Balancing feasibility and precision of wildlife habitat analysis in planning for natural resources

Abstract

Wildlife conservation often is a central focus in planning for natural resource management. Evaluation of wildlife habitat involves balancing the desire for information about detailed habitat characteristics and the feasibility of completing analyses across large areas. Our objective is to describe tradeoffs made in assessments of wildlife habitat within a multiple-objective vegetation-based state-and-transition model (STM) framework. Species-habitat relationships derived from STM vegetation characteristics require careful interpretation for several reasons. First, the observational unit for wildlife analysis is habitat, which does not provide information about actual species occurrence or distribution. Second, subjectivity exists in researcher interpretation of species-habitat relationships derived from past literature, particularly qualitative descriptions. For quantified specieshabitat relationships that exist, only information that matches output criteria directly may be used for analysis. Third, visual interpretation of results may vary based on scale of analysis used in STMs. When preparing wildlife habitat information from STM output and its application to natural resource planning, there is a need to focus on consistent and defensible information and emphasize the limitations of knowledge derived from data analysis.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the First Landscape State-and-Transition Simulation Modeling Conference, June 14–16, 2011, Portland, Oregon

Citation

Morzillo, Anita T.; Halofsky, Joshua S.; DiMiceli, Jennifer; Csuti, Blair; Comeleo, Pamela; Hemstrom, Miles. 2012. Balancing feasibility and precision of wildlife habitat analysis in planning for natural resources. In: Kerns, Becky K.; Shlisky, Ayn J.; Daniel, Colin J., tech. eds. Proceedings of the First Landscape State-and-Transition Simulation Modeling Conference, June 14–16, 2011, Portland, Oregon. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-869. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station: 103-114.