Predicting vulnerability of forest patches to invasion by non-native plants for landscape scale management.

As a leading cause of forest health degradation, non-native invasive plant species are a key focus for many forest management and conservation efforts. These efforts come at a high price for resource-limited agencies and organizations making cost-effectiveness an important objective of invasion response plans. In this paper, we present an approach to guide the prioritization of locations for invasion management using species distribution models that account for the non-equilibrium of invasive species distributions and use readily available land use data as the primary explanatory variables. This approach takes advantage of the relatively high spatial resolution, as well as the broad, continuous geographic coverage, of land use data to provide results at a landscape scale relevant to practitioners responsible for invasive species management. In our example from northern Virginia, we simultaneously modeled a suite of invasive plant species to identify common indicators of invasion. We found that the proportions of surrounding non-forested land use types (grasses, crops, and development) were the most common and strongest indicators of invasion risk. These outcomes can guide managers of large protected areas to focus on major divides between forest and non-forest land over linear disturbances. We also found useful species-specific traits that can inform specific management actions. Additionally, we demonstrate through a case study how organizations that manage multiple smaller properties can take advantage of the projected distribution maps when considering acquiring or administering properties.

The Chesapeake Bay Program Modeling System: Overview and Recommendations for Future Development.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest, most productive, and most biologically diverse estuary in the continental United States providing crucial habitat and natural resources for culturally and economically important species. Pressures from human population growth and associated development and agricultural intensification have led to excessive nutrient and sediment inputs entering the Bay, negatively affecting the health of the Bay ecosystem and the economic services it provides. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is a unique program formally created in 1983 as a multi-stakeholder partnership to guide and foster restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Since its inception, the CBP Partnership has been developing, updating, and applying a complex linked modeling system of watershed, airshed, and estuary models as a planning tool to inform strategic management decisions and Bay restoration efforts. This paper provides a description of the 2017 CBP Modeling System and the higher trophic level models developed by the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, along with specific recommendations that emerged from a 2018 workshop designed to inform future model development. Recommendations highlight the need for simulation of watershed inputs, conditions, processes, and practices at higher resolution to provide improved information to guide local nutrient and sediment management plans. More explicit and extensive modeling of connectivity between watershed landforms and estuary sub-areas, estuarine hydrodynamics, watershed and estuarine water quality, the estuarine-watershed socioecological system, and living resources will be important to broaden and improve characterization of responses to targeted nutrient and sediment load reductions. Finally, the value and importance of maintaining effective collaborations among jurisdictional managers, scientists, modelers, support staff, and stakeholder communities is emphasized. An open collaborative and transparent process has been a key element of successes to date and is vitally important as the CBP Partnership moves forward with modeling system improvements that help stakeholders evolve new knowledge, improve management strategies, and better communicate outcomes.

Scale-dependent impacts of urban and agricultural land use on nutrients, sediment, and runoff.

We coupled a spatially-explicit land use/land cover (LULC) change model, Dinamica EGO, (Environment for Geoprocessing Objects), with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model (CBWM) to project the impact of future LULC change on loading of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorous (TP) and total suspended solids (TSS) as well as runoff volume in the watersheds surrounding Virginia's Shenandoah National Park in the eastern United States. We allowed for the dynamic transition of four LULC classes, Developed, Forest, Grasses (including both pasture and hayfields) and Crops. Using 2011 as a baseline scenario and observed differences in LULC between 2001 and 2011, we estimated the temporal and spatial patterns of LULC change as influenced by physiographic and socio-economic drivers 50 years in the future (2061). Between transitions of the four LULC classes, the greatest absolute change occurred between the gain in total Developed land and loss in total Forest. New Developed land was driven primarily by distance to existing Developed land and population density. Major findings on the effect of LULC change on watershed model outputs were that: the impact of LULC change on pollutant loading and runoff volume is more pronounced at finer spatial scales; increases in the area of Grasses produced the greatest increase in TP loading, while loss of Forest increased TN, TSS, and runoff volume the most; and land-river segments with a greater proportion of Developed or a smaller proportion of Forest in the 2011 scenario experienced a greater change in runoff than other land-river segments. Results of this study illustrate the potential impact of projected LULC change on nutrient and sediment loads which can adversely impact water quality. Studies like this contribute to a broader understanding of how ecosystem services such as fresh water respond to LULC change, information relevant to those in planning and watershed management.

Wildlife connectivity approaches and best practices in U.S. state wildlife action plans.

As habitat loss and fragmentation threaten biodiversity on large geographic scales, creating and maintaining connectivity of wildlife populations is an increasingly common conservation objective. To assess the progress and success of large-scale connectivity planning, conservation researchers need a set of plans that cover large geographic areas and can be analyzed as a single data set. The state wildlife action plans (SWAPs) fulfill these requirements. We examined 50 SWAPs to determine the extent to which wildlife connectivity planning, via linkages, is emphasized nationally. We defined linkage as connective land that enables wildlife movement. For our content analysis, we identified and quantified 6 keywords and 7 content criteria that ranged in specificity and were related to linkages for wide-ranging terrestrial vertebrates and examined relations between content criteria and statewide data on focal wide-ranging species, spending, revenue, and conserved land. Our results reflect nationwide disparities in linkage conservation priorities and highlight the continued need for wildlife linkage planning. Only 30% or less of the 50 SWAPs fulfilled highly specific content criteria (e.g., identifying geographic areas for linkage placement or management). We found positive correlations between our content criteria and statewide data on percent conserved land, total focal species, and spending on parks and recreation. We supplemented our content analysis with interviews with 17 conservation professionals to gain specific information about state-specific context and future directions of linkage conservation. Based on our results, relevant literature, and interview responses, we suggest the following best practices for wildlife linkage conservation plans: collect ecologically meaningful background data; be specific; establish community-wide partnerships; and incorporate sociopolitical and socioeconomic information.

Graduate student's guide to necessary skills for nonacademic conservation careers.

Graduate education programs in conservation science generally focus on disciplinary training and discipline-specific research skills. However, nonacademic conservation professionals often require an additional suite of skills. This discrepancy between academic training and professional needs can make it difficult for graduate students to identify the skills and experiences that will best prepare them for the conservation job market. We analyzed job advertisements for conservation-science positions and interviewed conservation professionals with experience hiring early-career conservation scientists to determine what skills employers of conservation professionals seek; whether the relative importance of skills varies by job sector (government, nonprofit, and private); and how graduate students interested in careers in conservation science might signal competency in key skills to potential employers. In job advertisements, disciplinary, interpersonal, and project-management skills were in the top 5 skills mentioned across all job sectors. Employers' needs for additional skills, like program leadership, conflict resolution and negotiation, and technical and information technology skills, varied across sectors. Our interview results demonstrated that some skills are best signaled to employers via experiences obtained outside thesis or dissertation work. Our findings suggest that graduate students who wish to be competitive in the conservation job market can benefit by gaining skills identified as important to the job sector in which they hope to work and should not necessarily expect to be competent in these skills simply by completing their chosen degree path.

Vegetation patterns 25 years after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA.

In 2004, we surveyed the vegetation on Mount St. Helens to document changes since 1992. We asked how communities differentiate and if they develop predictable relationships with local environments. We sought evidence from links between species and environment and changes in community structure in 271 250-m(2) plots. The habitats of the seven community types (CTs) overlapped broadly. Ordination methods demonstrated weak correlations among species distributions and location, elevation, and surface variables. Comparisons to 1992 by habitat demonstrated a large increase in plant cover and substantial development of vegetation structure. Pioneer species declined while mosses increased proportionately leading to more pronounced dominance hierarchies in most habitats. In Lupinus colonies, dominance declined, and diversity increased due to the increased abundance of formerly rare species. On once barren sites, dominance increased, but diversity changed slightly, which suggested the incipient development of competitive hierarchies. Weak correlations between vegetation and the environment suggested that initially stochastic establishment patterns had not yet been erased by deterministic factors. A vegetation mosaic that is loosely controlled by environmental factors may produce different successional trajectories that lead to alternative stable communities in similar habitats. This result has implications for restoration planning.