Thirty years of connectivity conservation planning : An assessment of factors influencing plan implementation

Connectivity conservation is an emergent approach to counteracting landscape fragmentation and enhancing resilience to climate change at local, national, and global scales. While policy that promotes connectivity is advancing, there has been no systematic, evidence-based study that assesses whether connectivity conservation plans (CCPs) resulted in conservation outcomes, and identifies specific plan attributes that may favor successful implementation. To fill this gap, we gathered 263 terrestrial CCPs from around the world, characterized attributes of 109 plans by surveying plan authors, and conducted semi-structured interviews with authors and implementers of 77 CCPs. The production of CCPs started around 1990 and has increased markedly in all parts of the world, most notably in the United States (led by NGOs and a few states, with little federal involvement), Europe (led by the EU and national policies and implemented at local levels), and the Republic of South Africa (where national legislation mandates each municipality to map corridors and zone all land by 2020). All of the 109 plans that we examined in detail were followed by implementation actions such as crossing structures, ecological restoration, land purchases or easements, recognition of corridors through zoning or government designation, and public engagement. Interviewees emphasized the importance of initial buy-in from key government stakeholders, stakeholder involvement beyond initial buy-in, minimizing staff turnover, and transparent and repeatable procedures. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses similarly suggested that implementation of a CCP was enhanced by enduring partnerships among stakeholders, continuity of leadership, specific recommendations in the CCP using tools appropriately selected from a large toolbox, the existence of enabling legislation and policy, a transparent and repeatable scientific approach, adequate funding, and public outreach.</p

Elk Contact Patterns and Potential Disease Transmission

Understanding the drivers of contact rates among individuals is critical to understanding disease dynamics and implementing targeted control measures. We studied the interaction patterns of 149 female elk (Cervus elaphus) distributed across five different regions of western Wyoming over three years, defining a contact as an approach within one body length (~2m). Using hierarchical models that account for correlations within individuals, pairs and groups, we found that pairwise contact rates within a group declined by a factor of three as group sizes increased 30-fold. Meanwhile, per capita contact rates increased with group size due to the increasing number of potential pairs. We found similar patterns for the duration of contacts. Supplemental feeding of elk had a limited impact on pairwise interaction rates and durations, but increased per capita rates more than two times higher. Variation in contact patterns were driven more by environmental factors such as group size than either individual or pairwise differences. Female elk in this region fall between the expectation of contact rates that linearly increase with group size (as assumed by pseudo-mass action models of disease transmission) or are constant with changes in group size (as assumed by frequency dependent transmission models). Our statistical approach decomposes the variation in contact rate into individual, dyadic, and environmental effects, which provides insight into those factors that are important for effective disease control programs

Using network theory to prioritize management in a desert bighorn sheep metapopulation

Connectivity models using empirically-derived landscape resistance maps can predict potential linkages among fragmented animal and plant populations. However, such models have rarely been used to guide systematic decision-making, such as identifying the most important habitat patches and dispersal corridors to protect or restore in order to maximize regional connectivity. Combining resistance models with network theory offers one means of prioritizing management for connectivity, and we applied this approach to a metapopulation of desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) in the Mojave Desert of the southwestern United States. We used a genetic-based landscape resistance model to construct network models of genetic connectivity (potential for gene flow) and demographic connectivity (potential for colonization of empty habitat patches), which may differ because of sex-biased dispersal in bighorn sheep. We identified high-priority habitat patches and corridors and found that the type of connectivity and the network metric used to quantify connectivity had substantial effects on prioritization results, although some features ranked highly across all combinations. Rankings were also sensitive to our empirically-derived estimates of maximum effective dispersal distance, highlighting the importance of this often-ignored parameter. Patch-based analogs of our network metrics predicted both neutral and mitochondrial genetic diversity of 25 populations within the study area. This study demonstrates that network theory can enhance the utility of landscape resistance models as tools for conservation, but it is critical to consider the implications of sex-biased dispersal, the biological relevance of network metrics, and the uncertainty associated with dispersal range and behavior when using this approach.Keywords: Gene flow, Colonization, Connectivity, Dispersal, Graph theory, Extinction, Habitat patch, Fragmented population, Landscape resistanc

Predicting diet quality and genetic diversity of a desert-adapted ungulate with NDVI

Diet quality influences ungulate population dynamics but is difficult to measure at fine temporal or spatial resolution using field-intensive methods such as fecal nitrogen (FN). Increasingly, the remotely sensed vegetation index NDVI is used to represent potential ungulate diet quality, but NDVI's relationship with diet quality has yet to be examined for herbivores in desert environments. We evaluated how strongly NDVI was associated with diet quality of desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) in the Mojave Desert using FN data from multiple years and populations. We considered effects of temporal resolution, geographic variability, and NDVI spatial summary statistic on the NDVI-diet quality relationship. NDVI was more reliably associated with diet quality over the entire growing season than with instantaneous diet quality for a population. NDVI was also positively associated with population genetic diversity, a proxy for long-term, population-level effects of diet quality. We conclude that NDVI is a useful diet quality indicator for Mojave Desert bighorn sheep and potentially other desert ungulates. However, it may not reliably track diet quality if NDVI data are too spatially coarse to detect microhabitats providing high-quality forage, or if diet is strongly influenced by forage items that are weakly correlated with landscape greenness.Keywords: Bighorn sheep, Mojave Desert, Forage, Fecal nitrogenKeywords: Bighorn sheep, Mojave Desert, Forage, Fecal nitroge

Female elk contacts are neither frequency nor density dependent

Identifying drivers of contact rates among individuals is critical to understanding disease dynamics and implementing targeted control measures. We studied the interaction patterns of 149 female elk (Cervus canadensis) distributed across five different regions of western Wyoming over three years, defining a contact as an approach within one body length (~2 m). Using hierarchical models that account for correlations within individuals, pairs, and groups, we found that pairwise contact rates within a group declined by a factor of three as group sizes increased 33-fold. Per capita contact rates, however, increased with group size according to a power function, such that female elk contact rates fell in between the predictions of density- or frequency-dependent disease models. We found similar patterns for the duration of contacts. Our results suggest that larger elk groups are likely to play a disproportionate role in the disease dynamics of directly transmitted infections in elk. Supplemental feeding of elk had a limited impact on pairwise interaction rates and durations, but per capita rates were more than two times higher on feeding grounds. Our statistical approach decomposes the variation in contact rate into individual, dyadic, and environmental effects, and provides insight into factors that may be targeted by disease control programs. In particular, female elk contact patterns were driven more by environmental factors such as group size than by either individual or dyad effects.KEYWORDS: Cervus canadensis, contact rate, proximity loggers, elk, hierarchical models, super-spreading events, supplemental feeding, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, brucellosis, Wyoming, USA, disease model

Using simulations to evaluate Mantel-based methods for assessing landscape resistance to gene flow

Mantel-based tests have been the primary analytical methods for understanding how landscape features influence observed spatial genetic structure. Simulation studies examining Mantel-based approaches have highlighted major challenges associated with the use of such tests and fueled debate on when the Mantel test is appropriate for landscape genetics studies. We aim to provide some clarity in this debate using spatially explicit, individual-based, genetic simulations to examine the effects of the following on the performance of Mantel-based methods: (1) landscape configuration, (2) spatial genetic nonequilibrium, (3) nonlinear relationships between genetic and cost distances, and (4) correlation among cost distances derived from competing resistance models. Under most conditions, Mantel-based methods performed poorly. Causal modeling identified the true model only 22% of the time. Using relative support and simple Mantel r values boosted performance to approximately 50%. Across all methods, performance increased when landscapes were more fragmented, spatial genetic equilibrium was reached, and the relationship between cost distance and genetic distance was linearized. Performance depended on cost distance correlations among resistance models rather than cell-wise resistance correlations. Given these results, we suggest that the use of Mantel tests with linearized relationships is appropriate for discriminating among resistance models that have cost distance correlations <0.85 with each other for causal modeling, or <0.95 for relative support or simple Mantel r. Because most alternative parameterizations of resistance for the same landscape variable will result in highly correlated cost distances, the use of Mantel test-based methods to fine-tune resistance values will often not be effective.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the author(s) and published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The published article can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%292045-7758Keywords: landscape genetics, landscape resistance, landscape fragmentation, simulations, CDPOPKeywords: landscape genetics, landscape resistance, landscape fragmentation, simulations, CDPO

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Landscape Genetics of American Beaver in Coastal Oregon

American beaver (Castor canadensis) have been translocated for population restoration, reduction of human‐wildlife conflict, and enhancement of ecosystem function. Yet few studies have assessed dispersal of beaver, making it difficult to determine at what scale translocations are appropriate. Genetic studies can provide inferences about gene flow, and thus dispersal. We used a landscape genetic approach to evaluate whether landscape features influenced gene flow among beaver in the Coast Range of western Oregon, USA, using samples collected April–September 2014. We collected genetic samples from live‐captured (n=232), road‐killed (n=2) and trapper‐provided (n=58) tissue samples and genotyped them at 10 microsatellite loci. We mapped records of beaver translocations into or within the study area during the twentieth century to consider the effect of those movements on genetic structure. We used population assignment tests to delimit genetic clusters, evaluated correspondence of those clusters with watershed boundaries and translocation history, and then estimated differentiation between clusters and between watersheds using model‐based and model‐free approaches. We evaluated how individual genetic differences varied with geographic distance, and investigated related pairs within clusters. We developed landscape resistance models incorporating slope, distance to water, and watershed boundaries at 2 scales, and estimated effective distances between sample locations with least cost path and circuit theoretic analyses. We evaluated the correlation of individual genetic distances with effective distances using a pseudo‐bootstrapping approach. Landscape genetic models did not explain spatial variation in genetic structure better than geographic distance, but hierarchical genetic structure corresponded with watershed boundaries and suggested influences from historical translocations. Pairwise individual genetic distances were positively correlated with geographic distances to 61 km; highly‐related pairs mostly were detected \u3c1 km apart (median=1.0 km, x¯ =14.6 ± 2.3 [SE] km, n=77). We concluded that slope and distance to water did not strongly limit dispersal and gene flow by beaver in this system, but concordance of genetic structure with watershed boundaries suggests that dispersal is more common within than between watersheds. Genetic differentiation of beaver within this topographically complex system was much greater than reported in a study at similar spatial scales in relatively flat topography. We recommend that translocation efforts of American beaver in topographically complex landscapes occur within watersheds when possible but conclude that dispersal can occur across watersheds. © 2021 The Wildlife Society. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA