Geology topics

D.R. Breininger

Publications and source records attributed to D.R. Breininger.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2012

Habitat fragmentation effects on annual survival of the federally protected eastern indigo snake

The eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) is a federally listed species, most recently threatened by habitat loss and habitat degradation. In an effort to estimate snake survival, a total of 103 individuals (59 males, 44 females) were followed using radio-tracking from January 1998 to March 2004 in three landscape types that had increasing levels of habitat fragmentation: (1) conservation cores; (2) conservation areas along highways; (3) suburbs. Because of a large number of radio-tracking locations underground for which the state of snakes (i.e. alive or dead) could not be assessed, we employed a multistate approach to model snake apparent survival and encounter probability of live and dead snakes. We predicted that male snakes in suburbs would have the lowest annual survival. We found a transmitter implantation effect on snake encounter probability, as snakes implanted on a given occasion had a lower encounter probability on the next visit compared with snakes not implanted on the previous occasion. Our results indicated that adult eastern indigo snakes have relatively high survival in conservation core areas, but greatly reduced survival in conservation areas along highways and in suburbs. These findings indicate that habitat fragmentation is likely to be the critical factor for species' persistence.

Animal Conservation↗

USGS2011

Adaptive resource management and the value of information

The value of information is a general and broadly applicable concept that has been used for several decades to aid in making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Yet there are relatively few examples of its use in ecology and natural resources management, and almost none that are framed in terms of the future impacts of management decisions. In this paper we discuss the value of information in a context of adaptive management, in which actions are taken sequentially over a timeframe and both future resource conditions and residual uncertainties about resource responses are taken into account. Our objective is to derive the value of reducing or eliminating uncertainty in adaptive decision making. We describe several measures of the value of information, with each based on management objectives that are appropriate for adaptive management. We highlight some mathematical properties of these measures, discuss their geometries, and illustrate them with an example in natural resources management. Accounting for the value of information can help to inform decisions about whether and how much to monitor resource conditions through time.

Ecological Modelling↗

USGS2010

Multistate modeling of habitat dynamics: Factors affecting Florida scrub transition probabilities

Many ecosystems are influenced by disturbances that create specific successional states and habitat structures that species need to persist. Estimating transition probabilities between habitat states and modeling the factors that influence such transitions have many applications for investigating and managing disturbance-prone ecosystems. We identify the correspondence between multistate capture-recapture models and Markov models of habitat dynamics. We exploit this correspondence by fitting and comparing competing models of different ecological covariates affecting habitat transition probabilities in Florida scrub and flatwoods, a habitat important to many unique plants and animals. We subdivided a large scrub and flatwoods ecosystem along central Florida's Atlantic coast into 10-ha grid cells, which approximated average territory size of the threatened Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens), a management indicator species. We used 1.0-m resolution aerial imagery for 1994, 1999, and 2004 to classify grid cells into four habitat quality states that were directly related to Florida Scrub-Jay source-sink dynamics and management decision making. Results showed that static site features related to fire propagation (vegetation type, edges) and temporally varying disturbances (fires, mechanical cutting) best explained transition probabilities. Results indicated that much of the scrub and flatwoods ecosystem was resistant to moving from a degraded state to a desired state without mechanical cutting, an expensive restoration tool. We used habitat models parameterized with the estimated transition probabilities to investigate the consequences of alternative management scenarios on future habitat dynamics. We recommend this multistate modeling approach as being broadly applicable for studying ecosystem, land cover, or habitat dynamics. The approach provides maximum-likelihood estimates of transition parameters, including precision measures, and can be used to assess evidence among competing ecological models that describe system dynamics. ?? 2010 by the Ecological Society of America.

Ecology↗

USGS2009

Habitat-specific breeder survival of Florida Scrub-Jays: Inferences from multistate models

Quantifying habitat-specific survival and changes in habitat quality within disturbance-prone habitats is critical for understanding population dynamics and variation in fitness, and for managing degraded ecosystems. We used 18 years of color-banding data and multistate capture-recapture models to test whether habitat quality within territories influences survival and detection probability of breeding Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) and to estimate bird transition probabilities from one territory quality state to another. Our study sites were along central Florida's Atlantic coast and included two of the four largest metapopulations within the species range. We developed Markov models for habitat transitions and compared these to bird transition probabilities. Florida Scrub-Jay detection probabilities ranged from 0.88 in the tall territory state to 0.99 in the optimal state; detection probabilities were intermediate in the short state. Transition probabilities were similar for birds and habitat in grid cells mapped independently of birds. Thus, bird transitions resulted primarily from habitat transitions between states over time and not from bird movement. Survival ranged from 0.71 in the short state to 0.82 in the optimal state, with tall states being intermediate. We conclude that average Florida Scrub-Jay survival will remain at levels that lead to continued population declines because most current habitat quality is only marginally suitable across most of the species range. Improvements in habitat are likely to be slow and difficult because tall states are resistant to change and the optimal state represents an intermediate transitional stage. The multistate modeling approach to quantifying survival and habitat transition probabilities is useful for quantifying habitat transition probabilities and comparing them to bird transition probabilities to test for habitat selection in dynamic environments. ?? 2009 by the Ecological society ot America.

Ecology↗