Ecology and/or Impacts
Ecology and/or Impacts
Filter Total Items: 14
Tools for the Mitigation of Habitat-Based Impacts to Birds
Compensatory mitigation is applied in grassland and wetland ecosystems to offset environmental damage from disturbances such as energy development. Energy facilities continue to proliferate across the United States, yet implementation of mitigation tools to ameliorate habitat loss or behavioural effects on wildlife is rare. NPWRC scientists conducted a 10-year Before-After, Control-Impact (BACI)...
Temporal and spatial patterning of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities in response to changing environmental conditions
An increased understanding of prairie-pothole-wetland macroinvertebrate dynamics is crucial to better inform conservation strategies related to waterfowl production, biodiversity enhancement, and wetland function/health maintenance. Wetlands in general are highly variable in space and time, and wetland macroinvertebrates are adapted to this great variability. Wetland ecosystems are also influenced...
Fish and Wildlife seasonal and temporary wetland assessment
The Prairie Pothole Region supports some of the most productive wetlands in the world for waterfowl. Up to 90% of seasonal and temporary wetlands have been lost in areas of the PPR due to the conversion of grasslands to croplands and the drainage of wetlands. Department of the Interior Waterfowl Production Areas (WPA) and National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) in North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern...
Estimating offsets for avian displacement effects of anthropogenic impacts
The avian-impact offset method (AIOM) quantifies the amount of habitat needed to provide equivalent biological value for birds displaced by energy and transportation infrastructure. The AIOM can be applied in situations where avian displacement (i.e., behavioral avoidance) requires compensatory mitigation. The AIOM is based on the ability to define five metrics: impact distance, impact area, pre...
Effects of population density on prevalence of chronic wasting disease, physical condition, and vital rates of elk at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
CWD is a degenerative neurological disease caused by infectious proteins called prions. Although documented cases are invariably fatal, infected elk commonly survive for several months or longer, passing prions directly to other individuals and into the environment, where they bind to surfaces or soils and can persist for years. CWD reached Wind Cave National Park about 1997 and rapidly became the...
An adaptive management framework to control invasive annual brome grasses in Northern Great Plains parks (ABAM)
Invasion by annual brome grasses (cheatgrass and Japanese brome) and other exotic annual grasses into National Park Service units (parks) in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) impacts park ecological and historical landscape integrity. The Annual Brome Adaptive Management (ABAM) decision support tool (DST) was built to support vegetation management decision making, particularly regarding these...
Developing evaluation and monitoring frameworks for tallgrass prairie reconstruction
Thousands of hectares of retired farmland are planted with tallgrass prairie species each year. If the methods used and resulting characteristics of these prairies are recorded, compiled, and analyzed, they can provide a valuable resource for evaluating seed mixes, planting methods, and post-planting management. Toward this end, collaborators in the Prairie Reconstruction Initiative, funded by the...
Evaluation of tallgrass prairie restoration methods to improve resistance to invasive species and maintenance of plant species diversity over time
When reconstructing native tallgrass prairie from abandoned farmland, patience can pay off. In this research effort, we observed that as reconstructions matured, Canada thistle cover declined even though herbicides were not applied. There is no single best planting method for all situations. Ten years after planting, cover of planted, native non-planted, and exotic species varied little among...
Effects of invasive plant species on reproduction of the rare endemic plant Dakota buckwheat (Eriogonum visheri) at Badlands National Park
Endemism in plants is extremely uncommon in the Great Plains. Dakota buckwheat is a rare, endemic plant found in only a few locations at Badlands National Park and sites with similar soils outside the park. In an earlier study, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center inferred that of two common, co-flowering invasive plants, Russian thistle was more likely than yellow sweetclover to interfere...
Evaluation of conservation grazing versus prescribed fire to manage tallgrass prairie remnants for plant and pollinator species diversity
With scarcely 2% of native tallgrass prairie remaining today, it is imperative that we wisely manage what little remains to conserve prairie-dependent plants, pollinators, other animals and ecosystem processes. Two commonly used methods of prairie management are prescribed fire and conservation grazing. Either method may present trade-offs with respect to conservation of vulnerable plant, bee or...
Interactions of consolidation drainage and climate on water-level dynamics, wetland productivity, and waterbirds
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) recently completed a project aimed at understanding the impacts of wetland drainage on wetlands that receive drainage water. The biological communities of prairie pothole wetlands evolved in a hydrologically dynamic system due to periodic wet and dry conditions. NPWRC research indicates that relative to wetlands in undrained landscapes, wetlands...
Interaction of land use and wet/dry cycles on invertebrate populations of northern prairie wetlands: implications for waterbird habitat conservation
This effort is aimed at understanding how productivity of larger and more permanent wetlands is influenced by a combination of inter-annual hydrological dynamics and land-use impacts. Historically, aquatic-invertebrates productivity and abundance was driven by inter-annual hydrological dynamics because drying periods allow for nutrient cycling and a subsequent pulse of productivity when wet...