Evaluating the long-term effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas: a 40-year look at forest bird diversity

Brown, Jeffrey A.; Lockwood, Julie L.; Avery, Julian D.; Burkhalter, J. Curtis; Aagaard, Kevin; Fenn, Katherine H.

doi:10.1007/s10531-018-01693-5

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In order to determine whether these clusters aligned with life-history traits among species, we classified all species according to several life-history traits that are frequently cited as being of conservation relevance [34,43]: dependence on open habitats (e.g., grassland and shrubland), nesting on or very near the ground, human commensals (frequently visit bird feeders and/or especially thrive in human-altered habitats), and being a spruce budworm ( Choristoneura sp.) specialist.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A half-century of changes in migratory landbird numbers along coastal Massachusetts

et al. 2019

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We analyzed data from across five decades of passerine bird banding at Manomet in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA. This included 172,609 captures during spring migration and 253,265 during fall migration, from 1969 to 2015. Migration counts are prone to large interannual variation and trends are often difficult to interpret, but have the advantage of sampling many breeding populations in a single locale. We employed a Bayesian state-space modeling approach to estimate patterns in abundance over time while accounting for observation error, and a hierarchical clustering method to identify species groups with similar trends over time. Although continent-wide there has been an overall decrease in landbird populations over the past 40 years, we found a variety of patterns in abundance over time. Consistent with other studies, we found an overall decline in numbers of birds in the aggregate, with most species showing significant net declines in migratory cohort size in spring, fall, or both (49/73 species evaluated). Other species, however, exhibited different patterns, including abundance increases (10 species). Even among increasing and declining species, the specific trends varied in shape over time, forming seven distinct clusters in fall and ten in spring. The remaining species followed largely independent and irregular pathways. Overall, life-history traits (dependence on open habitat, nesting on or near the ground, migratory strategy, human commensal, spruce budworm specialists) did a poor job of predicting species groupings of abundance patterns in both spring and fall, but median date of passage was a good predictor of abundance trends during spring (but not fall) migration. This suggests that some species with very similar patterns of abundance were unlikely to be responding to the same environmental forces. Changes in abundance at this banding station were generally consistent with BBS trend data for the same geographic region.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A half-century of changes in migratory landbird numbers along coastal Massachusetts

et al. 2019

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“…We chose BUNP to represent a low-quality breeding habitat because the forest lacks understorey vegetation due to browsing by overabundant White-tailed Deer Odocoileus virginianus (Rawinski 2014), an effect which has been implicated in declines of ground-nesting songbirds including Black-and-white Warblers (Côt e et al 2004, Brown et al 2019, Rushing et al 2020. For comparison with BUNP, we chose FSS and SGL, two larger and less fragmented forests, to represent higher quality Black-and-white Warbler habitats.…”

Section: Study Areas and Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social information affects prospecting, but not settlement, by Black‐and‐white Warblers (Mniotilta varia)

Mann¹,

Mann²,

Clark

2021

Ibis

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Birds use social as well as environmental cues to inform their habitat selection decisions. By manipulating social cues with song playbacks, biologists can influence where individuals search for breeding territories, which could be useful for conservation. Yet before we can predict how birds will respond to playback treatments, we must first understand how they integrate social cues with information about habitat quality at different stages in the habitat selection process. In this experiment, we examined whether vegetation structure and/or social cues affected Black‐and‐white Warbler Mniotilta varia abundance at three study areas that differed in habitat quality. We monitored Black‐and‐white Warbler habitat use across the breeding season, from the early prospecting period until after settlement decisions were made. During seasons without playback treatments, Black‐and‐white Warbler abundance was positively associated with levels of understorey vegetation cover. We then played Black‐and‐white Warbler songs daily for 5–6 weeks at selected survey sites at all study areas. We found that the model‐predicted abundance of Black‐and‐white Warblers was nearly three times greater at playback sites than at control sites during the prospecting period. During seasons with playbacks, understorey vegetation cover was no longer associated with Black‐and‐white Warbler abundance, indicating that individuals prioritized social information when searching for breeding territories. However, during the post‐settlement period, neither playbacks nor levels of understorey vegetation cover were associated with increased abundance, suggesting that playback treatments did not influence final breeding territory choice. We also found no difference in abundance between playback and control sites at a study area that represented low‐quality habitat, which suggests that playbacks should not induce maladaptive site selection.

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“…Protected areas are designed to achieve wildlife and habitat conservation over the long term, yet they may be insufficient to preserve biodiversity for a variety of reasons (Brown et al., 2019; Gaston et al., 2008). Protected areas that allow natural resource use, recreation, or both may face extensive human impacts across much of their area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Few assessments evaluate population change within protected areas over time (Brown et al., 2019), and those that have typically used changes in occurrence to measure conservation impact. However, abundance and trends are more valuable metrics than occurrence for evaluating protected area effectiveness, given that species can persist for years following declines but occur in such low numbers that they are functionally irrelevant (i.e., provide few to no services) (Gaston et al., 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, abundance and trends are more valuable metrics than occurrence for evaluating protected area effectiveness, given that species can persist for years following declines but occur in such low numbers that they are functionally irrelevant (i.e., provide few to no services) (Gaston et al., 2008). Evaluating population change traditionally requires intensive monitoring conducted over extensive spatial and temporal scales (Brown et al., 2019; Gaston et al., 2008). However, two recent developments show great promise for reducing the barriers to evaluating population change in protected areas: rapid growth of community science observational data sets and development of advanced analytical techniques to handle the multiple sources of variation in these data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of stewardship on protected area effectiveness for coastal birds

Michel

Saunders

Meehan

et al. 2021

Conservation Biology

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Evaluation of protected area effectiveness is critical for conservation of biodiversity. Protected areas that prioritize biodiversity conservation are, optimally, located and managed in ways that support relatively large and stable or increasing wildlife populations. Yet evaluating conservation efficacy remains a challenging endeavor. We used an extensive community science data set, eBird, to evaluate the efficacy of protected areas for birds across the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the United States. We modeled trends (2007–2018) for 12 vulnerable waterbirds that use coastal areas during breeding or wintering. We compared two types of protected areas—sites where conservation organizations implemented active stewardship or management or both to reduce human disturbance (hereafter stewardship sites) and local, state, federal, and private protected areas managed to maintain natural land cover (hereafter protected areas)—as well as unprotected areas. We evaluated differences in trends between stewardship, protected, and unprotected areas across the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as a whole. Similar to a background sample, stewardship was known to occur at stewardship sites, but unknown at protected and unprotected areas. Four of 12 target species—Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger), Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), Least Tern (Sternula antillarum), and Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus)—had more positive trends (two to 34 times greater) at stewardship sites than protected areas. Furthermore, five target species showed more positive trends at sites with stewardship programs than unprotected sites during at least one season, whereas seven species showed more positive trends at protected than unprotected areas. No species had more negative trends at stewardship sites than unprotected areas, and two species had more negative trends at protected than unprotected areas. Anthropogenic disturbance is a serious threat to coastal birds, and our findings demonstrate that stewardship to reduce its negative impacts helps ensure conservation of vulnerable waterbirds.

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Evaluating the long-term effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas: a 40-year look at forest bird diversity

Cited by 20 publications

References 63 publications

A half-century of changes in migratory landbird numbers along coastal Massachusetts

A half-century of changes in migratory landbird numbers along coastal Massachusetts

Social information affects prospecting, but not settlement, by Black‐and‐white Warblers (Mniotilta varia)

Effects of stewardship on protected area effectiveness for coastal birds

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