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2019] [Accepted: 05/10/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Species distribution models (SDMs) that rely on regional-scale environmental variables will play a key role in forecasting species occurrence in the face of climate change. However, in the Anthropocene, a number of local-scale anthropogenic variables, including wildfire history, land-use change, invasive species, and ecological restoration practices can override regional-scale variables to drive patterns of species distribution. Incorporating these human-induced factors into SDMs remains a major research challenge, in part because spatial variability in these factors occurs at fine scales, rendering prediction over regional extents problematic. Here, we used big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) as a model species to explore whether including human-induced factors improves the fit of the SDM. We applied a Bayesian hurdle spatial approach using 21,753 data points of field-sampled vegetation obtained from the LANDFIRE program to model sagebrush occurrence and cover by incorporating fire history metrics and restoration treatments from 1980 to 2015 throughout the Great Basin of North America. Models including fire attributes and restoration treatments performed better than those including only climate and topographic variables. Number of fires and fire occurrence had the strongest relative effects on big sagebrush occurrence and cover, respectively. The models predicted that the probability of big sagebrush occurrence decreases by 1.2% (95% CI: -6.9%, 0.6%) when one fire occurs and cover decreases by 44.7% (95% CI: -47.9%, -41.3%) if at least one fire occurred over the 36 year period of record. Restoration practices increased the probability of big sagebrush occurrence but had minimal effect on cover. Our results demonstrate the potential value of including disturbance and land management along with climate in models to predict species distributions. As an increasing number of datasets representing land-use history become available, we anticipate that our modeling framework will have broad relevance across a range of biomes and species.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Kaitlin C Maguire
- Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Boise, Idaho
| | - Douglas J Shinneman
- Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Boise, Idaho
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Caughlin TT, Damschen EI, Haddad NM, Levey DJ, Warneke C, Brudvig LA. Landscape heterogeneity is key to forecasting outcomes of plant reintroduction. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2019; 29:e01850. [PMID: 30821885 DOI: 10.1002/eap.1850] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2018] [Revised: 10/26/2018] [Accepted: 12/04/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Conservation and restoration projects often involve starting new populations by introducing individuals into portions of their native or projected range. Such efforts can help meet many related goals, including habitat creation, ecosystem service provisioning, assisted migration, and the reintroduction of imperiled species following local extirpation. The outcomes of reintroduction efforts, however, are highly variable, with results ranging from local extinction to dramatic population growth; reasons for this variation remain unclear. Here, we ask whether population growth following plant reintroductions is governed by variation at two scales: the scale of individual habitat patches to which individuals are reintroduced, and larger among-landscape scales in which similar patches may be situated in landscapes that differ in matrix type, soil conditions, and other factors. Quantifying demographic variation at these two scales will help prioritize locations for introduction and, once introductions take place, forecast population growth. This work took place within a large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment, where individuals of two perennial forb species were reintroduced into eight replicate ~50-ha landscapes, each containing a set of five ~1-ha patches that varied in their degree of isolation (connected by habitat corridors or unconnected) and edge-to-area ratio. Using data on individual growth, survival, reproductive output, and recruitment collected one to two years after reintroduction, we developed models to forecast population growth, then compared forecasts to observed population sizes, three and six years later. Both the type of patch (connected and unconnected) and identity of the landscape to which individuals were reintroduced had effects on forecasted population growth rates, but only variation associated with landscape identity was an accurate predictor of subsequently observed population growth rates. Models that did not include landscape identity had minimal forecasting ability, revealing the key importance of variation at this scale for accurate prediction. Of the five demographic rates used to model population dynamics, seed production was the most important source of forecast error in population growth rates. Our results point to the importance of accounting for landscape-scale variation in demographic models and demonstrate how such models might assist with prioritizing particular landscapes for species reintroduction projects.
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Affiliation(s)
- T Trevor Caughlin
- Department of Biological Sciences and Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725 USA
| | - Ellen I Damschen
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 451 Birge Hall, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA
| | - Nick M Haddad
- Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, 49060, USA
| | - Douglas J Levey
- Division of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, 22314, USA
| | - Christopher Warneke
- Department of Plant Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824 USA
| | - Lars A Brudvig
- Department of Plant Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824 USA
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6
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McMahon CA. Remote sensing pipeline for tree segmentation and classification in a mixed softwood and hardwood system. PeerJ 2019; 6:e5837. [PMID: 30842891 PMCID: PMC6397760 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2018] [Accepted: 09/27/2018] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The National Institute of Standards and Technology data science evaluation plant identification challenge is a new periodic competition focused on improving and generalizing remote sensing processing methods for forest landscapes. I created a pipeline to perform three remote sensing tasks. First, a marker-controlled watershed segmentation thresholded by vegetation index and height was performed to identify individual tree crowns within the canopy height model. Second, remote sensing data for segmented crowns was aligned with ground measurements by choosing the set of pairings which minimized error in position and in crown area as predicted by stem height. Third, species classification was performed by reducing the dataset's dimensionality through principle component analysis and then constructing a set of maximum likelihood classifiers to estimate species likelihoods for each tree. Of the three algorithms, the classification routine exhibited the strongest relative performance, with the segmentation algorithm performing the least well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Conor A. McMahon
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
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7
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Marconi S, Graves SJ, Gong D, Nia MS, Le Bras M, Dorr BJ, Fontana P, Gearhart J, Greenberg C, Harris DJ, Kumar SA, Nishant A, Prarabdh J, Rege SU, Bohlman SA, White EP, Wang DZ. A data science challenge for converting airborne remote sensing data into ecological information. PeerJ 2019; 6:e5843. [PMID: 30842892 PMCID: PMC6397763 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5843] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2018] [Accepted: 09/27/2018] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Ecology has reached the point where data science competitions, in which multiple groups solve the same problem using the same data by different methods, will be productive for advancing quantitative methods for tasks such as species identification from remote sensing images. We ran a competition to help improve three tasks that are central to converting images into information on individual trees: (1) crown segmentation, for identifying the location and size of individual trees; (2) alignment, to match ground truthed trees with remote sensing; and (3) species classification of individual trees. Six teams (composed of 16 individual participants) submitted predictions for one or more tasks. The crown segmentation task proved to be the most challenging, with the highest-performing algorithm yielding only 34% overlap between remotely sensed crowns and the ground truthed trees. However, most algorithms performed better on large trees. For the alignment task, an algorithm based on minimizing the difference, in terms of both position and tree size, between ground truthed and remotely sensed crowns yielded a perfect alignment. In hindsight, this task was over simplified by only including targeted trees instead of all possible remotely sensed crowns. Several algorithms performed well for species classification, with the highest-performing algorithm correctly classifying 92% of individuals and performing well on both common and rare species. Comparisons of results across algorithms provided a number of insights for improving the overall accuracy in extracting ecological information from remote sensing. Our experience suggests that this kind of competition can benefit methods development in ecology and biology more broadly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergio Marconi
- School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Sarah J. Graves
- School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Dihong Gong
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Morteza Shahriari Nia
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Marion Le Bras
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
| | - Bonnie J. Dorr
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
| | - Peter Fontana
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
| | - Justin Gearhart
- School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Craig Greenberg
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
| | - Dave J. Harris
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Sugumar Arvind Kumar
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Agarwal Nishant
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Joshi Prarabdh
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Sundeep U. Rege
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Stephanie Ann Bohlman
- School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Ethan P. White
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Daisy Zhe Wang
- Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
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8
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Qu Y, Sun G, Luo C, Zeng X, Zhang H, Murray NJ, Xu N. Identifying restoration priorities for wetlands based on historical distributions of biodiversity features and restoration suitability. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2019; 231:1222-1231. [PMID: 30602247 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.10.057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2018] [Revised: 09/09/2018] [Accepted: 10/16/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Wetland restoration is a major objective of environmental management worldwide. We present a frameworkat the regional level that prioritizes historical biodiversity and restoration suitability. The goal of the framework is to maximize biodiversity gains from restoration while minimizing the cost. We used C-Plan, a prioritization tool for systematic conservation planning (SCP), to balance the biodiversity gains withthe costs of restoration, or restoration suitability. We overlaid historical spatial data from 1995 to estimate historical distributions of 91 biodiversity features. These features were used to conduct an irreplaceability analysis to assess the restoration value of historical biodiversity. We then modelled restoration suitability based on environmental data of six criteria. Finally, we applied a complementarity analysis to achieve the quantitative targets of all biodiversity features while minimizing the cost of restoration. We tested this framework in the highly degraded wetlands ofSanjiang Plain, China. By applying our framework to Sanjiang Plain, we successfully identified areas with both high restoration value and high restoration suitability. The area of this cost-effective plan was an extension of 4620 km2, covering 80% of the disappearing wetlands and 4% of the total Sanjiang Plain. Compared to the restoration value-only plan, which had an extension of 4486 km2, the cost-effective plan covered a little more area to achievethe targets forall biodiversity features but with lower implementation costs where the proportion of high restoration suitability increases from 43% to 50%.Our prioritization framework can be used to analyse regional restoration efforts in other regions and ecosystems, and inform planners on how to maximize biodiversity gains while minimizing costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Qu
- Natural Resources and Ecology Institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin, 150040, China.
| | - Gongqi Sun
- College of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
| | - Chunyu Luo
- Natural Resources and Ecology Institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin, 150040, China.
| | - Xingyu Zeng
- Natural Resources and Ecology Institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin, 150040, China.
| | - Hongqiang Zhang
- Natural Resources and Ecology Institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin, 150040, China.
| | - Nicholas J Murray
- Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia.
| | - Nan Xu
- Natural Resources and Ecology Institute, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin, 150040, China.
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9
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Liu X, Garcia-Ulloa J, Cornioley T, Liu X, Wang Z, Garcia C. Main ecological drivers of woody plant species richness recovery in secondary forests in China. Sci Rep 2019; 9:250. [PMID: 30670705 PMCID: PMC6342914 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-35963-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2018] [Accepted: 11/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Identifying drivers behind biodiversity recovery is critical to promote efficient ecological restoration. Yet to date, for secondary forests in China there is a considerable uncertainty concerning the ecological drivers that affect plant diversity recovery. Following up on a previous published meta-analysis on the patterns of species recovery across the country, here we further incorporate data on the logging history, climate, forest landscape and forest attribute to conduct a nationwide analysis of the main drivers influencing the recovery of woody plant species richness in secondary forests. Results showed that regional species pool exerted a positive effect on the recovery ratio of species richness and this effect was stronger in selective cutting forests than that in clear cutting forests. We also found that temperature had a negative effect, and the shape complexity of forest patches as well as the percentage of forest cover in the landscape had positive effects on the recovery ratio of species richness. Our study provides basic information on recovery and resilience analyses of secondary forests in China.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaofei Liu
- State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, and School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
- Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
| | - John Garcia-Ulloa
- Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
| | - Tina Cornioley
- Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
| | - Xuehua Liu
- State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, and School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
| | - Zhiheng Wang
- Department of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Claude Garcia
- Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
- Research Unit Forests and Societies, Centre International de Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), Montpellier, 34392, France
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10
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A Landscape-Scale Adjoining Conservation (LAC) Approach for Efficient Habitat Expansion: The Case of Changbai Mountain, Northeast China. SUSTAINABILITY 2018. [DOI: 10.3390/su10082919] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
The biodiversity crisis and ecosystem degradation caused by habitat destruction and human activities can be reduced by organizing protected areas. However, many protected areas currently take the form of “green islands,” which has led to serious habitat isolation in many places. We thus introduce herein a landscape-scale adjoining conservation (LAC) approach for the protection and restoration of ecosystems across the boundaries between protected areas and surrounding non-protected areas. The strategy of the LAC approach is to effectively expand conservation areas by connecting isolated areas of important ecosystems or habitats outside of protected areas. The methodology of the LAC approach involves integrated analyses that consider both habitat quality and landscape patterns. Forest-habitat quality is characterized by species composition and stand structure, and habitat connectivity is quantified by the max patch area of habitat and total habitat area. The focal statistic is useful for examining habitat clumps that result from landscape fragmentation. As a case study, we apply the LAC approach to adjoining restoration of broadleaf Korean pine mixed forest on the Changbai Mountain in northeastern China. We developed a metric called the Restoration Efficiency of Landscape Expansion (RELE) to evaluate the LAC approach. The results indicate that a minimal restoration effort can produce significant effects in terms of the expansion of contiguous habitat, as quantified by RELE.
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