Dataset Information

Maximizing the value of forest restoration for tropical mammals by detecting three-dimensional habitat associations.

ABSTRACT: Tropical forest ecosystems are facing unprecedented levels of degradation, severely compromising habitat suitability for wildlife. Despite the fundamental role biodiversity plays in forest regeneration, identifying and prioritizing degraded forests for restoration or conservation, based on their wildlife value, remains a significant challenge. Efforts to characterize habitat selection are also weakened by simple classifications of human-modified tropical forests as intact vs. degraded, which ignore the influence that three-dimensional (3D) forest structure may have on species distributions. Here, we develop a framework to identify conservation and restoration opportunities across logged forests in Borneo. We couple high-resolution airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and camera trap data to characterize the response of a tropical mammal community to changes in 3D forest structure across a degradation gradient. Mammals were most responsive to covariates that accounted explicitly for the vertical and horizontal characteristics of the forest and actively selected structurally complex environments comprising tall canopies, increased plant area index throughout the vertical column, and the availability of a greater diversity of niches. We show that mammals are sensitive to structural simplification through disturbance, emphasizing the importance of maintaining and enhancing structurally intact forests. By calculating occurrence thresholds of species in response to forest structural change, we identify areas of degraded forest that would provide maximum benefit for multiple high-conservation value species if restored. The study demonstrates the advantages of using LiDAR to map forest structure, rather than relying on overly simplistic classifications of human-modified tropical forests, for prioritizing regions for restoration.

SUBMITTER: Deere NJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7584909 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Maximizing the value of forest restoration for tropical mammals by detecting three-dimensional habitat associations.

Deere Nicolas J NJ Guillera-Arroita Gurutzeta G Swinfield Tom T Milodowski David T DT Coomes David A DA Bernard Henry H Reynolds Glen G Davies Zoe G ZG Struebig Matthew J MJ

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200928 42

Tropical forest ecosystems are facing unprecedented levels of degradation, severely compromising habitat suitability for wildlife. Despite the fundamental role biodiversity plays in forest regeneration, identifying and prioritizing degraded forests for restoration or conservation, based on their wildlife value, remains a significant challenge. Efforts to characterize habitat selection are also weakened by simple classifications of human-modified tropical forests as intact vs. degraded, which ign ...[more]

PMID: 32989143

Similar Datasets

Project description:Poaching of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) for ivory has decimated their populations in Central Africa. Studying elephant movement can provide insight into habitat and resource use to reveal where, when, and why they move and guide conservation efforts. We fitted 17 forest elephants with global positioning system (GPS) collars in 2015 and 2016 in the tropical forest-grassland mosaic of the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve (WW), Gabon. Using the location data, we quantified movement distances, home ranges, and habitat use to examine the environmental drivers of elephant movements and predict where elephants occur spatially and temporally. Forest elephants, on average, traveled 2,840 km annually and had home ranges of 713 km2, with males covering significantly larger home ranges than females. Forest elephants demonstrated both daily and seasonal movement patterns. Daily, they moved between forest and grassland at dawn and dusk. Seasonally, they spent proportionally more time in grassland than forest during the short-wet season when grasses recruit. Forest elephants also traveled faster during the short-wet season when fruit availability was greatest, likely reflecting long, direct movements to preferred fruiting tree species. Forest elephants tended to select areas with high tree and shrub density that afford cover and browse. When villages occurred in their home ranges elephants spent a disproportionate amount of time near them, particularly in the dry season, probably for access to agricultural crops and preferred habitat. Given the importance of the grassland habitat for elephants, maintenance of the forest-grassland matrix is a conservation priority in WW. Law enforcement, outreach, and education should focus on areas of potential human-elephant conflict near villages along the borders of the reserve. GPS-tracking should be extended into multi-use areas in the peripheries of protected areas to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on elephant movements and to maintain connectivity among elephant populations in Gabon.

Dataset Information

Maximizing the value of forest restoration for tropical mammals by detecting three-dimensional habitat associations.

Publications

Maximizing the value of forest restoration for tropical mammals by detecting three-dimensional habitat associations.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets