The use of dynamic landscape metapopulation models for forest management: a case study of the red-backed salamander

Ascelin Gordon; Brendan A Wintle; Sarah A Bekessy; Jennie L Pearce; Lisa A Venier; Joab N Wilson

Journal article

The use of dynamic landscape metapopulation models for forest management: a case study of the red-backed salamander

Ascelin Gordon, Brendan A Wintle, Sarah A Bekessy, Jennie L Pearce, Lisa A Venier, Joab N Wilson

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH | CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING | Published : 2012

DOI: 10.1139/X2012-068

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Abstract

Spatial models of population dynamics have been proposed as a useful method for predicting the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Here, we demonstrate advances in dynamic landscape metapopulation modelling and its use as a decision support tool for evaluating the impacts of forest management scenarios. This novel modelling framework incorporates both landscape and metapopulation model stochasticity and allows their relative contributions to model output variance to be characterized. It includes a detailed sensitivity analysis, allowing defensible uncertainty bounds and the prioritization of future data gathering to reduce model uncertainties. We demonstrate this framework by mo..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Brendan Wintle Author Ecosystem and Forest Sciences

Related Projects (1)

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Grants

Awarded by Ontario Living Legacy Trust

Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)

Funding Acknowledgements

This project was supported by the Ontario Living Legacy Trust, project No. 07-029, and the Canadian Forest Service. A. G. was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) under linkage project LP0882780, B. A. W. was supported by ARC Future Fellowship FT100100819, and S. A. B. was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Mike Flannigan, Tim Lynham, and Erin Bosch (Canadian Forest Service) provided data for estimating fire parameters and Jim Bogart (University of Guelph) and James Petranka (University of North Carolina) provided advice on the population model parameters. Kevin Lawrence, Teri Bonnell, and Gillian Eccles provided GIS and technical support. Resit Akcakaya (Applied Biomathematics), David Mladenoff (University of Wisconsin) and Jane Elith, Mick McCarthy, Prema Lucas, and Mark Burgman (University of Melbourne) provided technical advice on modelling and comments on the manuscript.