Using a bioenergetic model to set waterfowl habitat objectives for the Fraser River delta

The Fraser River Estuary is a major link in a chain of Pacific coastal habitats that support migrating and wintering waterfowl, and many birds converge here during northward and southward travels. Between 800,000 and 2.3 million waterfowl use the estuary from September through April, including significant populations of American wigeon, mallard, northern pintail, surf scoter, snow goose and brant. Waterfowl mainly use agricultural lands, freshwater and brackish wetlands, and intertidal habitats such as eelgrass beds, all of which continue to be lost or degraded by population growth and urban sprawl. We used a bioenergetic model (TRUEMET) to explicitly link waterfowl population objectives to habitat objectives for farmland conservation. TRUEMET indicates whether there is a habitat surplus or deficit for a given population level. We combined five of the most abundant species into two foraging guilds: ‘grazers’ included American wigeon and snow goose, and ‘dabblers’ included mallard, northern pintail and green-winged teal. We assessed conditions as of 2009 and tested a variety of scenarios involving changes in habitat availability, including future losses of agricultural or intertidal habitats. Model results indicated that grazers experienced an excess of energy through the nonbreeding season, but this was predicted to become to a deficit by midwinter within 20 years under likely scenarios. For dabblers, the demand exceeded supply by December, and the situation only worsened under future scenarios. Ensuring their continuing presence at current levels in the face of growing development stressors will require a multi-faceted conservation strategy for both intertidal and farmland conservation. We set a conservative foraging habitat objective of 50% of the energy needs of waterfowl on agricultural lands during the migrating and wintering periods, which equates to 15,000 x10^6 kcal of energy. From a habitat program perspective, this will require protecting farmlands and encouraging green forage cropping on the broader landscape

Restoring habitat in the Vancouver Lower Mainland and Lessons Learned from the Spartina control program in BC

Over the last 30 years, three non-native Spartina species have invaded southwestern British Columbia. One of the species in particular, Spartina anglica in the Vancouver Lower Mainland converts mudflats to monotypic stands of Spartina which in other areas such as Willipa Bay (Washington State) resulted in significant reductions in use by migratory bird populations. Many challenges existed initially, and some continue to limit a comprehensive response to control and eradicate infestations. Some of the challenges included the lack of a single agency mandated to respond to Spartina infestations, lack of funding and capacity, regulatory restrictions for the use of herbicide, and community support for control options. To address these challenges, the BC Spartina Working Group (BCSWG) – a partnership of government and non-government organizations was formed in 2004. This partnership expanded over time and coordinates monitoring and control activities, contributes funding (in-kind and cash), develops solutions to overcome some of the regulatory barriers and raises community awareness. However, the partnership still struggles to raise the necessary funding to confidently implement a complete eradication program and while overcoming the initial challenges, the partnership approach does create other challenges such as retaining staff that are hired seasonally and incurs more coordination resources. In spite of the challenges, progress continues to be made to curb the expansion of Spartina infestations in tidal wetlands and meet the next steps of containment and subsequent reduction. While the Spartina control program is only one project within the landscape, this project would benefit if solutions can be found to overcome other broader challenges such as a) the need for a better framework (or partnership) that can set landscape restoration goals, b) increase capacity of restoration expertise across agencies/organizations that is often isolated within different agencies/organizations and therefore not available to all partners

Measuring the performance of online opponent models in automated bilateral negotiation

n important aim in bilateral negotiations is to achieve a win-win solution for both parties; therefore, a critical aspect of a negotiating agent’s success is its ability to take the opponent’s preferences into account. Every year, new negotiation agents are introduced with better learning techniques to model the opponent. Our main goal in this work is to evaluate and compare the performance of a selection of state-of-the-art online opponent modeling techniques in negotiation, and to determine under which circumstances they are beneficial in a real-time, online negotiation setting. Towards this end, we provide an overview of the factors influencing the quality of a model and we analyze how the performance of opponent models depends on the negotiation setting. This results in better insight into the performance of opponent models, and allows us to pinpoint well-performing opponent modeling techniques that did not receive much previous attention in literature

Spartina Control Program in British Columbia – New and Improved with an herbicide option

Over the last 30 years, three non-native Spartina species invaded southwestern British Columbia: Spartina anglica in the Vancouver Lower Mainland, S. densiflora on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and S. patens in both locations. Many challenges have limited a comprehensive and timely response to control and eradicate these infestations and contribute to the Pacific Coast goal of eradicating non-native Spartina by 2018. Some of the key challenges included the lack of a single agency mandated to respond to Spartina infestations, lack of funding and capacity, herbicide was not legally available as a control option, and general opposition to herbicide use in the marine environment. Beginning in 2004, partnerships were developed at both local and international scales, to mitigate and provide alternatives to these challenges. The BC Spartina Working Group (BCSWG) formed to begin mapping and mechanical removal of Spartina infestations, with a primary focus on S. anglica. Recent GIS-based mapping and monitoring has demonstrated that the continued under funding of the mechanical control program has failed to contain the Spartina infestations. Therefore a small working group under the BCSWG began investigating the regulatory requirements, treatment methodology, and program costs and benefits of the use of herbicide. After several years of navigating the channels of federal and provincial permitting, a permit was issued in the summer of 2013 to apply herbicide to Spartina anglica in the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Approximately 5000 individual plants and clones were treated in late August and early September 2013 with imazapyr. The permitted use of herbicide on S. anglica now provides a better integrated pest management approach and enables the reallocation of some resources to control the other species of Spartina through development of new partnerships