Quantifying ecosystem service flows at multiple scales across the range of a long-distance migratory species (original) (raw)
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Ecosystem service flows from a migratory species: Spatial subsidies of the northern pintail
Ambio, 2018
Migratory species provide important benefits to society, but their cross-border conservation poses serious challenges. By quantifying the economic value of ecosystem services (ESs) provided across a species' range and ecological data on a species' habitat dependence, we estimate spatial subsidies-how different regions support ESs provided by a species across its range. We illustrate this method for migratory northern pintail ducks in North America. Pintails support over 101millionUSDannuallyinrecreationalhuntingandviewingandsubsistencehuntingintheU.S.andCanada.Pintailbreedingregionsprovidenearly101 million USD annually in recreational hunting and viewing and subsistence hunting in the U.S. and Canada. Pintail breeding regions provide nearly 101millionUSDannuallyinrecreationalhuntingandviewingandsubsistencehuntingintheU.S.andCanada.Pintailbreedingregionsprovidenearly30 million in subsidies to wintering regions, with the "Prairie Pothole" region supplying over $24 million in annual benefits to other regions. This information can be used to inform conservation funding allocation among migratory regions and nations on which the pintail depends. We thus illustrate a transferrable method to quantify migratory species-...
Land, 2019
This paper presents a synopsis of the challenges and limitations presented by existing and emerging land use/land cover (LULC) digital data sets when used to analyze the extent, habitat quality, and LULC changes of the monarch (Danaus plexippus) migratory habitat across the United States of America (US) and Mexico. First, the characteristics, state of the knowledge, and issues related to this habitat are presented. Then, the characteristics of the existing and emerging LULC digital data sets with global or cross-border coverage are listed, followed by the data sets that cover only the US or Mexico. Later, we discuss the challenges for determining the extent, habitat quality, and LULC changes in the monarchs’ migratory habitat when using these LULC data sets in conjunction with the current state of the knowledge of the monarchs’ ecology, behavior, and foraging/roosting plants used during their migration. We point to approaches to address some of these challenges, which can be categor...
In the last two decades Canada, Mexico and the United States have joined efforts to protect the monarch butterfly migration phenomenon across their countries. As part of my doctoral dissertation I am currently following the monarch and the environmental knowledge politics attached to its migration route. In this paper I am presenting observations regarding the Mexican overwinter habitat and the findings about two programs that seek to adapt people’s claims for having access to their land with the goals of biodiversity conservation. My findings enlighten the observations about the intersections between the neoliberal management of nature with biodiversity conservation and how it takes shape through the translation of knowledge and granting of economic incentives.
Butterfly diversity and human land use: Species assemblages along an urban grandient
Biological Conservation, 1997
We examined the distribution and abundance of butterfly species across an urban gradient and concomitant changes in community structure by censusing the butterfly and skipper populations at 48 points within six sites near Palo Alto, California, USA (all former oak woodlands). These sites represent a gradient of urban land use running from relatively undisturbed to highly developed and include a nature preserve, recreational area, golf course, residential neighborhood, office park and business district. The species richness and Shannon diversity of butterflies peaked at moderately disturbed sites while the relative abundance decreased from the natural to the urban areas. Butterfly species thought to be most representative of the original, predevelopment butterfly fauna progressively disappear as the sites become more urban. These patterns are significantly related to shifts in habitat structure that occur along the gradient as determined by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) using the environmental variables of percent land covered by pavement, buildings, lawn, grasslands, and trees or shrubs. The mechanisms behind these patterns may be related to life history and resource use by the individual butterfly species.
Ecosystem Services from Transborder Migratory Species: Implications for Conservation Governance
Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 2015
This article discusses the conservation challenges of volant migratory transborder species and conservation governance primarily in North America. Many migratory species provide ecosystem service benefits to society. For example, insectivorous bats prey on crop pests and reduce the need for pesticides; birds and insects pollinate food plants; and birds afford recreational opportunities to hunters and birdwatchers. Migration is driven by the seasonal availability of resources; as resources in one area become seasonally scarce, individuals move to locations where resources have become seasonally abundant. The separation of the annual lifecycle means that species management and governance is often fractured across international borders. Because migratory species depend on habitat in different locations, their ability to provide ecosystem services in one area depends on the spatial subsidies, or support, provided by habitat and ecological processes in other areas. This creates telecoupl...
PLoS ONE, 2012
Each year, millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate up to 3000 km from their overwintering grounds in central Mexico to breed in eastern North America. articulated two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses to explain how Monarchs re-colonize North America each spring. The 'successive brood' hypothesis proposes that monarchs migrate from Mexico to the Gulf Coast, lay eggs and die, leaving northern re-colonization of the breeding range to subsequent generations. The 'single sweep' hypothesis proposes that overwintering monarchs continue to migrate northward after arriving on the Gulf coast and may reach the northern portion of the breeding range, laying eggs along the way. To examine these hypotheses, we sampled monarchs throughout the northern breeding range and combined stablehydrogen isotopes (dD) to estimate natal origin with wing wear scores to differentiate between individuals born in the current vs. previous year. Similar to , we found that the majority of the northern breeding range was recolonized by the first generation of monarchs (90%). We also estimated that a small number of individuals (10%) originated directly from Mexico and, therefore adopted a sweep strategy. Contrary to , we found that 62% of monarchs sampled in the Great Lakes originated from the Central U.S., suggesting that this region is important for sustaining production in the northern breeding areas. Our results provide new evidence of re-colonization patterns in monarchs and contribute important information towards identifying productive breeding regions of this unique migratory insect.
A mobility index for Canadian butterfly species based on naturalists' knowledge
Biodiversity and Conservation, 2011
Mobility is a key component of species’ biology. Research on mobility is inherently difficult, however, resulting in studies of narrow taxonomic, spatial, and temporal scope with results that are difficult to compare between studies. We had three goals for our research: (1) construct a data set of mobility estimates for the butterfly species of Canada based on naturalists’ knowledge; (2) develop methods to evaluate aspects of accuracy and precision for knowledge-based ecological research such as ours; and (3) using our data set, test mobility-related hypotheses of species-level relationships. We distributed a questionnaire to amateur and professional lepidopterists in Canada and northern USA, asking them to estimate the mobility of Canadian butterfly species based on their field experience. Based on responses from 51 lepidopterists with approximately 800 years of combined field experience, we received mobility estimates for almost all (291 out of 307) of Canada’s butterfly taxa. Mobility estimates were consistent among respondents and were not affected by respondent expertise. Mobility carries a strong phylogenetic signal and is positively related to wingspan (albeit weakly), range size, and host plant breadth, and negatively related to conservation risk. Reliance upon naturalists’ experience was essential to the feasibility of our project, and provides a promising method for many types of ecological research.
Growing urbanization and the expansion of the agricultural frontier in tropical ecosystems have generated patchy landscapes composed of remnants of natural habitats and abandoned fields. This scenario offers an opportunity to develop urban reserves in order to preserve local fauna in expanding cities. We propose that if native animals are able to use these two habitat types, reserves composed of a mixture of natural habitats and abandoned fields would contain more diversity than reserves composed only of natural habitats. However, to be useful for conservation, these reserves must harbor specialized organisms that depend on natural habitats. To test this proposal, we focused on diurnal butterflies inhabiting an urban reserve located within the city of Puebla (Mexico), which contains relics of oak forests and abandoned fields. Butterfly assemblages were sampled and compared in the different habitat types of the reserve. The data were then pooled and analyzed for the reserve as a whole. These analyses discriminated between habitat generalist and forest specialist butterflies. Our results indicated that the different habitat types of the reserve harbor different forest specialist butterflies, which in turn enhanced the diversity of forest-dwelling butterflies at the landscape scale. This suggests that the inclusion of abandoned fields together with natural habitats in the design of urban protected areas could help to preserve at least part of the regional biodiversity.
1. Threats to migratory animals can occur at multiple periods of the annual cycle that are separated by thousands of kilometres and span international borders. Populations of the iconic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) of eastern North America have declined over the last 21 years. Three hypotheses have been posed to explain the decline: habitat loss on the overwintering grounds in Mexico, habitat loss on the breeding grounds in the United States and Canada, and extreme weather events. 2. Our objectives were to assess population viability, determine which life stage, season and geographical region are contributing the most to population dynamics and test the three hypotheses that explain the observed population decline. 3. We developed a spatially structured, stochastic and density-dependent periodic projection matrix model that integrates patterns of migratory connectivity and demographic vital rates across the annual cycle. We used perturbation analysis to determine the sensitivity of population abundance to changes in vital rate among life stages, seasons and geographical regions. Next, we compared the singular effects of each threat to the full model where all factors operate concurrently. Finally, we generated predictions to assess the risk of host plant loss as a result of genetically modified crops on current and future monarch butterfly population size and extinction probability. 4. Our year-round population model predicted population declines of 14% and a quasiextinction probability (<1000 individuals) >5% within a century. Monarch abundance was more than four times more sensitive to perturbations of vital rates on the breeding grounds than on the wintering grounds. Simulations that considered only forest loss or climate change in Mexico predicted higher population sizes compared to milkweed declines on the breeding grounds. Our model predictions also suggest that mitigating the negative effects of genetically modified crops results in higher population size and lower extinction risk. 5. Recent population declines stem from reduction in milkweed host plants in the United States that arise from increasing adoption of genetically modified crops and land-use change, not from climate change or degradation of forest habitats in Mexico. Therefore, reducing the negative effects of host plant loss on the breeding grounds is the top conservation priority to slow or halt future population declines of monarch butterflies in North America.