USDA conservation program and practice effects on wetland ecosystem services

Abstract. Implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) has resulted in the restoration of .2 million ha of wetland and grassland habitats in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Restoration of habitats through these programs provides diverse ecosystem services to society, but few investigators have evaluated the environmental benefits achieved by these programs. We describe changes in wetland processes, functions, and ecosystem services that occur when wetlands and adjacent uplands on agricultural lands are restored through Farm Bill conservation programs. At the scale of wetland catchments, projects have had positive impacts on water storage, reduction in sedimentation and nutrient loading, plant biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat. However, lack of information on the geographic location of restored catchments relative to landscape-level factors (e.g., watershed, proximity to rivers and lakes) limits interpretation of ecosystem services that operate at multiple scales such as floodwater retention, water quality improvement, and wildlife habitat suitability. Considerable opportunity exists for the USDA to incorporate important landscape factors to better target conservation practices and programs to optimize diverse ecosystem services. Restoration of hydrologic processes within wetlands (e.g., hydroperiod, water level dynamics) also requires a better understanding of the influence of conservation cover composition and structure, and management practices that occur in uplands surrounding wetlands. Although conservation programs have enhanced delivery of ecosystem services in the PPR, the use of programs to provide long-term critical ecosystem services is uncertain because when contracts (especially CRP) expire, economic incentives may favor conversion of land to crop production, rather than reenrollment. As demands for agricultural products (food, fiber, biofuel) increase, Farm Bill conservation programs will become increasingly important to ensure provisioning of ecosystem services to society, especially in agriculturally dominated landscapes. Thus, continued development and support for conservation programs legislated through the Farm Bill will require a more comprehensive understanding of wetland ecological services to better evaluate program achievements relative to conservation goals

Defining the importance of landscape metrics for large branchiopod biodiversity and conservation: the case of the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands

The deficiency in the distributional data of invertebrate taxa is one of the major impediments acting on the bias towards the low awareness of its conservation status. The present study sets a basic framework to understand the large branchiopods distribution in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands. Since the extensive surveys performed in the late 1980s, no more studies existed updating the information for the whole studied area. The present study fills the gap, gathering together all available information on large branchiopods distribution since 1995, and analysing the effect of human population density and several landscape characteristics on their distribution, taking into consideration different spatial scales (100 m, 1 km and 10 km). In overall, 28 large branchiopod taxa (17 anostracans, 7 notostracans and 4 spinicaudatans) are known to occur in the area. Approximately 30% of the sites hosted multiple species, with a maximum of 6 species. Significant positive co-occurring species pairs were found clustered together, forming 4 different associations of large branchiopod species. In general, species clustered in the same group showed similar responses to analysed landscape characteristics, usually showing a better fit at higher spatial scales.Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico-CNPq [401045/2014-5]Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport [FPU014/06783]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Preliminary Biological Assessment of Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge Complex, North Dakota

This report represents an initial biological assessment of wetland conditions on Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Slade NWR, and Florence Lake NWR that was conducted as part of the pre-planning phase for development of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP). According to the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act (NWRSIA), decisions guiding NWR management should be based on the best available scientific information. Therefore, this report attempts to integrate relevant information from many different scientific disciplines (e.g., geology, hydrology, biology) to assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in identifying ecological constraints and opportunities imposed by the land base being considered. The intent is to provide information and ideas necessary for evaluating the potential benefits and detriments of management actions during the decision making process that accompanies development of biological goals and objectives. Information in this report is based on a relatively limited number of published articles, past notes, and observations during a visit to Long Lake, Florence Lake, and Slade NWRs. The authors only attempted to locate sufficient relevant information necessary to formulate more definitive ideas and provide additional context. Thus, the information provided below is incomplete and a more thorough synthesis will be required. Further, interpretation of published information can vary among individuals, and the Long Lake NWR Complex (hereafter Complex) staff is encouraged to review the documents cited in this report. Many years of staff observation and experience managing the Complex are invaluable to ensuring that information used to make decisions is applicable. Consequently, some sections contain information that was not fully explored in the evaluation section; however, the information was retained because it may be useful as the Complex staff and core CCP team examine different management options. Finally, decisions regarding management of the wetland community also require integrating information from terrestrial lands that impact wetlands (i.e. catchment). Although this may seem simple and straightforward, this task often is difficult because it frequently requires an iterative approach to ensure that important issues that may affect management of both wetlands and uplands have not been omitted. This report does not contain conclusions, nor does it advocate any opinions (favorable or unfavorable) regarding the biological program. Further, concepts such as alternatives, goals, and objectives, are not discussed. The core CCP team will address these topics. Rather, it represents a summary that hopefully will be used to focus future discussion regarding biological data needs and approaches for using this information to make decisions. Ultimately, however, scientific information alone will not lead to a definitive decision regarding future direction. Also, biology is only one of many components that must be considered in the evaluation. Therefore, it is recommended that USFWS personnel responsible for determining the future direction of Complex management be consulted to establish guidelines and agree on the approach that will be used in evaluating the biological program prior to proceeding

Using Publicly Available Data to Quantify Plant–Pollinator Interactions and Evaluate Conservation Seeding Mixes in the Northern Great Plains

Concern over declining pollinators has led to multiple conservation initiatives for improving forage for bees in agroecosystems. Using data available through the Pollinator Library (npwrc.usgs.gov/pollinator/), we summarize plant–pollinator interaction data collected from 2012–2015 on lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and private lands enrolled in U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs in eastern North Dakota (ND). Furthermore, we demonstrate how plant–pollinator interaction data from the Pollinator Library and seed cost information can be used to evaluate hypothetical seeding mixes for pollinator habitat enhancements. We summarize records of 314 wild bee and 849 honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) interactions detected on 63 different plant species. The wild bee observations consisted of 46 species, 15 genera, and 5 families. Over 54% of all wild bee observations were represented by three genera-Bombus, Lassioglossum, and Melissodes. The most commonly visited forbs by wild bees were Monarda fistulosa, Sonchus arvensis, and Zizia aurea. The most commonly visited forbs by A. mellifera were Cirsium arvense, Melilotus officinalis, and Medicago sativa. Among all interactions, 13% of A. mellifera and 77% of wild bee observations were made on plants native to ND. Our seed mix evaluation shows that mixes may often need to be tailored to meet the unique needs of wild bees and managed honey bees in agricultural landscapes. Our evaluation also demonstrates the importance of incorporating both biologic and economic information when attempting to design cost-effective seeding mixes for supporting pollinators in a critically important part of the United States

Potential of Restored Prairie Wetlands in the Glaciated North American Prairie to Sequester Atmospheric Carbon

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) covers about 900,000 km2 (347,500 mi2), which is approximately a fourth of the area in the Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership region. Specifically, the PPR covers portions of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States and Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada. Formed largely by glacial events, this region historically was dominated by grasslands interspersed with shallow palustrine wetlands. Prior to European settlement, this region may have supported more than 20 million ha (49 million acres) of wetlands, making it the largest wetland complex in North America. However, fertile soils in this region resulted in extensive loss of native wetlands as cultivated agriculture became the dominant land use. With cultivation through agricultural practices resulting in oxidation of organic matter, the soil organic carbon (SOC) in wetlands was depleted. Recent work by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Ducks Unlimited Canada scientists for the PCOR Partnership demonstrated that restoration of previously farmed wetlands results in the rapid replenishment of SOC lost to cultivation at an average rate of 3 Mg ha-1 yr-1 (1.34 tons acre-1 yr-1). The findings that restored prairie wetlands are important carbon sinks provide a unique and previously overlooked opportunity to store atmospheric carbon (CO2-C) in the PCOR Partnership region. The overall goal of this study was to develop a database to estimate the regional potential to store atmospheric carbon by restoring previously farmed wetlands. Additional topics discussed in this report include other forms of potential carbon storage processes and greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets derived from restored wetlands

Prototyping an online wetland ecosystem services model using open model sharing standards

Great interest currently exists for developing ecosystem models to forecast how ecosystem services may change under alternative land use and climate futures. Ecosystem services are diverse and include supporting services or functions (e.g., primary production, nutrient cycling), provisioning services (e.g., wildlife, groundwater), regulating services (e.g., water purification, floodwater retention), and even cultural services (e.g., ecotourism, cultural heritage). Hence, the knowledge base necessary to quantify ecosystem services is broad and derived from many diverse scientific disciplines. Building the required interdisciplinary models is especially challenging as modelers from different locations and times may develop the disciplinary models needed for ecosystem simulations, and these models must be identified and made accessible to the interdisciplinary simulation. Additional difficulties include inconsistent data structures, formats, and metadata required by geospatial models as well as limitations on computing, storage, and connectivity. Traditional standalone and closed network systems cannot fully support sharing and integrating interdisciplinary geospatial models from variant sources. To address this need, we developed an approach to openly share and access geospatial computational models using distributed Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques and open geospatial standards. We included a means to share computational models compliant with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Processing Services (WPS) standard to ensure modelers have an efficient and simplified means to publish new models. To demonstrate our approach, we developed five disciplinary models that can be integrated and shared to simulate a few of the ecosystem services (e.g., water storage, waterfowl breeding) that are provided by wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved