Modelling animal populations in changing landscapes |
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Authors: | H RONALD PULLIAM JIANGUO LIU JOHN B DUNNING JR DAVID J STEWART T DALE BISHOP |
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Institution: | Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA |
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Abstract: | Models of Mobile Animal Populations (MAP models) simulate long-term land use changes, population trends and patterns of biological diversity on landscapes of 103-105 ha. MAP models can incorporate information about past land-use patterns and management practices and can project future patterns based on management plans. We illustrate this approach with an example of how implementation of a U.S. Forest Service management plan at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, U.S.A., might influence population trends of Bachman's Sparrow Aimophila aestivalis, a relatively rare and declining species in southeastern pine forests. In this case, a management plan, largely designed to improve conditions for an endangered species, Red-cockaded Woodpecker Picoides borealis, may have a negative impact, at least in the short term, on another species of management concern, Bachman's Sparrow. In a parallel processing version of the MAP models, a single landscape that would ordinarily be too large or detailed to be simulated on a single computer is subdivided into a number of smaller landscapes, and each landscape is simulated in parallel, either on a single multi-tasking machine or on a group of networked machines. With this approach we are attempting to determine just how large a landscape must be before the dynamics of a population within it are more or less independent of factors beyond the landscape boundaries. |
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