Geology topics

Tina G. Mozelewski

Publications and source records attributed to Tina G. Mozelewski.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2026

Restoration based on cost-benefit optimization: A grasslands pilot study

Ecological restoration is essential to meeting global biodiversity conservation goals. Given limited conservation budgets, deciding where to restore habitat is a key challenge for the coming decade. We developed a spatially explicit framework to optimize ecological restoration site selection by integrating land use history, species distributions, and economic costs. The framework includes the following steps: identify potential restoration area based on relevant environmental measures like land use; identify species of interest; calculate restoration benefits by modeling habitat and climate suitability and estimating reduced extinction risk associated with restoring a particular land parcel based on a modified species–area relationship; aggregate benefits across species; and compare to parcel-level land acquisition costs. We applied linear programming to maximize conservation benefit/restoration cost ratios to identify optimized restoration sites. We illustrate this approach using a case study for highly threatened grassland ecosystems in the Great Plains region of Kansas, USA. We selected five grassland animal species (greater prairie chickens [ Tympanuchus cupido ], lesser prairie chickens [ Tympanuchus pallidicinctus ], swift fox [ Vulpes velox ], pronghorn [ Antilocapra americana ], and regal fritillary [ Speyeria idalia ]) as indicators of restoration benefit across taxa. For the indicator species that we chose, shortgrass and mixed-grass prairies had the highest conservation benefit to cost ratio. Setting a minimum restoration threshold for each habitat type allowed us to identify high-priority tallgrass prairie sites. Despite increasing interest in ecological restoration, optimizing restoration site selection is challenging because one must consider habitat features that do not currently exist. The modeling approach described here is flexible and can be updated for different ecosystems, species, and conservation priorities. We outline potential alterations that can be made in future analyses, depending on desired restoration goals.

Kansas↗

USGS2025

Conserving climate-change refugia: Insights from research and practice

As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change increase, conservation of climate-change refugia has become a key strategy for effective environmental stewardship. Over the last 5 years, the field of climate-change refugia conservation has made exciting advances, shifting from concepts and theory to refugia mapping and implementation. However, few studies have advanced to action on the ground; while 84% of studies identified and mapped refugia, only 4% involved implementing management action. Moreover, taxonomic and geographic gaps remain, with most studies focused on terrestrial plants and vertebrates in Europe and North America. Here, we outline impediments to implementation following the steps of the Climate-Change Refugia Conservation Cycle. Based on a systematic literature review, we elucidate advances and obstacles with examples from a diversity of systems and sectors from across the world and highlight emerging work bridging the gap between research and implementation.

Conservation Science and Practice↗

USGS2024

Closing the conservation gap in the sagebrush biome: Spatial targeting and coordination are needed for conservation to keep pace with sagebrush losses

Core sagebrush areas (CSAs), patches of high sagebrush ecological integrity, continue to decline despite significant conservation and restoration investments across the sagebrush biome. Historically, conservation decisions in the biome have been driven by wildlife species-specific demands, but increasing recognition of the scale of threats and the pace of ecosystem degradation has compelled a shift towards threat-based ecosystem management. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate the scale of conservation implementation relative to the rate of degradation or loss from specific threats to the biome to assess whether a conservation deficit exists. To this end, we: 1) quantified and compared the average hectares of conservation practices implemented annually relative to the hectares of CSA loss attributed to each threat; 2) evaluated the relative amount of conservation actions in core sagebrush areas, growth opportunity areas, and other rangeland areas; and 3) assessed how much additional conservation may be needed to stop CSA declines. We then quantified how better spatial targeting and enhanced coordination might reduce the total additional amount of future conservation needed, and evaluated how an influx of resources can close the conservation gap, or the deficit between the conservation needed to offset annual loss and degradation and the capacity for conservation implementation. We found that current rates of conservation (e.g., hectares treated annually) are markedly lower than rates of CSA loss (∼10% of average annual loss). Furthermore, most conservation actions, ∼90% for some treatment types, occurred outside of CSAs likely reducing the efficacy of these conservation actions at retaining and restoring intact sagebrush rangelands. Additionally, we found that conservation efforts will need to increase by more than an order of magnitude (at least 10x) annually to halt CSA declines. However, through better spatial targeting of conservation actions, the increase in conservation needed to stop CSA loss could be reduced by 70% or more. This analysis demonstrates the divergent futures that may await the sagebrush biome pending key decisions regarding conservation targeting, stakeholder cooperation, and the strategic addition of resources.

Rangeland Ecology and Management↗