Habitat Evaluation Procedures

1. Habitat Evaluation Procedures • 1969-1976 – an enlightened Congress passes conservation legislation • Affecting management of fish & wildlife resources • NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) • ESA • Forest & Rangelands Renewable Resources Planning Act • Federal Land Policy & Management Act

2. Habitat Evaluation Procedures • Stimulates federal & state agencies to change management, thus: • simple, rapid, reliable methods to determine & predict the species and habitats present on lands; • expand database for T/E, rare species; • Predict effects of various land use actions

3. Habitat Evaluation Procedures • USFWS • Habitat analysis models • Goal = Assess impacts at a community level (i.e., species representative of all habitats being studied) • e.g., use guild of species?

4. Habitat Evaluation Procedures • USFWS • Habitat analysis models • What is a model? • Important points to consider relative to models? • What variables should be measured and/or included in the model?

5. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models a) simple correlation models e.g., vegetation type-species matrix Species habitat matrix

7. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models b) statistical models i.e., prediction of distribution and/or abundance What types?

8. Carnivore Habitat Research at CMU Spatial Ecology • Overlay hexagon grid onto landcover map • Compare bobcat habitat attributes to population of hexagon core areas

9. Carnivore Habitat Research at CMU Spatial Ecology • Landscape metrics include: • Composition • (e.g., proportion cover type) • Configuration • (e.g., patch isolation, shape, adjacency) • Connectivity • (e.g., landscape permeability)

10. Carnivore Habitat Research at CMU Spatial Ecology • Calculate and use Penrose distance to measure similarity between more bobcat & non-bobcat hexagons • Where: • population i represent core areas of radio-collared bobcats • population j represents NLP hexagons • p is the number of landscape variables evaluated • μ is the landscape variable value • k is each observation • V is variance for each landscape variable • after Manly (2005).

11. Penrose Model for Michigan Bobcats

12. Carnivore Habitat Research at CMU Spatial Ecology • Each hexagon in NLP then receives a Penrose Distance (PD) value • Remap NLP using these hexagons • Determine mean PD for bobcat-occupied hexagons Preuss 2005

13. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models b) statistical models * modern statistical modeling & model selection techniques e.g., logistic regression & Resource Selection Probability Functions (RSF) & RSPF for determining amount & dist. of favorable habitat

14. 1 Y 0 X Habitat Evaluation Procedures Logistic regression: Y = β0 + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X3 = logit(p) Pr(Y = 1 | the explanatory variables x) = π π = e –logit(p) / [1+ e –logit(p)]

15. Resource Selection Functions (RSF) • Ciarniello et al. 2003 • Resource Selection Function Model for grizzly bear habitat • landcover types, landscape greenness, dist to roads

16. Resource Selection Probability Functions (RSPF) • Mladenoff et al. 1995 • Resource Selection Probability Function Model for gray wolf habitat • road density

17. Predicted American Woodcock Abundance Map

18. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios Need: 1) Determine use (e.g., prop. Use) 2) Determine availability (e.g., prop avail.) Selection ratio – for a given resource category i wi = prop use / prop avail. If wi = 1 , < 1, > 1

19. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios Selection ratio wi = prop use / prop avail. wi = (Ui /U+) / (Ai /A+) Ui = # observations in habitat type i U+ = total # observations (n) Ai = # random points in habitat type i A+ = total # of random points

20. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios Look at Neu et al. (1974) moose data = 117 observations of moose tracks within 4 different vegetation [habitat] types

21. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios

22. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios

23. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios

24. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios

25. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios Selection ratio * Generally standardize wito 0-1 scale for comparison among habitat types std wi = wi / Σ (wi)

26. Quantifying Habitat Use – Resource Selection Ratios

27. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) models

28. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)

29. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) • Model (assess) habitat (physical & biological attributes) for a wildlife species, e.g., USFWS • Habitat Units (HU) = (HSI) x (Area of available habitat) • Ratio value of interest divided by std comparison • HSI = study area habitat conditions • optimum habitat conditions

30. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) • Model (assess) habitat (physical & biological attributes) for a wildlife species, e.g., USFWS • HSI = index value (units?) of how suitable habitat is • 0 = unsuitable; 1= most suitable • value assumed proportional to K

31. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) • include top environmental variables related to a species’ presence, distribution & abundance

32. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) • List of Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) models • http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/emrrp/emris/emrishelp3/list_of_habitat_suitability_index_hsi_models_pac.htm • e.g., HSI for red-tailed hawk

33. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk

34. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk

35. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk

36. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk

37. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk

38. Habitat Suitability Index (HSI)Red-tailed Hawk • For Grassland: • Food Value HSI = (V12 x V2 x V3)1/4 • For Deciduous Forest: • Food Value HSI = (V4 x 0.6) • Reproductive value HSI = V5

39. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Habitat Capability (HC) models - USFS - describe habitat conditions associated with or necessary to maintain different population levels of a species ( compositions)

40. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Habitat Capability (HC) models - uses weighted values based on habitat capacity rates at each successional stage of veg. for reproduction, resting, and feeding

41. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Habitat Capability (HC) models -

42. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Pattern Recognition (PATREC) models - use conditional probabilities to assess whether habitat is suitable for a species - must know what is suitable & unsuitable habitat

43. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Single-species models c) Pattern Recognition (PATREC) models - use series of habitat attributes - must know relation of attributes to population density

44. PATREC Models Expected Habitat Suitability (EHS) = [P(H) x P (I/H)] / [P(H) x P (I/H)] + [P (L) x P (I/L)] P(H) = prop. high density habitat P (I/H)] = prop. area has high population potential P (L) = prop. low density habitat P (I/L) = prop. area has low population potential * Low & high population potential identified from surveys

45. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Multiple-species models a) Integrated Habitat Inventory and Classification System (IHICS) - BLM - system of data gathering, classification, storage - no capacity for predicting use or how change affects species

46. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Multiple-species models b) Life-form Model - USFS -

47. Habitat Evaluation Procedures Three Categories of Techniques: 1) Multiple-species models b) Community Guild Models - can be used to estimate responses of species to alteration of habitat - (like Life-form model) clusters species with similar habitat requirements for feeding & reproduction

48. Three Scales of Diversity A = B = alpha () diversity – within habitat C = beta () diversity – among habitat D = gamma () diversity – geographic scale

49. Alpha & Gamma Species Diversity Indices • Shannon-Wiener Index – most used • sensitive to change in status of rare species • H’ = diversity of species (range 0-1+) • s = # of species • pi = proportion of total sample belonging to ith species

50. Alpha & Gamma Species Diversity Indices • Shannon-Wiener Index