Complex effects of site preparation and harvest on snowshoe hare abundance across a patchy forest landscape

Thornton, Daniel H.; Wirsing, Aaron J.; Roth, James D.; Murray, Dennis L.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2012.06.011

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…For the predominant forest age class in the 300 m buff er, we a priori expected to observe a non-linear relationship because both young and old age classes tend to have lower levels of vertical and/ or horizontal cover compared to mid-successional age classes (Murray 2003, Th ornton et al 2012. Inclusion of all the transects allowed us to investigate a greater number of parameters and cover a larger overall area of Idaho.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also determined the area of the forest stand that contained each transect. Because some transects crossed more than 1 stand, we could only determine stand area for those transects that had at least 6 plot-pairs located in a single stand, as this number supplied reliable information regarding snowshoe hare abundance and distribution (Th ornton et al 2012). Th erefore, when analyzing the relative infl uence of area and structural isolation on occupancy dynamics, we used a subset of 365 transects from the total number surveyed (see below).…”

Section: Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Habitat quality and population density drive occupancy dynamics of snowshoe hare in variegated landscapes

et al. 2012

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Th e infl uence of habitat quality and population density on occupancy dynamics may surpass that of traditional metrics of area and isolation, but often this is not considered explicitly in studies of spatially structured populations. In landscapes that are not easily characterized as binary habitat/non-habitat (e.g. variegated landscapes), this infl uence may be even more important and occur at both local and landscape levels. It follows that occupancy dynamics may be driven by disparate processes depending on how extinction or colonization relate to habitat quality and population density. We examined the relative infl uence of area, structural isolation, habitat quality, local population density, and neighborhood population density (i.e. population density in the landscape around a site) on the probability of extinction and colonization of snowshoe hare Lepus americanus across an expansive forest mosaic landscape (encompassing the northern third of Idaho). Habitat quality and population density were highly infl uential in determining extinction and colonization, whereas patch area and isolation were much less important. Sites with heavier vegetative cover at the site or landscape-level were more likely to be colonized and less likely to go extinct, and sites with greater local population density in the previous time step had lower probability of extinction. Sites embedded in high density neighborhoods also were less likely to go extinct, but not more likely to be colonized. We found a signifi cant interaction between local and neighborhood population density on extinction in 1 yr, suggesting that the strength of demographic rescue may vary dependent on local site densities. Our results add to a growing literature showing that factors outside of structural metrics of area and isolation are important drivers of occupancy dynamics. Given the multi-scaled infl uence of habitat quality and population density on occupancy dynamics, our work also indicates that research on snowshoe hare must extend beyond simply assessing local factors to understand the spatial dynamics of populations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat quality and population density drive occupancy dynamics of snowshoe hare in variegated landscapes

et al. 2012

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“…Natural resource managers have contemplated issues related to site preparation treatments. Several types of harvesting and silvicultural activities may impact plant community and biodiversity in managed forests, including the harvesting process itself, pre-harvest activities, such as pre-commercial thinning, and post-harvest site preparation activities (e.g., chemical/mechanical preparation of the site for planting) [16][17][18][19]. Various mechanical/chemical site preparation treatments are applied at station in our study region from 1982 to 2014 was 2024.7 mm with over 70% of the precipitation falling from April to September.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diameter Growth, Biological Rotation Age and Biomass of Chinese Fir in Burning and Clearing Site Preparations in Subtropical China

Zhang

Meng

Liu

2016

Forests

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Sustained forest management of Cunninghamia lanceolata (Chinese fir) plantations in subtropical China is restricted by the limited availability of quantitative data. This study combines inventory data and tree-ring analysis of Chinese fir from natural and plantation forests that were subjected to controlled burning or brush clearing site preparations. Inter-annual variation of Chinese fir tree-ring widths were measured for the controlled burning, brush clearing and natural forest sites. The mean annual diametric growth of Chinese fir was 0.56 cm·year −1 for the natural forest, 0.80 cm·year −1 for the brush clearing site and 1.10 cm·year −1 for the controlled burning site. The time needed to reach the minimum cutting/logging diameter of 15 cm was 14 years in the controlled burning site, 19 years in the brush clearing site and >40 years in the natural forest. The biological rotation ages for the burning, cutting and natural forest sites were 15, 26 and >100 years, respectively. The total aboveground biomasses for the burning and clearing sites were 269.8 t·ha −1 and 252 t·ha −1 , respectively. These results suggest that the current 25-year cutting cycle greatly underestimates the growth rate of Chinese fir plantations.

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“…, Thornton et al. , Ivan and Shenk ) that is less likely to exclude backcountry skiers compared with motorized recreationists traveling at high speeds (Olson et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We hypothesized that Canada lynx would select environmental characteristics more similar to backcountry skiers than motorized recreationists. This rationale was based on the recognition that Canada lynx and their primary prey, snowshoe hares, select areas of high horizontal cover (Squires and Ruggiero 2007, Berg et al 2012, Thornton et al 2012, Ivan and Shenk 2016 that is less likely to exclude backcountry skiers compared with motorized recreationists traveling at high speeds . Thus, we believed that Canada lynx would select resources in ways that segregated their use areas spatially from motorized recreation given the species' association with dense forest cover.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winter recreation and Canada lynx: reducing conflict through niche partitioning

Squires

Olson

Roberts³

et al. 2019

Ecosphere

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Outdoor recreationists are important advocates for wildlife on public lands. However, balancing potential impacts associated with increased human disturbance with the conservation of sensitive species is a central issue facing ecologists and land managers alike, especially for dispersed winter recreation due to its disproportionate impact to wildlife. We studied how dispersed winter recreation (outside developed ski areas) impacted a reintroduced meso‐carnivore, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), at the southern periphery of the species’ range in the southern Rocky Mountains. On a voluntary basis, we distributed global positioning system (GPS) units to winter recreationists and documented 2143 spatial movement tracks of recreationists engaged in motorized and nonmotorized winter sports for a total cumulative distance of 56,000 km from 2010 to 2013. We also deployed GPS radio collars on adult Canada lynx that were resident in the mountainous topography that attracted high levels of dispersed winter recreation. We documented that resource‐selection models (RSFs) for Canada lynx were significantly improved when selection patterns of winter recreationists were included in best‐performing models. Canada lynx and winter recreationists partitioned environmental gradients in ways that reduced the potential for recreation‐related disturbance. Although the inclusion of recreation improved the RSF model for Canada lynx, environmental covariates explained most variation in resource use. The environmental gradients that most separated areas selected by Canada lynx from those used by recreationists were forest canopy closure, road density, and slope. Canada lynx also exhibited a functional response of increased avoidance of areas selected by motorized winter recreationists (snowmobiling off‐trail, hybrid snowmobile) compared with either no functional response (hybrid ski) or selection for (backcountry skiing) areas suitable for nonmotorized winter recreation. We conclude with a discussion of implications associated with providing winter recreation balanced with the conservation of Canada lynx.

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Complex effects of site preparation and harvest on snowshoe hare abundance across a patchy forest landscape

Cited by 16 publications

References 49 publications

Habitat quality and population density drive occupancy dynamics of snowshoe hare in variegated landscapes

Habitat quality and population density drive occupancy dynamics of snowshoe hare in variegated landscapes

Diameter Growth, Biological Rotation Age and Biomass of Chinese Fir in Burning and Clearing Site Preparations in Subtropical China

Winter recreation and Canada lynx: reducing conflict through niche partitioning

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