Detecting Changes in Natural Resources Using Land Condition Trend Analysis Data

The Land Condition Trend Analysis (LCTA) program is the US Army's standard for land inventory and monitoring, employing standardized methods of natural resources data collection, analyses, and reporting designed to meet multiple goals and objectives. Critical to using LCTA data in natural resources management decisions is the ability of the LCTA protocols to detect changes in natural resources. To quantify the ability of LCTA protocols to detect resource changes, power analysis techniques were used to estimate minimum detectable effect sizes (MDES) for selected primary and secondary management variables for three Army installations. MDES for a subset of primary variables were estimated using data from 27 installation LCTA programs. MDES for primary and secondary variables varied widely. However, LCTA programs implemented at larger installations with lower sampling intensities detected changes in installation resources as well as programs implemented at smaller more intensively sampled installations. As a national monitoring program that is implemented at individual installations, LCTA protocols provide relatively consistent monitoring data to detect changes in resources despite diverse resource characteristics and implementation constraints.     

Growth Inhibition by Nitrocompounds of Selected Uric Acid-Utilizing Microorganisms Isolated from Poultry Manure

The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the potential ability of nitrocompounds to reduce ammonia volatilization by inhibiting uric acid–utilizing microorganisms. Experiment I was conducted to evaluate the effects of nitrocompounds on the growth of uric acid–utilizing microorganisms isolated from poultry manure during six-hour incubation. There were five treatments: (1) control, (2) 50 mM nitroethane, (3) 50 mM nitroethanol, (4) 50 mM nitropropanol, and (5) 50 mM nitropropionic acid. Optical density values of nitrocompounds were significantly lower than that of control at two, four, and six hours. Plate counts of uric acid–utilizing microorganisms after six-hour incubation exhibited that nitrocompounds greatly reduced the growth of these microorganisms except for the nitroethane (P < 0.05). The nitropropanol and nitropropionic acid treatments showed significantly higher inhibitory effects compared to the nitroethanol. Experiments II and III were conducted to evaluate inhibitory effects of nitrocompounds on growth of uric acid–utilizing microorganisms compared to non-nitrocompounds such as ethanol, propanol, and propionic acid. Experiments II and III consisted of seven treatments: (1) control, (2) nitroethanol, (3) nitropropanol, (4) nitropropionic acid, (5) ethanol, (6) propanol, and (7) propionic acid. The incubation times of Experiments II and III were 6 and 24 h, respectively. The nitrocompounds were significantly more successful in inhibiting growth of uric acid–utilizing microorganisms compared to those non-nitrocompounds. These results suggest that nitrocompounds exhibit potential to reduce ammonia volatilization in poultry manure by inhibiting growth of uric acid–utilizing microorganisms.     

Conservation Value of Non-Native Banteng in Northern Australia

Abstract:  The global species extinction crisis has provided the impetus for elaborate translocation, captive breeding, and cloning programs, but more extreme actions may be necessary. We used mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome, and nuclear lactoferrin-encoding gene sequencing to identify a wild population of a pure-strain endangered bovid ( Bos javanicus ) introduced into northern Australia over 150 years ago. This places the Australian population in a different conservation category relative to its domesticated conspecific in Indonesia (i.e., Bali cattle) that has varying degrees of introgression from other domesticated Bos spp. The success of this endangered non-native species demonstrates that although risky, the deliberate introduction of threatened exotic species into non-native habitat may provide, under some circumstances, a biologically feasible option for conserving large herbivores otherwise imperiled in their native range.     

Testing Hypotheses of Bird Extinctions at Rio Palenque,Ecuador, with Informal Species Lists

Abstract: Informally gathered species lists are a potential source of data for conservation biology, but most remain unused because of questions of reliability and statistical issues. We applied two alternative analytical methods (contingency tests and occupancy modeling) to a 35‐year data set (1973–2007) to test hypotheses about local bird extinction. We compiled data from bird lists collected by expert amateurs and professional scientists in a 2‐km² fragment of lowland tropical forest in coastal Ecuador. We tested the effects of the following on local extinction: trophic level, sociality, foraging specialization, light tolerance, geographical range area, and biogeographic source. First we assessed extinction on the basis of the number of years in which a species was not detected on the site and used contingency tests with each factor to compare the frequency of expected and observed extinction events among different species categories. Then we defined four multiyear periods that reflected different stages of deforestation and isolation of the study site and used occupancy modeling to test extinction hypotheses singly and in combination. Both types of analyses supported the biogeographic source hypothesis and the species‐range hypothesis as causes of extinction; however, occupancy modeling indicated the model incorporating all factors except foraging specialization best fit the data.     

The Importance of Being Spatial (and Reserved): Assessing Northern Spotted Owl Habitat Relationships with Hierarchical Bayesian Models

Abstract:  Regional conservation planning increasingly draws on habitat suitability models to support decisions regarding land allocation and management. Nevertheless, statistical techniques commonly used for developing such models may give misleading results because they fail to account for 3 factors common in data sets of species distribution: spatial autocorrelation, the large number of sites where the species is absent (zero inflation), and uneven survey effort. We used spatial autoregressive models fit with Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques to assess the relationship between older coniferous forest and the abundance of Northern Spotted Owl nest and activity sites throughout the species' range. The spatial random-effect term incorporated in the autoregressive models successfully accounted for zero inflation and reduced the effect of survey bias on estimates of species–habitat associations. Our results support the hypothesis that the relationship between owl distribution and older forest varies with latitude. A quadratic relationship between owl abundance and older forest was evident in the southern portion of the range, and a pseudothreshold relationship was evident in the northern portion of the range. Our results suggest that proposed changes to the network of owl habitat reserves would reduce the proportion of the population protected by up to one-third, and that proposed guidelines for forest management within reserves underestimate the proportion of older forest associated with maximum owl abundance and inappropriately generalize threshold relationships among subregions. Bayesian spatial models can greatly enhance the utility of habitat analysis for conservation planning because they add the statistical flexibility necessary for analyzing regional survey data while retaining the interpretability of simpler models.