Operationalizing the Concepts of Resilience and Resistance for Managing Ecosystems and Species at Risk

Operationalizing the Concepts of Resilience and Resistance for Managing Ecosystems and Species at Risk PDF Author: Jeanne C. Chambers
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889638677
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description

Operationalizing the Concepts of Resilience and Resistance for Managing Ecosystems and Species at Risk

Operationalizing the Concepts of Resilience and Resistance for Managing Ecosystems and Species at Risk PDF Author: Jeanne C. Chambers
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889638677
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description


Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation PDF Author: Lance B. McNew
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303134037X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1017

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Book Description
This open access book reviews the importance of ecological functioning within rangelands considering the complex inter-relationships of production agriculture, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat. More than half of all lands worldwide, and up to 70% of the western USA, are classified as rangelands—uncultivated lands that often support grazing by domestic livestock. The rangelands of North America provide a vast array of goods and services, including significant economic benefit to local communities, while providing critical habitat for hundreds of species of fish and wildlife. This book provides compendium of recent data and synthesis from more than 100 experts in wildlife and rangeland ecology in Western North America. It provides a current and in-depth synthesis of knowledge related to wildlife ecology in rangeland ecosystems, and the tools used to manage them, to serve current and future wildlife biologists and rangeland managers in the working landscapes of the West. The book also identifies information gaps and serves as a jumping-off point for future research of wildlife in rangeland ecosystems. While the content focuses on wildlife ecology and management in rangelands of Western North America, the material has important implications for rangeland ecosystems worldwide.

Global Vegetation and Land Surface Dynamics in a Changing Climate

Global Vegetation and Land Surface Dynamics in a Changing Climate PDF Author: Pinki Mondal
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3036505024
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Global ecosystem changes are influenced by a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors. Ongoing changes in rainfall, temperature, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can affect natural or managed vegetation, such as forest, grassland, or farmland. Moreover, anthropogenic pressures, such as forest clearing, cattle grazing, increasing infrastructural development, intensive management, and expansion of cropland, can contribute to ecosystem degradation. This collection presents a wide range of studies examining natural and anthropogenic drivers in diverse ecosystems in Africa, Asia, and North America.

Greater Sage-Grouse

Greater Sage-Grouse PDF Author: Steve Knick
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520948688
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 665

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Book Description
Admired for its elaborate breeding displays and treasured as a game bird, the Greater Sage-Grouse is a charismatic symbol of the broad open spaces in western North America. Unfortunately these birds have declined across much of their range—which stretches across 11 western states and reaches into Canada—mostly due to loss of critical sagebrush habitat. Today the Greater Sage-Grouse is at the center of a complex conservation challenge. This multifaceted volume, an important foundation for developing conservation strategies and actions, provides a comprehensive synthesis of scientific information on the biology and ecology of the Greater Sage-Grouse. Bringing together the experience of thirty-eight researchers, it describes the bird’s population trends, its sagebrush habitat, and potential limitations to conservation, including the effects of rangeland fire, climate change, invasive plants, disease, and land uses such as energy development, grazing, and agriculture.

Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future

Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future PDF Author: Jon Norberg
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231508865
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Complexity theory illuminates the many interactions between natural and social systems, providing a better understanding of the general principles that can help solve some of today's most pressing environmental issues. Complexity theory was developed from key ideas in economics, physics, biology, and the social sciences and contributes to important new concepts for approaching issues of environmental sustainability such as resilience, scaling, and networks. Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future is a hands-on treatment of this exciting new body of work and its applications, bridging the gap between theoretical and applied perspectives in the management of complex adaptive systems. Focusing primarily on natural resource management and community-based conservation, the book features contributions by leading scholars in the field, many of whom are among the leaders of the Resilience Alliance. Theoreticians will find a valuable synthesis of new ideas on resilience, sustainability, asymmetries, information processing, scaling, and networks. Managers and policymakers will benefit from the application of these ideas to practical approaches and empirical studies linked to social-ecological systems. Chapters present new twists on such existing approaches as scenario planning, scaling analyses, and adaptive management, and the book concludes with recommendations on how to manage natural resources, how to involve stakeholders in the dynamics of a system, and how to explain the difficult topic of scale. A vital reference for an emerging discipline, this volume provides a clearer understanding of the conditions required for systems self-organization, since the capacity of any system to self-organize is crucial for its sustainability over time.

The Pinyon Jay

The Pinyon Jay PDF Author: John M. Marzluff
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408136929
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
A flock of Pinyon Jays arrive in a flash of blue, and leave again just as suddenly. This once mysterious bird is now the subject of over 20 years of intensive research involving over one thousand colour-marked jays by Russell Balda, John Marzluff and their colleagues and helpers. This plain blue bird has turned out to be anything but plain in its biology and behaviour. Uniquely dependent on the seeds of the Pinyon Pine for food, they have developed a number of behavioural and morphological adaptations to best utilise this resource, above all caching enough seeds each autumn to supply their needs throughout the winter and fuel their unusual habit of nesting in late winter. Fluctuations in pine-seed supply, both by season and between years, poses special problems for these birds and has led to their extremely flexible and complex social system in which learning and memory play an unusually large part. They store pine seeds and retrieve them with uncanny accuracy; they form lifelong pair bonds and nest colonially, occasionally involving younger birds to help established pairs rear the young; and they use their large vocabulary to coordinate activities within one of the largest known avian societies. This intriguing story will fascinate both the enthusiastic amateur birder and the professional alike. Packed with information, it presents Pinyon Jay biology in a readable form and places them into the wider context of studies on bird ecology and evolution. Fine illustrations by Tony Angell, with additional pictures by Caroline Bauder, complete this attractive addition to any birder's bookshelf.

Riparian Areas

Riparian Areas PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309082951
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that wetlands be protected from degradation because of their important ecological functions including maintenance of high water quality and provision of fish and wildlife habitat. However, this protection generally does not encompass riparian areasâ€"the lands bordering rivers and lakesâ€"even though they often provide the same functions as wetlands. Growing recognition of the similarities in wetland and riparian area functioning and the differences in their legal protection led the NRC in 1999 to undertake a study of riparian areas, which has culminated in Riparian Areas: Functioning and Strategies for Management. The report is intended to heighten awareness of riparian areas commensurate with their ecological and societal values. The primary conclusion is that, because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, restoration of riparian functions along America's waterbodies should be a national goal.

Keeping the Wild

Keeping the Wild PDF Author: George Wuerthner
Publisher: Foundations for Deep Ecology 3
ISBN: 9781610915588
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Is it time to embrace the so-called “Anthropocene”—the age of human dominion—and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated, an engineered global garden managed by technocrats to serve humanity? The schism between advocates of rewilding and those who accept and even celebrate a “post-wild” world is arguably the hottest intellectual battle in contemporary conservation. In Keeping the Wild, a group of prominent scientists, writers, and conservation activists responds to the Anthropocene-boosters who claim that wild nature is no more (or in any case not much worth caring about), that human-caused extinction is acceptable, and that “novel ecosystems” are an adequate replacement for natural landscapes. With rhetorical fists swinging, the book’s contributors argue that these “new environmentalists” embody the hubris of the managerial mindset and offer a conservation strategy that will fail to protect life in all its buzzing, blossoming diversity. With essays from Eileen Crist, David Ehrenfeld, Dave Foreman, Lisi Krall, Harvey Locke, Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Soulé, Terry Tempest Williams and other leading thinkers, Keeping the Wild provides an introduction to this important debate, a critique of the Anthropocene boosters’ attack on traditional conservation, and unapologetic advocacy for wild nature.

Predictive Species and Habitat Modeling in Landscape Ecology

Predictive Species and Habitat Modeling in Landscape Ecology PDF Author: C. Ashton Drew
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441973907
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Most projects in Landscape Ecology, at some point, define a species-habitat association. These models are inherently spatial, dealing with landscapes and their configurations. Whether coding behavioral rules for dispersal of simulated organisms through simulated landscapes, or designing the sampling extent of field surveys and experiments in real landscapes, landscape ecologists must make assumptions about how organisms experience and utilize the landscape. These convenient working postulates allow modelers to project the model in time and space, yet rarely are they explicitly considered. The early years of landscape ecology necessarily focused on the evolution of effective data sources, metrics, and statistical approaches that could truly capture the spatial and temporal patterns and processes of interest. Now that these tools are well established, we reflect on the ecological theories that underpin the assumptions commonly made during species distribution modeling and mapping. This is crucial for applying models to questions of global sustainability. Due to the inherent use of GIS for much of this kind of research, and as several authors’ research involves the production of multicolored map figures, there would be an 8-page color insert. Additional color figures could be made available through a digital archive, or by cost contributions of the chapter authors. Where applicable, would be relevant chapters’ GIS data and model code available through a digital archive. The practice of data and code sharing is becoming standard in GIS studies, is an inherent method of this book, and will serve to add additional research value to the book for both academic and practitioner audiences.

PRAIRIEMAP, a GIS Database for Prairie Grassland Management in Western North America

PRAIRIEMAP, a GIS Database for Prairie Grassland Management in Western North America PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geographic information systems
Languages : en
Pages : 6

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Book Description
The PRAIRIEMAP web site (http://prairiemap.wr.usgs.gov) contains links to partners, documentation of the data, and a directory of GIS data that can be downloaded.