Title
An Ecoregional Context for Forest Management on National Wildlife Refuges of the Upper Midwest, USA
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2012
Journal or Book Title
Environmental Management
Volume
49
First Page
359
Last Page
371
DOI
10.1007/s00267-011-9776-3
Abstract
To facilitate forest planning and management on National Wildlife Refuges, we synthesized multiple data sources to describe land ownership patterns, land cover, landscape pattern, and changes in forest composition for four ecoregions and their associated refuges of the Upper Midwest. We related observed patterns to ecological processes important for forest conservation and restoration, with specific attention to refuge patterns of importance for forest landbirds of conservation priority. The large amount of public land within the ecoregions (31–80%) suggests that opportunities exist for coarse and meso-scale approaches to conserving and restoring ecological processes affecting the refuges, particularly historical fire regimes. Forests dominate both ecoregions and refuges, but refuge
forest patches are generally larger and more aggregated than in associated ecoregions. Broadleaf taxa have increased in dominance in the ecoregions and displaced fire-dependent taxa such as pine (Pinus spp.) and other coniferous species; these changes in forest composition have likely also affected refuge forests. Despite compositional changes, larger forest patches on refuges suggests that they may provide better habitat for area-sensitive forest landbirds of mature, compositionally diverse forests than surrounding lands if management continues to promote increased patch size. We reason that although finescale research and monitoring for species of conservation priority is important, broad scale (ecoregional) assessments provide crucial context for effective forest and wildlife management in protected areas.
Rights
Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Corace, R. Gregory III; Shartell, Lindsey M.; Schulte, Lisa A.; Brininger, Wayne L.; McDowell, Michelle K. D.; and Kashian, Daniel M., "An Ecoregional Context for Forest Management on National Wildlife Refuges of the Upper Midwest, USA" (2012). Natural Resource Ecology and Management Publications. 149.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/nrem_pubs/149
Included in
Environmental Policy Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Forest Management Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons
Comments
This article is from Environmental Management 49 (2012): 359, doi:10.1007/s00267-011-9776-3.