Download or read book Operationalizing the Concepts of Resilience and Resistance for Managing Ecosystems and Species at Risk written by Jeanne C. Chambers and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-07-17 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation written by Lance B. McNew and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 1017 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Global Vegetation and Land Surface Dynamics in a Changing Climate written by Pinki Mondal and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2021-03-19 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Greater Sage Grouse written by Steve Knick and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-05-19 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future written by Jon Norberg and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-11 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Pinyon Jay written by John M. Marzluff and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Riparian Areas written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Keeping the Wild written by George Wuerthner and published by Foundations for Deep Ecology 3. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Predictive Species and Habitat Modeling in Landscape Ecology written by C. Ashton Drew and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-11-25 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book PRAIRIEMAP a GIS Database for Prairie Grassland Management in Western North America written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Avian Genomics in Ecology and Evolution written by Robert H. S. Kraus and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-29 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birds catch the public imagination like no other group of animals; in addition, birders are perhaps the largest non-professional naturalist community. Genomics and associated bioinformatics have revolutionised daily life in just a few decades. At the same time, this development has facilitated the application of genomics technology to ecological and evolutionary studies, including biodiversity and conservation at all levels. This book reveals how the exciting toolbox of genomics offers new opportunities in all areas of avian biology. It presents contributions from prominent experts at the intersection of avian biology and genomics, and offers an ideal introduction to the world of genomics for students, biologists and bird enthusiasts alike. The book begins with a historical perspective on how genomic technology was adopted by bird ecology and evolution research groups. This led, as the book explains, to a revised understanding of avian evolution, with exciting consequences for biodiversity research as a whole. Lastly, these impacts are illustrated using seminal examples and the latest discoveries from avian biology laboratories around the world.
Download or read book Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America written by David E. Naugle and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2011-02-09 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book "offers a road map for securing North America's energy future while safeguarding its wildlife heritage. Contributing authors, including researchers, managers, planners, and conservationists, show how science can help craft solutions to conflicts between wildlife and energy development by delineating core areas, identifying landscapes that support viable populations, and forecasting future development scenarios and conservation design."--Publisher.
Download or read book Exotic Brome Grasses in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems of the Western US written by Matthew J. Germino and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invasions by exotic grasses, particularly annuals, rank among the most extensive and intensive ways that humans are contributing to the transformation of the earth’s surface. The problem is particularly notable with a suite of exotic grasses in the Bromus genus in the arid and semiarid regions that dominate the western United States, which extend from the dry basins near the Sierra and Cascade Ranges across the Intermountain Region and Rockies to about 105° longitude. This genus includes approximately 150 species that have a wide range of invasive and non-invasive tendencies in their home ranges and in North America. Bromus species that became invasive upon introduction to North America in the late 1800’s, such as Bromus tectorum and B. rubens, have since became the dominant cover on millions of hectares. Here, millenia of ecosystem development led to landscapes that would otherwise be dominated by perennial shrubs, herbs, and biotic soil crusts that were able to persist in spite of variable and scarce precipitation. This native ecosystem resilience is increasingly coveted by land owners and managers as more hectares lose their resistance to Bromus grasses and similar exotics and as climate, land use, and disturbance-regime changes are also superimposed. Managers are increasingly challenged to glean basic services from these ecosystems as they become invaded. Exotic annual grasses reduce wildlife and livestock carrying capacity and increase the frequency and extent of wildfi res and associated soil erosion. This book uses a unique ecoregional and multidisciplinary approach to evaluate the invasiveness, impacts, and management of the large Bromus genus. Students, researchers, and practitioners interested in Bromus specifically and invasive exotics in general will benefit from the depth of knowledge summarized in the book.
Download or read book Rangeland Monitoring written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Influence of Forest and Rangeland Management on Anadromous Fish Habitat in Western North America written by William S. Platts and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Habitat Threats in the Sagebrush Ecosystem written by David S. Dobkin and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the status and future of the sagebrush ecosystem and its dependent species. The ecosystem is not healthy and is diminishing due to the many and various human land uses. Maintaining the ecosystem will require monumental changes in management and those changes must address all land uses in an integrated, holistic manner to be effective. The two major obstacles are a lack of needed resources, both funds and land use direction, and the attempt to stop the loss and degradation of sagebrush habitats while lacking essential research information on which to base effective strategies.
Download or read book Plant Associations of Region Two written by Barry C. Johnston and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
