27 research outputs found
Reducing Livestock Effects on Public Lands in the Western United States as the Climate Changes: A Reply to Svejcar et al
Reading the land: on the ethical foundations of environmental studies’ signature pedagogy
Impact of managed woodland grazing on forage quantity, quality and livestock performance: the potential for silvopasture in Central Minnesota, USA
Impact of Livestock Grazing on the Vegetation and Wild Ungulates in the Barandabhar Corridor Forest, Nepal
Mediating Water Temperature Increases Due to Livestock and Global Change in High Elevation Meadow Streams of the Golden Trout Wilderness
A landscape ecology assessment of land-use change on the Great Plains-Denver (CO, USA) metropolitan edge
For better or worse, in those parts of the world with a widespread farming, livestock rising, and urban expansion, the maintenance of species richness and ecosystem services cannot depend only upon protected natural sites. Can they rely on a network of cultural landscapes endowed with their own associated biodiversity? We analyze the effects of land-cover change on landscape ecological patterns and processes that sustain bird species richness associated to cropland-grassland landscapes in the Great Plains-Denver metropolitan edge. Our purpose is to assess the potential contribution to bird biodiversity maintenance of Great Plain's cropland-grassland mosaics kept as farmland green belts in the edge of metropolitan areas. We present a quantitative landscape ecology assessment of land-cover changes (1930-2010) experienced in five Great Plains counties in Colorado. Several landscape metrics assess the diversity of land-cover patterns and their impact on ecological connectivity indices. These metrics are applied to historical land-cover maps and datasets drawn from aerial photos and satellite imagery. The results show that the cropland-grassland mosaics that link the metropolitan edge with the surrounding habitats sheltered in less human-disturbed areas provide a heterogeneous land matrix were a high bird species richness exists. They also suggest that keeping multifunctional farmland-grassland green belts near the edge of metropolitan areas may provide important ecosystem services, supplementing traditional conservation policies. Our maps and indicators can be used for selecting certain types of landscape patterns and priority areas on which biodiversity conservation efforts and land-use planning can concentrate