Title:  Biodiversity Potential in the Pacific and Inland Northwest: Phase II – Applications to Industry Planning Areas

Contact: Jake Verschuyl and Dave McWethy

Funding: National Council of Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI) and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Project Abstract

            Managers of industrial timberlands and other forests currently assume that the causative factors of biodiversity do not vary geographically.  Therefore, forest management in the Pacific and Inland Northwest (PINW) tends to use the same approach for wet western coastal forests and cold/dry Rocky Mountain forests.  Previous research we conducted based on funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NWFW) and our current efforts funded by the National Council of Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI) indicate that the factors that are related to biological diversity do in fact vary geographically.  Thus, conservation of biological diversity requires that forest management be based on local biophysical factors rather than regional models that ignore local controls on biodiversity.

            The goal of this study is to apply methods and knowledge gained in the PINW regional study to 4 timber-industry planning areas to enhance the ability to achieve biodiversity management objectives.  We will: develop statistically-reliable habitat models for bird communities and species at each planning area from field data; use the functions to extrapolate patterns of bird diversity across the planning areas; analyze the results to develop guidelines for achieving local biodiversity objectives; and compare results across the planning areas to test theory on regional controls on biodiversity.

This study will provide landscape managers specific guidelines regarding how best to manage for bird biodiversity on their specific working landscapes, and the results will contribute more generally to advancing theory and practice in conservation biology.  Managers of the industrial timberlands in this northwest region, from Plum Creek, Boise, and Weyerhaeuser, were active participants in the Phase I research and current Phase II research, and are interested in the results of the Phase II study for applying new strategies for biodiversity management on their individual properties.  Additionally, the concepts and protocols developed in this research have implications for biodiversity management on many working landscapes. 

            Several products/deliverables will result.  First, the local statistical models developed from the local bird point count data will indicate to land managers the relationship between bird biodiversity and local biophysical conditions.  We have developed similar statistical models at the regional scale in the phase I study and have found surprisingly profound relationships not previously established.  This information is valuable for daily management, but also potentially a large contribution to the theory of conservation biology.  Secondly, the geographic modeling phase of the study will result in maps that indicate to the industrial timberland managers the locations of the sites of greatest biodiversity potential in their ownerships.  Finally, this research will produce the concept of landscape-level conservation plans.  Biologists and managers from three timber industries are working together toward common biodiversity management understanding at the landscape scale.  This working relationship provides a unique opportunity to work with multiple land managers across environmental gradients for a very large and diverse geographic region.  Positive working relationships and positive interaction between land managers have resulted and will continue.

---

Last modified  October 6, 2006