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A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude

Future demands for increased food production are expected to have severe impacts on prairie biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Prairie avifauna of North America have experienced drastic population declines, prompting numerous conservation efforts, which have been informed primarily by small-scale...

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Autores principales: Dreitz, Victoria J., Stinson, Lani T., Hahn, Beth A., Tack, Jason D., Lukacs, Paul M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5248583/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28133567
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2879
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author Dreitz, Victoria J.
Stinson, Lani T.
Hahn, Beth A.
Tack, Jason D.
Lukacs, Paul M.
author_facet Dreitz, Victoria J.
Stinson, Lani T.
Hahn, Beth A.
Tack, Jason D.
Lukacs, Paul M.
author_sort Dreitz, Victoria J.
collection PubMed
description Future demands for increased food production are expected to have severe impacts on prairie biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Prairie avifauna of North America have experienced drastic population declines, prompting numerous conservation efforts, which have been informed primarily by small-scale studies. We applied a large-scale perspective that integrates scale dependency in avian responses by analyzing observations of 20 prairie bird species (17 grassland obligates and three sagebrush obligate species) from 2009–2012 in the western prairie region of the United States. We employed a multi-species model approach to examine the relationship of land ownership, habitat, and latitude to landscape-scale species richness. Our findings suggest that patterns and processes influencing avian assemblages at the focal-scale (e.g., inference at the sampling unit) may not function at the landscape-scale (e.g., inference amongst sampling units). Individual species responses to land ownership, habitat and latitude were highly variable. The broad spatial extent of our study demonstrates the need to include lands in private ownership to assess biodiversity and the importance of maintaining habitat diversity to support avian assemblages. Lastly, focal-scale information can document species presence within a study area, but landscape-scale information provides an essential complement to inform conservation actions and policies by placing local biodiversity in the context of an entire region, landscape or ecosystem.
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spelling pubmed-52485832017-01-27 A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude Dreitz, Victoria J. Stinson, Lani T. Hahn, Beth A. Tack, Jason D. Lukacs, Paul M. PeerJ Biogeography Future demands for increased food production are expected to have severe impacts on prairie biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Prairie avifauna of North America have experienced drastic population declines, prompting numerous conservation efforts, which have been informed primarily by small-scale studies. We applied a large-scale perspective that integrates scale dependency in avian responses by analyzing observations of 20 prairie bird species (17 grassland obligates and three sagebrush obligate species) from 2009–2012 in the western prairie region of the United States. We employed a multi-species model approach to examine the relationship of land ownership, habitat, and latitude to landscape-scale species richness. Our findings suggest that patterns and processes influencing avian assemblages at the focal-scale (e.g., inference at the sampling unit) may not function at the landscape-scale (e.g., inference amongst sampling units). Individual species responses to land ownership, habitat and latitude were highly variable. The broad spatial extent of our study demonstrates the need to include lands in private ownership to assess biodiversity and the importance of maintaining habitat diversity to support avian assemblages. Lastly, focal-scale information can document species presence within a study area, but landscape-scale information provides an essential complement to inform conservation actions and policies by placing local biodiversity in the context of an entire region, landscape or ecosystem. PeerJ Inc. 2017-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC5248583/ /pubmed/28133567 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2879 Text en http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, made available under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) . This work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
spellingShingle Biogeography
Dreitz, Victoria J.
Stinson, Lani T.
Hahn, Beth A.
Tack, Jason D.
Lukacs, Paul M.
A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title_full A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title_fullStr A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title_full_unstemmed A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title_short A large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western US: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
title_sort large-scale perspective for managing prairie avifauna assemblages across the western us: influences of habitat, land ownership and latitude
topic Biogeography
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5248583/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28133567
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2879
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