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Assessing critical habitat: Evaluating the relative contribution of habitats to population persistence
Authors:Julie A Heinrichs  Darren J Bender  David L Gummer
Institution:a University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
b Parks Canada, Western and Northern Service Centre, 1550-635, 8 Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 3M3
c Western Ecology Division, US EPA, 200 SW 35th St. Corvallis, OR 97333, USA
Abstract:A principal challenge of species conservation is to identify the specific habitats that are essential for long-term persistence or recovery of imperiled species. However, many commonly used approaches to identify important habitats do not provide direct insight into the contribution of those habitats to population persistence. To assess how habitats contribute to overall population viability and characterize their relative importance, a spatially-explicit population viability model was used to integrate a species occurrence model with habitat quality and demographic information to simulate the population dynamics of the Ord’s kangaroo rat (Dipodomys ordii) in Alberta, Canada. Long-term productivity (births-deaths) in each patch was simulated and iterative patch removal experiments were conducted to generate estimates of the relative contribution of habitat types to overall population viability. Our results indicated that natural dune habitats are crucial for population viability, while disturbed/human-created habitats make a minor contribution to population persistence. The results also suggest that the habitats currently available to Ord’s kangaroo rats in Alberta are unlikely to support long-term persistence. Our approach was useful for identifying habitats that did not contribute to population viability. A large proportion of habitat (39%) represented sinks and their removal increased estimated population viability. The integration of population dynamics with habitat quality and occurrence data can be invaluable when assessing critical habitat, particularly in regions with variable habitat quality. Approaches that do not incorporate population dynamics may undermine conservation efforts by under- or over-estimating the value of habitats, erroneously protecting sink habitats, or failing to prioritize key source habitats.
Keywords:Alberta  Canada  Dipodomys ordii  Habitat quality  Occurrence  Persistence  Population viability  Source-sink dynamics  Spatially-explicit population model  Species at risk
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