Land use is rapidly expanding in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, primarily from growth in the number of rural homes. There is a need to project possible future land use and assess impacts on nature reserves as a guide to future management. We assessed the potential biodiversity impacts of alternative future land use scenarios in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An existing regression-based...

The objective of this study was to assess the host status of African buffaloes, Syncerus caffer, for the one-host tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) decoloratus. To this end the R. (B.) decoloratus burdens of ten buffaloes examined in three north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal Province (KZN) nature reserves were compared with those of medium-sized to large antelope species in these reserves and in the south...

A reserve design strategy was developed for the southern Appalachian region in the United States. The principles for this strategy were derived from analyses of available rare and endangered vascular plant observations and extant topographic heterogeneity patterns. Computer analyses of bounded areas simulating nature reserves demonstrated that area, elevational diversity and slope diversity are...

Many nature reserves are located in landscapes with extreme biophysical conditions. We examined the effects of interactions between biophysical factors and land use on bird population viability inside and outside of Yellowstone National Park. Our hypotheses were as follows: (1) biophysical factors constrain bird species richness and bird reproduction at higher elevations; (2) nature reserves ar...