CBI is working with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and The Bureau of Land Management to develop decision support models to inform current conservation initiatives in Utah and throughout the Colorado Plateau ecoregion. Based on previous REA (Rapid Ecoregional Assessment) work, CBI is updating the existing terrestrial landscape and aquatic intactness models for the Colorado Plateau ecoregion as well as updating habitat profiles for a number of identified conservation elements of interest (largely native species and communities). CBI is extending the models to cover the entire state of Utah as well as fine-tuning the models to be more effective at answering different management questions over smaller geographic areas.

CBI is also updating a previously created climate stress logic model with the most recent climate data from the 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report as well as carryout some new analyses. For example, mapping potential climate refugia – areas where plants and animals may find shelter from changes in climatic conditions. CBI is also examining past and future climate variability to model climate velocity, which is the speed along the Earth’s surface needed to maintain constant climate conditions with the rationale being that species survival may depend as much on keeping pace with moving climate as the climate’s ultimate persistence. Results of the climate modeling will illustrate at the landscape level the degree to which locations in the landscape will be impacted by climate stress over the next century and help estimate the likelihood that certain species will survive shifting suitable habitat conditions.

Click here to see the console.

The Conservation Biology Institute, in collaboration with Ted Weller (USFS – Pacific Southwest Research Station) is expanding the functionality of Data Basin to create a clearinghouse for migratory bat detection data.  This new functionality will allow users to: (1) import location-aware spreadsheet data into Data Basin; (2) dynamically visualize these locations and their attributes (such as number of bats of a particular species) within the interactive map; and, (3) explore charts of time series records across one or more locations. Additional tools under development will allow aggregation into a single master dataset, support form-based imports to more easily capture site and detector information from researchers during upload, and support export of records into spatial and non-spatial outputs.

More information about the exciting implications of this project can be found within an article on The Wildlife Society website.

Working as a subcontractor to Dynamac Corporation, the Conservation Biology Institute provided the scientific leadership and technical support for two BLM Rapid Ecoregional Assessment (REAs).  The Sonoran Desert ecoregion was completed in the spring of 2012.  A series of conservation elements were chosen for the eocregion and over 40 management questions addressed.  Most questions pertained to a listed set of change agents, including urban and agriculture development, energy (including renewables), fire, invasive species, recreation, and climate change.  For each conservation element, conceptual models were created and, for each specific management question, an accompanying GIS-based process model was created that outlined the data and steps necessary to generate an answer to the question.  Part of the project required an exhaustive acquisition and review of available spatial data – hundreds the ecoregion.  Extensive and sophisticated modeling had to be applied to multiple topics including target species habitat, natural ecological systems, climate change, invasive species, wildfire, and landscape integrity.  Also, some custom analytical software had to be generated throughout the course of the project.

Project review was conducted using Data Basin and final results reside in a private group space on this web-based data management and mapping system.  To inquire about access to the data and map-based results, please contact Karen Prentice at BLM Headquarters (kprentice@blm.gov).

To download the report and find out more information, Click Here.

Working as a subcontractor to Dynamac Corporation, the Conservation Biology Institute provided the scientific leadership and technical support for two BLM Rapid Ecoregional Assessment (REAs).  The Colorado Plateau ecoregion was completed in the spring of 2012.  A series of conservation elements were chosen for the eocregion and over 40 management questions addressed.  Most questions pertained to a listed set of change agents, including urban and agriculture development, energy (including renewables), fire, invasive species, recreation, and climate change.  For each conservation element, conceptual models were created and, for each specific management question, an accompanying GIS-based process model was created that outlined the data and steps necessary to generate an answer to the question.  Part of the project required an exhaustive acquisition and review of available spatial data – hundreds the ecoregion.  Extensive and sophisticated modeling had to be applied to multiple topics including target species habitat, natural ecological systems, climate change, invasive species, wildfire, and landscape integrity.  Also, some custom analytical software had to be generated throughout the course of the project.

Project review was conducted using Data Basin and final results reside in a private group space on this web-based data management and mapping system.  To inquire about access to the data and map-based results, please contact Karen Prentice at BLM Headquarters (kprentice@blm.gov).

To download the full report and find our more information on the Colorado Plateau REA, click here.

This report was prepared to provide an independent examination of the post-fire management options being considered for the Biscuit Fire (2002) within the Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon. This report has three main objectives:

  1. summarize the ecological setting and impact of the Biscuit Fire
  2. review the scientific literature on post-fire management (including salvage logging)
  3. conduct a GIS-based mapping analysis that examines the ecological and administrative constraints to post-fire management of the Biscuit Fire

Detailed information for the Biscuit Fire can be found at the official US Forest Service Biscuit Fire website.

CBI staff worked on a comprehensive analysis of inventoried roadless areas within six ecoregions of the Pacific Northwest encompassing the range of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) east and west of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Oregon, and northern California revealed that roadless areas contributed to:

This document is a synthesis of the literature on roadless importance, drawing primarily on the published studies presented in the bibliography and available from the World Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Biology Institute. The authors of this document have spent nearly a decade compiling databases and conducting satellite imagery and computer mapping assessments that document the importance of roadless areas and the extent of forest fragmentation across the nation. This document provides a scientific foundation in support of lasting protections for roadless areas.

The primary objective of this study was to perform an enduring features conservation gap analysis for a pilot region within the U.S. (northern Rocky Mountains) that applied the same methodology as WWF Canada, resulting in a consistent crossboundary conservation assessment for the region for the first time. The Rocky Mountains were chosen over other crossboundary areas because this region is under increasing pressure from human enterprise on both sides of the border, yet it still maintains a full compliment of species including large carnivores. The conservation actions taken over the next decade will largely determine whether this portion of the Rocky Mountains continues to function in a way that supports the many species and natural processes which have made it world famous: there is much at stake.

The greater study area as taken from the Carnivore Strategy included the Rocky Mountains in BC and Alberta and the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains (approximately 690,000 square kilometers). This GIS-based research project concentrated mostly on the U.S. side of the border, as we attempted to duplicate the Canadian methodology on similar, but different, electronic datasets. The region was first subdivided into 50 ecosections (or natural regions), 32 of which were exclusively contained within the U.S. or straddled the Canada – U.S. border. Enduring features were then mapped and representation evaluated for each of the 32 ecosections. Finally, these results were added to the Canadian work for regional summarization. In addition to the enduring features gap analysis, enhancements to the methodology were examined for the U.S. portion of the study area using larger scale datasets. A physical units mapping procedure was developed and examples compared to the coarser scale enduring features analysis. Finally, a number of separate analyses (e.g., road density analysis) were performed for the U.S. portion of the study area that can now be used to support continuing conservation research in the region.

CBI investigated the effects of climate and vegetation on the distribution of martens (Martes caurina) and fishers (Martes pennanti) in the Sierra Nevada in California under current and projected future conditions to inform conservation efforts for these species and to investigate how different modeling methods and resolutions may affect predictions about species’ responses to climate change. Martens and fishers are closely related forest carnivores of conservation concern in California, where both reach their southernmost distributions. The species have contiguous elevation ranges, with the smaller marten occupying high subalpine forests that experience deep and persistent snow, and the larger fisher occupying mid-elevation forests that experience less snow and warmer temperatures.

The goals of this project were to:

  1. add robust, downscaled, climate-change effects assessments to CBI’S Sierra Nevada Carnivores project, which is a comprehensive, science-based effort to map areas important to sustaining rare carnivore populations and improving forest management.
  2. compare alternative analytical approaches and resolutions for assessing climate impacts on vegetation and sensitive species.

Because martens and fishers require similar forest structural conditions (dense forests with large trees and abundant dead wood) but different climate regimes (cooler, moister, and snowier conditions for martens; warmer, drier and less snowy conditions for fishers) they offer a unique opportunity to investigate how our changing climate may affect the species directly as well as via changes in vegetation. Also, because they compete with one another for food, and fishers will kill martens when they meet, this system offers an opportunity to investigate how species interactions may also affect future populations.

Specific study tasks:

  1. Examine how the current distributions of martens and fishers are influenced by vegetation characteristics (e.g., forest composition and structure), climate (e.g., temperature, precipitation, snow depth and duration), physical variables (e.g., elevation, % slope) and presence or absence of the other species.
  2. Project the potential future distribution of both species under climate change based on results of Task 1 and using alternative emissions scenarios and general circulation models at different resolutions.
  3. Use the results to support conservation and forest management plans to ensure long-term sustainability of marten and fisher populations in the face of climate change and increasingly severe fire regimes.

Click here for Methods, Outcomes, Interpretation and Related Data

Wolves were extirpated from the Adirondacks over a century ago due largely to human eradication efforts.  The Conservation Biology Institute (Corvallis, OR) was chosen by the Adirondack Citizens Advisory Committee to examine the question of biological feasibility of reintroducing gray wolves back to the Adirondacks. By applying what is known about gray wolf ecology (in general) to the best available spatial and genetics data for the Adirondacks, we examined three basic questions:

  1. Is there suitable gray wolf habitat in the Adirondacks to support a viable population?
  2. Is there adequate landscape connectivity both within the Adirondacks and between the Adirondacks and the surrounding region to allow for reasonable gray wolf movement important to their persistence?
  3. What does the most recent genetics tell us about wolves in the Adirondacks?

The Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion of southwest Oregon and northwest California has long been recognized for its global biological significance and is considered an Area of Global Botanical Significance by the World Conservation Union, a global Centre of Plant Diversity, and has been proposed as a possible World Heritage Site. More recently, World Wildlife Fund US scored the Klamath-Siskiyou as one of their Global 200 sites reaffirming its global importance from the standpoint of biodiversity.

CBI used GIS as the principle tool to assess the state of the environment in the Klamath-Siskiyou and to develop a reserve design proposal based on the three-tracks. GIS is a computer-based analytical mapping technology that is rapidly becoming the cornerstone for conservation planning at many different spatial scales.

The proposed work plan called for the analysis to be focused at the 1:100,000-map scale using the best available data. While the 1:100,000 remained our target planning scale, we incorporated larger scaled data (e.g., 1:24,000) wherever possible. Doing so allowed for much more meaningful and reliable analyses. One of the greatest challenges throughout this project was evaluating and integrating the various data layers acquired from numerous sources.