Communities looking to improve fire protection may consider incorporating landscape features that ‘buffer’ the effects of a between developed and undeveloped lands. While landscapes such as golf courses, vineyards, or agriculture are already being considered part this buffer zone, few empirical studies demonstrate causally how well these different operate buffer. This research selects courses a...

A major goal of protected area management is to promote coexistence between wildlife and people and managers may restrict human activity by creating buffer zones. There are a number of assumptions implicit in establishing buffer zones that are typically based on how animals respond to approaching humans. Conventional wisdom suggests that animals will be more sensitive to directly approaching hu...

BACKGROUND Artificial boundaries on a map occur when the map extent does not cover the entire area of study; edges on the map do not exist on the ground. These artificial boundaries might bias the results of animal dispersal models by creating artificial barriers to movement for model organisms where there are no barriers for real organisms. Here, we characterize the effects of artificial bound...

A major cause of amphibian declines worldwide is habitat destruction or alteration. Public green spaces, such as golf courses and parks, could serve as safe havens to curb the effects of habitat loss if managed in ways to bolster local amphibian communities. We reared larval Blanchard's cricket frogs (Acris blanchardi) and green frogs (Rana clamitans) in golf course ponds with and without 1 m t...

Objectives. To develop a walkability index specific to mixed rural/suburban areas, and to explore the relationship between walkability scores and leisure time physical activity. Methods. Respondents were geocoded with 500 m and 1,000 m buffer zones around each address. A walkability index was derived from intersections, residential density, and land-use mix according to built environment measur...