Assessing the Effects of Management Alternatives on Habitat Suitability in a Forested Landscape of Northeastern China |
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Authors: | Jin Longru Hong S He Zhou Yufei Bu Rencang and Sun Keping |
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Institution: | (1) Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China;(2) Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China;(3) School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA;(4) Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, 110161, China;(5) College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China |
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Abstract: | Forest management often has cumulative, long-lasting effects on wildlife habitat suitability and the effects may be impractical
to evaluate using landscape-scale field experiments. To understand such effects, we linked a spatially explicit landscape
disturbance and succession model (LANDIS) with habitat suitability index (HSI) models to assess the effects of management
alternatives on habitat suitability in a forested landscape of northeastern China. LANDIS was applied to simulate future forest
landscape changes under four management alternatives (no cutting, clearcutting, selective cutting I and II) over a 200-year
horizon. The simulation outputs were linked with HSI models for three wildlife species, the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), the red deer (Cervus elaphus) and the hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia). These species are chosen because they represent numerous species that have distinct habitat requirements in our study area.
We assessed their habitat suitability based on the mean HSI values, which is a measure of the average habitat quality. Our
simulation results showed that no one management scenario was the best for all species and various forest management scenarios
would lead to conflicting wildlife habitat outcomes. How to choose a scenario is dependent on the trade-off of economical,
ecological and social goals. Our modeling effort could provide decision makers with relative comparisons among management
scenarios from the perspective of biodiversity conservation. The general simulation results were expected based on our knowledge
of forest management and habitat relationships of the species, which confirmed that the coupled modeling approach correctly
simulated the assumed relationships between the wildlife, forest composition, age structure, and spatial configuration of
habitat. However, several emergent results revealed the unexpected outcomes that a management scenario may lead to. |
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