Ecological Niche Modeling Approaches to Conservation of Endangered and Threatened Birds in Central and Eastern Europe

Comprehensive biodiversity surveys are unavailable for most Central and Eastern European countries. Although birds in general are well-studied, distributional information in the region is sparse and largely out-of of-date; I used museum specimen locality records and raster GIS data layers summarizing environmental dimensions to produce distributional hypotheses for the 36 threatened and endangered bird species in the region using ecological niche modeling. These ecological niche models were also used to predict likely future (2055) distributional shifts owing to global climate change. The entire suite of distributional information that resulted was used to evaluate strategies for conservation via simple heuristic place-prioritization algorithms based on complementarity and rarity considerations. These analyses identified priority areas in southern and eastern Romania, as well as other areas across the region, as priority targets for conservation action in the region

Global Invasive Potential of 10 Parasitic Witchweeds and Related Orobanchaceae

The plant family Orobanchaceae includes many parasitic weeds that are also impressive invaders and aggressive crop pests with several specialized features (e.g. microscopic seeds, parasitic habits). Although they have provoked several large-scale eradication and control efforts, no global evaluation of their invasive potential is as yet available. We use tools from ecological niche modeling in combination with occurrence records from herbarium specimens to evaluate the global invasive potential of each of 10 species in this assemblage, representing several of the worst global invaders. The invasive potential of these species is considerable, with all tropical and subtropical countries, and most temperate countries, vulnerable to invasions by one or more of them.I do not have complete information on funding. The work was probably supported by a Department of Defense (USA) grant to Town Peterson. RAJW was supported by US National Science Foundation (Ref: KUCR 31000)

Predicting Greater Prairie-Chicken Lek Site Suitability to Inform Conservation Actions

The demands of a growing human population dictates that expansion of energy infrastructure, roads, and other development frequently takes place in native rangelands. Particularly, transmission lines and roads commonly divide rural landscapes and increase fragmentation. This has direct and indirect consequences on native wildlife that can be mitigated through thoughtful planning and proactive approaches to identifying areas of high conservation priority. We used nine years (2003–2011) of Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) lek locations totaling 870 unique leks sites in Kansas and seven geographic information system (GIS) layers describing land cover, topography, and anthropogenic structures to model habitat suitability across the state. The models obtained had low omission rates (\u3c0.18) and high area under the curve scores (AUC \u3e0.81), indicating high model performance and reliability of predicted habitat suitability for Greater Prairie-Chickens. We found that elevation was the most influential in predicting lek locations, contributing three times more predictive power than any other variable. However, models were improved by the addition of land cover and anthropogenic features (transmission lines, roads, and oil and gas structures). Overall, our analysis provides a hierarchal understanding of Greater Prairie-Chicken habitat suitability that is broadly based on geomorphological features followed by land cover suitability. We found that when land features and vegetation cover are suitable for Greater Prairie-Chickens, fragmentation by anthropogenic sources such as roadways and transmission lines are a concern. Therefore, it is our recommendation that future human development in Kansas avoid areas that our models identified as highly suitable for Greater Prairie-Chickens and focus development on land cover types that are of lower conservation concern

Tracking a Medically Important Spider: Climate Change, Ecological Niche Modeling, and the Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa)

Most spiders use venom to paralyze their prey and are commonly feared for their potential to cause injury to humans. In North America, one species in particular, Loxosceles reclusa (brown recluse spider, Sicariidae), causes the majority of necrotic wounds induced by the Araneae. However, its distributional limitations are poorly understood and, as a result, medical professionals routinely misdiagnose brown recluse bites outside endemic areas, confusing putative spider bites for other serious conditions. To address the issue of brown recluse distribution, we employ ecological niche modeling to investigate the present and future distributional potential of this species. We delineate range boundaries and demonstrate that under future climate change scenarios, the spider's distribution may expand northward, invading previously unaffected regions of the USA. At present, the spider's range is centered in the USA, from Kansas east to Kentucky and from southern Iowa south to Louisiana. Newly influenced areas may include parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. These results illustrate a potential negative consequence of climate change on humans and will aid medical professionals in proper bite identification/treatment, potentially reducing bite misdiagnoses

caqu_bbs_a

Raster file of California quail abundance estimates derived from Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data

MOUQ_REG

Test omission errors for ecological niche models estimated for the mountain quail in which regularization multiplier values varied. Models were built based on the selection of the best variable suite (traditional [correlation/variable contribution], biological, or random) in Maxent. Ecological niche models were estimated across 100 replicates for each regularization multiplier value

MONQ_REG

Test omission errors for ecological niche models estimated for the Montezuma quail in which regularization multiplier values varied. Models were built based on the selection of the best variable suite (traditional [correlation/variable contribution], biological, or random) in Maxent. Ecological niche models were estimated across 100 replicates for each regularization multiplier value

maxentResultsMOUQ

Maxent output (excel file) for ecological niche models of the mountain quail estimated from the best variable suite and top performing regularization multiplier