Early Successional Forest Management on Private Lands as a Coupled Human and Natural System

Abstract

Facilitating voluntary conservation on private lands is a crucial element of policies that seek to mitigate forest habitat loss and fragmentation around the world. Previous research emphasizes the role of social factors (e.g., landowner characteristics, economics) in forest management, but environmental outcomes of past management can also affect landowner decisions. Our objective was to evaluate how positive outcomes for wildlife and habitat might reinforce or amplify landowner efforts to manage forest habitats. We applied the lens of coupled human and natural systems to investigate private lands management for early successional forests, which are declining along with associated wildlife in rural areas of the eastern U.S. Efforts to restore early successional forest in this region involve active forest management to create patches of successional forest in native, mature mixed hardwood stands. By integrating field-based monitoring of wildlife with surveys of landowner perceptions, we examined how landowners observed, interpreted, and responded to property-scale ecological outcomes of forest management. We recorded presence of Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) and American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) and estimated bird species richness in spring 2015 and/or 2016 on private properties located in the Appalachians (Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) and Upper Great Lakes (Minnesota, Wisconsin). These properties were enrolled in early successional forest management programs administered through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Bird surveys were paired with landowner responses to a telephone survey conducted from January to May 2017 (n = 102). Most (71.6–81.6%) landowners’ perceptions of avian presence on their properties matched monitoring results. These perceptions were informed by personal observations and by outreach from agency partners and field technicians. Landowners who already completed their conservation program contracts (n = 85) continued managing early successional forests. Continued management for early successional habitat was positively associated with perceived benefits to birds, forest health, and scenery. Our findings give insight into how private landowners respond to environmental effects of forest management. We conclude that positive environmental outcomes of these conservation programs are related to continued early successional forest conservation by private landowners.

Identifying Opportunities to Conserve Farm Ponds on Private Lands: Integration of Social, Ecological, and Historical Data

“…To avoid drawing inference from uninformative parameters, we focus our interpretation on variables for which confidence intervals did not overlap zero, but the uncertainty surrounding these estimates hints at a larger challenge of capturing the complexities of land management behavior in a regression modeling process [58]. For example, we based our management and habitat assessments on high-resolution satellite imagery, but the tools we used to assess habitat quality are likely different from those used by landowners to assess their properties [59]. This could obscure the links between our assessments of habitat quality and the social drivers of management actions.…”

Cross-scale habitat selection reveals within-stand structural requirements for fledgling Golden-winged Warblers

“…From 2014-2015, we collected data in the Pocono Mountains (Pike and Monroe Counties) of northeastern Pennsylvania (hereafter NE PA) where Golden-winged Warblers historically occur at their highest population densities within the state (Larkin andBakermans 2012, McNeil et al 2020). From 2016-2017, we collected data in Centre and Clinton counties in northcentral Pennsylvania (hereafter NC PA).…”

Private landowners perceive positive impacts to their land stewardship following involvement in a conservation research program

“…This increase in knowledge about wildlife may lead to conservation outcomes by increasing landowners' intentions to alter their land management practices to benefit wildlife (Dayer et al, 2016). Land stewardship behaviors associated with landowner participation in conservation research include modified mowing and grazing schedules (Coovert, 2019), removal of invasive plant species (Graham & Rogers, 2017), and habitat restoration (Lutter et al, 2019). Environmental citizenship behaviors following participation in conservation research have not been well-documented.…”