Location of study area in southwestern Alberta, Canada, with field plots indicated.

<p>Location of study area in southwestern Alberta, Canada, with field plots indicated.</p

Maps of (a) late-season habitat productivity index (<i>H</i>_<i>LS</i>); (b) road-based mortality risk index (<i>M</i>_<i>R</i>); (c) attractive sink index (<i>AS</i>); and (d) safe harbour index (<i>SH</i>).

<p>Maps of (a) late-season habitat productivity index (<i>H</i>_<i>LS</i>); (b) road-based mortality risk index (<i>M</i>_<i>R</i>); (c) attractive sink index (<i>AS</i>); and (d) safe harbour index (<i>SH</i>).</p

Prioritizing Sites for Protection and Restoration for Grizzly Bears (<i>Ursus arctos</i>) in Southwestern Alberta, Canada

<div><p>As the influence of human activities on natural systems continues to expand, there is a growing need to prioritize not only pristine sites for protection, but also degraded sites for restoration. We present an approach for simultaneously prioritizing sites for protection and restoration that considers landscape patterns for a threatened population of grizzly bears (<i>Ursus arctos</i>) in southwestern Alberta, Canada. We considered tradeoffs between bottom-up (food resource supply) and top-down (mortality risk from roads) factors affecting seasonal habitat quality for bears. Simulated annealing was used to prioritize source-like sites (high habitat productivity, low mortality risk) for protection, as well as sink-like sites (high habitat productivity, high mortality risk) for restoration. Priority source-like habitats identified key conservation areas where future developments should be limited, whereas priority sink-like habitats identified key areas for mitigating road-related mortality risk with access management. Systematic conservation planning methods can be used to complement traditional habitat-based methods for individual focal species by identifying habitats where conservation actions (both protection and restoration) have the highest potential utility.</p></div

Map showing priority source- and sink-like sites in the southwestern Alberta study area.

<p>Map showing priority source- and sink-like sites in the southwestern Alberta study area.</p

Focal species defining grizzly bear habitat.

<p>Categories of fruiting species importance based on prevalence in grizzly bear dietary scat analyses, and associated weights (used to generate an index of late-season habitat productivity, <i>H</i>_<i>LS</i>) and conservation feature targets for Marxan optimization.</p><p>Focal species defining grizzly bear habitat.</p