Measuring Habitat and Biodiversity Outcomes

Sara Vickerman and Frank Casey

September 26, 2013

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife

What is biodiversity?

Variety of life and its processesGenetic, species, habitat, large landscapes

Defenders of Wildlife

Biodiversity conservation requires:  • Right amount, configuration, and

management of land and water in each region (coarse filter)

• Attention to individual elements (fine filter)

Defenders of Wildlife

Broad agreement that biodiversity is threatened by:

• Human development • Degradation, conversion of

native habitat• Invasive species• Toxics, other direct mortality • Climate change

Defenders of Wildlife

Many approaches to tracking impacts and conservation outcomes to habitats and species but . . . Little progress reaching agreement on more consistent approach

Defenders of Wildlife

Effectiveness of biodiversity conservation is difficult to measure• Goals often not stated or agreed upon • May conflict with human activities • Focus on single species, habitats • Need measures at multiple scales –

species to landscapes

Defenders of Wildlife

Status and trends for biodiversity poorly monitored • Nobody is responsible for

comprehensive system• Biodiversity is not uniformly regulated• Tendency to re-invent the wheel • Low priority for public and policy-

makers

Defenders of Wildlife

Why consistent metrics?

• To help improve conservation outcomes – what works, what doesn’t

• Work across land ownership boundaries

• Connect disparate program investments to address scale issues

• Align management plans • Apply adaptive management

Defenders of Wildlife

Level of involvementCapture everything

PrecisionPracticalitySpeedCost

Defenders of Wildlife

Purpose

• To examine a few efforts to date • Engage experts in conversation• Propose workable, practical

framework• Test alternative approaches

Defenders of Wildlife

Three approaches with considerable overlap

• Individual habitat metrics • Ecological Integrity Assessments • Biodiversity Index

Defenders of Wildlife

Site level metrics

• Developed by Willamette Partnership and others

• Prairie, wetland, salmon, water temperature

• Focus on regulations that drive trading or mitigation programs

• Measuring Up report outlined framework for biodiversity metrics

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders metrics

• Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bullitt funded

• Address unregulated biodiversity values in Western U.S.

• Oak, floodplain, sage brush / sage grouse• Percent of optimal ecological functioning

• Site level conditions –Context–Vegetation–Species–Abiotic–Practices–Risk

Defenders of Wildlife

What the metrics measure

Defenders of Wildlife

Sagebrush metric: Final scores

Defenders of Wildlife

Where to find these metrics

• Marketplace for Nature web sitehttp://marketplace.conservationregistry.org

• Counting on the Environment – Willamette Partnership http://willamettepartnership.org/

Defenders of Wildlife

Challenge with site level metrics

• Should they be habitat specific?• How many habitats? • Who develops, maintains, updates

them? • How do they connect to larger

landscape scale metrics?

• Not useful for landscape scale conservation planning

Setting Ecological Integrity Goals

Rank A

Rank B

Rank C

Rank D

Increasing human disturbance

Incr

easi

ng e

colo

gica

l in

tegr

ityEcosystem

Conservation Goal

Ecological Integrity Monitoring

Level 1) Remote assessmentLevel 2) Rapid field assessmentLevel 3) Intensive assessment

Level 1: Remote assessment

Landscape context – Connectivity, surrounding land use, patch size, and stressors

Level 2: Rapid field assessment

Landscape characteristicsVegetation cover and compositionSoil conditionDisturbance regimesWildlife abundance and compositionStressorsCalibration of remote techniques

Level 2: Rapid field assessment

Photo plots as example

1957 2006

Level 3: Intensive assessment

Defenders of Wildlife

Application

• Initially to select priority conservation areas

• Useful where natural habitat of interest

• Also used for wetland assessment, monitoring

• Expanded to measure habitat quality • Can be applied at multiple scales• NatureServe network supports

Defenders of Wildlife

Challenges

• Might not fit where biodiversity is a secondary goal

• Less useful where data are limited - like other methods, requires sustained investment

Challenge of representing biodiversity

Biodiversity is an ecosystem service

• People harvest, consume wild plants and animals

• Healthy ecosystems filter water, control erosion, pollinate crops

• Nature has cultural (existence) values

• Landscape pattern, functions, species, combine – Biodiversity Service Score

Biodiversity can be characterized by: • Mapped features • Quantitative tabular data• Narrative description

Assumptions underlying biodiversity framework• Coarse filter looks at habitat

abundance, type, integrity, rarity and distribution

• Fine filter looks at species needs not captured in coarse filter

• Ecological integrity characterizes functioning systems that support native biodiversity

Ecological integrity

• Vegetation, structure, composition

• Ecological processes – fire, hydrology

• Species composition–Common species – Invasive species

• Rare, uncommon species not good indicators

Species measures

• Rarity weighting applied – priority

• Relevant regulations • Migratory patterns for some

fish, wildlife• Population sizes • Biotic condition

Defenders of Wildlife

Application for biodiversity index

• Broad scale conservation planning• Context of ecosystem service

assessments• Linked to social, economic factors • Impact of corporate sourcing decisions

Defenders of Wildlife

Challenges

• May be too complex as presented• Needs translation for broad

application • Requires high quality, detailed

information

Defenders of Wildlife

Questions for the group • Examples of habitat/biodiversity measures ?• Other approaches?• Field applications?• Collaborate to find creative solutions?

Defenders of Wildlife

Sara VickermanDefenders of Wildlife

Svickerman@defenders

http://marketplace.conservationregistry.org/