A method is described that provides a rapid and accurate analysis of habitat used by radioequipped animals. The digitizer (basically an X-Y plotter in reverse) converts maps into digital form by describing each habitat unit as a polygon that closely approximates the actual shape of the unit. The coordinates of each polygon are then stored on magnetic tape. Habitat classification data and other ...

Understory vegetation is an important habitat component for many wildlife species. Previous broad-scale studies on biodiversity and wildlife habitat have suffered from a lack of detailed information about understory distribution. Consequently, it is unclear how understory distribution influences the analysis of habitat quantity and spatial distribution. To address this problem, we compared esti...

a r t i c l e i n f o Post-fire snags provide important resources for cavity nesting communities as well as being subject to timber removal through salvage logging practices. Tools that can characterize their distributions along with other features important as wildlife habitat, such as woody shrub cover, would be useful for research and management purposes. Three dimensional lidar data and Lan...

Trypanosomiasis has been endemic in wildlife in Zambia for more than a century. The disease has been associated with neurological disorders in humans. Current conservation strategies by the Zambian government of turning all game reserves into state-protected National Parks (NPs) and game management areas (GMAs) have led to the expansion of the wildlife and tsetse population in the Luangwa and Z...

Growing global energy demands ensure the continued growth of energy development. Energy development in wildlife areas can significantly impact wildlife populations. Efforts to mitigate development impacts to wildlife are on-going, but the effectiveness of such efforts is seldom monitored or assessed. Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are sensitive to energy development and likely ...

Assessing the status and monitoring the trends of land cover dynamics in and around protected areas is of utmost importance for park managers and decision makers. Moreover, to support the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s Strategic Action Plan including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, such efforts are necessary to set a framework to reach the agreed national, regional or global targets...

Forest management often has cumulative, long-lasting effects on wildlife habitat suitability and the effects may be impractical to evaluate using landscape-scale field experiments. To understand such effects, we linked a spatially explicit landscape disturbance and succession model (LANDIS) with habitat suitability index (HSI) models to assess the effects of management alternatives on habitat s...

Conservation policies influence both the amount of habitat loss and patterns of habitat fragmentation. This paper develops a “microlandscapes” approach that combines fragmentation measures with quasi-experimental evaluation methods in order to assess the effects of policy on habitat fragmentation. As an application, the paper estimates whether and to what extent wildlife sanctuaries and nationa...