Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management
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See Manipulating Succession - 13 Ways
One fundamental theory of conventional wildlife management is that animals are a function of habitat and that wildlife is thus essentially habitat management. Clearly important, and clearly guided by public land agency laws and objectives, habitat management is important. For a managerial system to work well now and in the future, there must be room and balance for other major theories or emphases.
There are many ways to organize concepts of animals and their spaces, especially those spaces that can be manipulated to cause decided changes. Debates persist about the possibilities of species-specific management (vs. that of more encompassing guilds, meta-populations, populations, or associations, etc.) I think we can (and need to) progress as if we can manage, at least, specified populations of individual species. To do that we need information about the species, the objectives of relevant populations of people for it, and what it needs over the planning period ... and how we can assure it or achieve it. A common understanding of the importance that is held for manipulating habitat is important. The population or its demand may have little relationship to habitat or faunal space factors, yet these may be stressed. Modern faunal system management will press for clarifying these ends and means, attempt to emphasize effectiveness, and seek sensitivity analyses that will suggest where the decided changes will be gotten for the least investments. There is no end to the questions about animals and their spaces that the thoughtful person can ask. The modern manager faces the difficult, risky, timely decisions in the face of incomplete knowledge. (And that condition will not change! We now know much more about animals and their needs than we did 50 years ago...but we still ask questions and believe that there are factors about which we need more knowledge to become more effective as managers.)
There are only three things that a manager can do with faunal space:
That is true for most of things in wildlife management. It represents a general statement, a concept within general systems theory, and the more general concepts that we have, the better will be our analyses...and our designs. The world of faunal resource management is enormously large. Genera; concepts are essential.
We have to know what we want to do among these three statements about rates, and that requires that we state objectives. Assuming that they have been stated and that demand is a part of the statement, then approximate numbers of animals needed to meet demand can also be stated. We may then decide how many we now have, then estimate the difference between that and the number we need, and if the animals are known to be responsive to changes in their environment, we can invest in tactics to cause the change in abundance that will overcome the difference. Where 100 animals are perceived to be needed, and the estimated population is now 70, then work may begin to cause the improvements that will increase the population by 30 animals...and not one animal more...because of the costs. This is straight-forward marginal analysis in basic economics. (Also note that the manager cannot claim to have produced 100 animals. These are the results of Nature or past managers' work; only the extra production can be properly tallied.) The habitat can be made less favorable and the population will decline (at a cost) or by careful annual work, it can be stabilized. Of course all of these numbers have limits, so when someone claims they need 100 animals, it may be reasonability assumed that they mean from 90 to 110 animals. The population estimate has the same or greater bounds (confidence limits or bounds for the statistical estimate), and expected effects are approximations. The combinations of several probabilities can result in some low probabilities for "success."
Jakinchuk(1982) said of wildlife habitat inventory -- what are the questions and how are the answers used? (Rarely does the use of inventories in wildlife work justify the excessive statistical requirements applied...and the associated costs and risks often involved.) Where are the animals? reflects on the population and its behavior and here it becomes evident that the animals cannot be separated from where they live. Inventory, thus includes the animals and their behaviors (e.g., of the foods present, what are they eating (availability Vs. preference).) Where could they be? (seasonal differences and probability of occurrence) When are they there? What do they need to survive over an extended period (say 100 years at least)? What are the constraints on their expansion? How many are there? What is the range of abundance (perhaps the desired limit will be reached naturally?) and How much space of a particular type do they need to maintain a stated level? What are the consequences of natural catastrophe?
Perhaps these are the questions for inventory. I am not sure. Inventory seem a passive activity. The efforts ahead are to analyze the present faunal space and to increase, stabilize, or decrease it in light of natural processes, the desired population levels, and costs...all of them. Maybe all of that is called inventory. So be it. Inventory is very expensive.
There are several thousand large animals in North America that can be called wildlife. There are several time this many in Africa and Central and South Americas and in the Indo-Chinese parts of the world. Each is unique; each has special requirements. Given the time and cost that have allowed knowledge to accumulate about the white-tailed deer and to realize that an insufficient amount is known about this one species, then the prospects for the others seem remote. A more general approach is needed. In the business world, the new expression is "look for the problem pattern, then solve it for everything." Perhaps this is at the core of the general systems approach
We start by rejecting "habitat" as the appropriate word. We use faunal space and that is described elsewhere.We make an abiotic emphasis since by using the factors that influence all aspects of the environment of the animals we may gain some control over them before they are mixed and integrated into the plants and animals being observed. We can use them as factors in analytical equations (models) that allow us to explain relations, say, between animal abundance and precipitation. This may allow us to predict (having connotations about the future, not just "estimate") the effects of irrigating an area on animals.
Next we adopt a closed system view point and put a boundary around an area. The population, by definition exists somewhere. Without a boundary, it exists everywhere and this is un-analyzable. Feedback, always in progress, allows us to adjust the boundary later, enlarging or reducing it. The boundary reflects concepts about the context of the general system. Next we realize how indefinite the boundary really is. Watershed boundaries are questionable. Political boundaries for counties are debated. Even surveyed lines can be questioned and GPS work sheds new light on ownerships. Even horizontal Vs topographic or surface area can be questioned. Determining the exact area is critical to estimating density and we run into problems with Areas before we count the first animal and then have to divide animals by area to get the estimate of density. Abundance is the count, density is the count per unit area (typically the hectare with 2.47 hectares per acre), and A*, hereinafter, is the area per animal (typically horizontal hectares per animal). One deer per 15 hectares has more intuitive appeal and tendency to flow into managerial ideas than knowing that there are 0.07 deer per hectare.
| First the boundary |
|---|
Area is probably the most important variable, most easily gained, and one most often ignored in order to get to what is perceived to be the science of any wildlife issue. Think of islands of different size. There are density limits. The larger the watershed, potentially the more animals there
(SCS art,1959)
may be within it, assuming all other conditions are the same. Of course they are not the same and thus we can begin the further analyses. The most devious trick of the manager is to claim animal increases achieved simply by expanding the area claimed (changing the boundary) as that which is managed.
Next, although biomes and types and ecological classification are important, most species will differ more between ages of forest stands or communities than they will between minor differences in community types. Of course desert animals are different that those of a fir forest, but within a region, animals will differ more between major age differences than between stand types. There are too many subtleties and exceptions to try to make the point more precisely. The emphasis: concentrate on the age of communities.
| Age over type |
|---|
Communities are always changing. One of the most important concept of ecology is that of the changes in an area that create conditions in which a new group of plants and animals can flourish, even though the previous ones may find the new conditions (resulting from their existence) unsuitable. Once called succession, there were many connotations and erroneous views of that process. We prefer to simplify it to transitions and recognize that there may be many pathways to the same advanced end state, the old-aged community, the ancient forest, the primitive community, the glacial derelict community, etc. Climax is so-much-debated that it carries no special meaning. Even thought there are many pathways to a common advanced-age community, the end state is predictable (within generally acceptable bounds). The conditions to this state, the intermediate age categories, become very important. These categories of the transition are the entities to which species can be directly related. It is within communities of these types and ages that you find species of interest. Once called seres, these age classes have the conditions for select species. Some species have gross needs and they may be found in several of these categories. Others have very specific needs. They may occur in only one or a few categories. The manager's task is to perpetually provide and assure a stable inventory of such categories if stability is the demand. Otherwise they may be decreased or increased, depending on the objectives of the clients. If the area in the boundary is small, assuring adequate acreages with the proper ages (as in timber rotation) can be very difficult. If impossible, the manager needs to tell the clients as soon as possible. Balancing clients' expectations with potential achievements is the essence of people management, that of avoiding dissonance. The union of populations, faunal space work, and people management must be stress continually.
Exercise: Think about flight distances and migrations ... distance of course, but also time and energy required, distance for vectors to spread disease, and risks of predation. A website that gives distances "as the crow flies" might be of some help and general interest. Type in two place names and you get back straight-line distance, elevations, maps, and directions.
Years ago Dr. Charles Cushwa and others asked many biologists to list the topics needed for effective management. Over a long period they screened and discussed the essentials and omitted those viewed as "nice" to know compared to those essential. These became the factors within "The Procedures", a document used for creating most of the state (US) wildlife data bases and some foreign bases. Johnson and O'Neil (1999) with experience with The Procedures developed a list of factors thought to provide a common understanding for management. For most areas of the US, there are from 500 to 900 species of large wild terrestrial and aquatic fauna. For management (as we have been discussing it), information is needed about each of these that is under active management. Hopefully they are all managed together as a system even though there may be timely emphasis and specific directed allocation of time and money (e.g., due to perceived crises). Efforts are underway to continue developing data and linking many existing information systems. Significant new information has become available. The modern manager will remain amazed by the needs, the progress to date, and the costs. They will respect the past efforts, costs, and limitations, but will continue to develop improved decision-making algorithms and processes to accompany the expanding, yet inadequate, knowledge bases. They will be aware that the lack of information, even preventing it from being collected, may be a strategy for inaction or delays in projects. Everyone is not after timely truth.
Objectives
Objectives both specify needs and help limit the data collections. Limiting systems is the only way to even partial success when the requirements are so numerous, the costs so great, and the time so limiting for some species. While we can ask about the requirements of each species, we know some of the principles of biology and ecology and can deduce much. We do have a priori knowledge. Feigning ignorance (the detached, objective scientific observer) does not serve us well. We can collect information about faunal space, the odds being that the information will be used in decision making about 95% of the species encountered or listed for the area (whatever the list). Making sense of the large number of faunal space factors that can be easily listed is difficult. An ordered list seems needed, even though combinations of ecological forces will probably outweigh most single factors. Organization (a usual rule of which prohibits listing the same item in two or more places) is difficult, for example, for the "evapotranspiration" topic that needs to be related to precipitation, water budgets, temperature, net primary productivity, and pasture slopes, and pond surface-area shapes.
First we develop a concept of habitat as faunal space, then animals as faunal space, then we link "food and cover" as energy, then deal with alpha units of mapped grid areas (10-meters x 10-meters), structures and named elements, start-up conditions and the dynamics or the age class transitions or trends, the functions or services, the management actions (fine-scale (e.g., edges, brushpiles, snags, legacy-trees, stream debris) as well as regional, e.g., riparian vegetation) that are possible, and the secondary effects of each action (full-well knowing there are multiple effects but only time and resources for addressing all of them for every species, easily said but silly to consider). There are practices and "land uses" such as wetland dredging, regional timber cutting, rangeland use, cropland changes, irrigation, and pesticide applications - all faunal space related that need special attention, description, and project-level attention and taskforces. There are special faunal spaces that may as a group be endangered (e.g., a tree species with a disease, a rare plant browned by excessive deer, cave organisms, and those beset by an invasive or exotic species) that require a shift to a regional managerial scale of work and attention.
A most perplexing dimension of modern faunal space management is that the literature is exclusively about terrestrial species. Fisheries workers "cover" the aquatic places. Like grain for quail food requires cropland managed spaces, so are required special spaces for darters, minnows, and amphibians as food for many terrestrial species. We have to manage the waters and their surround. Half of the terrestrial species in the mid-Eastern states have water in their life requirements - egg-laying, nesting, feeding, breeding, etc. The sooner we see streams and ponds as a special faunal space for management, the more successful we will be. New cooperative endeavors and classes with "fisheries-people" will be beneficial to society and its rural resource base.
Herein I have not discussed landscape-scale management. Of interest, it is possible with substantial political power and with the conglomerate enterprise, but objectives are impossible to define, successes will arouse antagonistic groups, and managing the dynamics of the diverse spatial units is unlikely in the landscape of the typical Federal or State Park or of areas of diverse private holdings. The effects of changes on faunal richness and abundance, from the many causes, can be predicted and those then used to explain the changes and increase satisfactions and reduce social entropy. Simulations may be useful in estimating potentials and tracking likely changes that are natural, then adjusting investments so that investments are made at the economic margin. Landscape scale modeling and efforts do give us predictive capabilities and thus ability to shape public expectations. Getting these to match well with the potentials of the land and the annual productivity is a prime managerial function. Laws and regulations can affect the taxes, values, and constraints on land use, thus vegetation and runoff. In the past, I have emphasized these bold techniques as macro-management.
The principles and concepts herein are believe to be responsive to the major needs of faunal resource management within cities. Emphasis, however, is clearly on forests and rural areas. Increasing songbirds and desirable animals in residential and park areas is one dimension; controlling pests and disease vectors and their behaviors is another major need.
The species themselves must be known, all biological and ecological facts and phenomena. When species are perceived to be rare or threatened, then special efforts are needed to know more about them than species with stable populations or those with low value or demand. At least in the past, we have limited work to major game species and we have learned much about analyses and managerial potentials from that now-perceived-by-some as "very limited." We move past all-important basic biology quickly because our emphasis is on management. We have on the Internet and in select state wildlife data bases information on managing individual species as if each were a single system.
Species may be restored by bringing them in from populations that remain abundant or, passively, by creating desirable conditions and awaiting re-entry or sufficient pairs that bring the number to a "viable population." Populations have been lost for many reasons, some of the reasons lost also. Many were pests and predators and a danger to people (e.g., rattlesnakes). They still are! Interest and enthusiasm waxes and wanes in rebuilding carnivore populations depending on the frequency, severity, and costs of attacks and whether they were on a family member. It is inappropriate for managers to minimize the risks and dangers and costs of wild animal populations. Thy have been removed for a reason. The reason has to have changed to assure re-introduction success - a population producing human benefits. A person has only to lose a prized hybrid crop of plants to deer or woodchucks, to lose the family food supply from the garden for the year, or to daily fear attacks on their grandchildren or pets by newly re-introduced and "well-managed" bear, cougar, wolves, or coyotes to be skeptical of some varieties of wildlife management.
It is difficult to be opposed to re-introduction as a general statement for the success of re-introducing the heavily hunted deer and wild turkey in the eastern US is well known. Animals were stocked or brought in and released in sufficient numbers for numbers to increase. Management always implies continual work and involvement. Excessive deer populations in some areas suggest managerial failure in this system maintenance function. I remain strongly opposed, generally, to introducing species into areas where they have never occurred (see my textbook for details). It is now rarely advocated. Work with rare and endangered species is specialized work, requires funding, expertise, and duration far beyond that normally available in state and private efforts. There have been a few remarkable successes. The values or benefits from such populations are, by law, set as unimaginably and infinitely great, thus all costs are justified.
Modern faunal system managers simultaneously shape (1) demand and expectations for the population, (2) the size of the population, and (3) where it lives. We have spent much time and energy analyzing habitats, drawing lines on maps separating things that look significantly different. Now we operate from a new realized reality for species (other than those recognized as endangered since they are unique), a set of concepts that can be turned into faunal-space managerial guidelines:
Structural Conditions of potential classification and analytical use
Further analytical categories that require intensive pre-study decisions on high costs of collection, high variance, changing conditions, and potential use ...if such data had been collected and were of excellent quality
Litter
Duff
Herbaceous Layer
Moss
Flowers
Lichens
Forbs (Grass)
Cactus
Fungi
Roots, Tubers, Underground Plant Parts
Ferns
Shrub Layer
Shrub Size, layers, and closure
Trees
Snags - Decay Class
Seedling <1 inch Dbh
Sapling/pole 1-9 inches Dbh
Small Tree 10-14inches Dbh
Medium Tree 15-19 inches Dbh
Large Tree 20-29 inches Dbh
Giant Tree >= 30 inches Dbh
Mistletoe Brooms/witches' Brooms/broomed Trees
Dead Parts of Live Tree
Hollow Living Trees
Tree Cavities (Far Smaller than Hollow Trees)
Bark (Includes Crevices/fissures); Loose Exfoliating Bark 1.1.14.7 Live Remnant/legacy Trees
Large Live Tree Branches
Fruits/seeds/nuts
Freshwater Riparian and Aquatic Bodies
Water Characteristics (specify whether negative or positive relationship in comments)
Dissolved Oxygen
Water Depth
Dissolved Solids
Water Ph
Water Temperature
Water Velocity
Water Turbidity
Flow (Surface or Subsurface)
Rivers and Streams
Riverine Wetlands
Oxbows
Order and Class
Intermittent
Upper or lower perennial zone
Open Water
Submerged/benthic
Splash Zone/periodically Flooded
In-stream Substrate
Rock and cobble/gravel size class
Sand/mud
Vegetation
Lakes/ponds/reservoirs
Islands - size, circularity, vemal or seasonal flooding
Dune
Lagoon
Marsh
Vegetation coverage
Anthropogenic Disturbances and Elements
The above list was based largely on David H. Johnson and Thomas A. O'Neil Project Managers and Technical Editors September 15. 1999 - Project Briefing Paper "WILDLIFE HABITATS AND SPECIES ASSOCIATIONS IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON Building A Common Understanding For Management, Northwest Habitat Institute, 765 NW 5th St., Corvallis, OR 97339-0855. (541)-753-2199 mail: habitat@nwhi.org.
Deer (as other animals) live in areas. Areas can be mapped. Areas are two-dimensional space. Deer live in an area defined by map latitude and longitude. They also live in a space between ground level and about 7 feet where they stand on their hind feet and reach for food when it has been consumed elsewhere. (They can jump a 9-foot fence but that is rare and we'll ignore it for the present purposes.) Deer live in a three-dimensional volume of latitude bounds, longitude bounds, and height.
Aquatic forms like mink, crayfish, and salamanders evidently live in 3-D spaces.
There are more "dimensions" than the three well-recognized ones of physical space. Deer are a function of, related to, influenced by available energy, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. These are "dimensions" - as real as a short shrub or a tall one. The easily-said phrase "provide food and cover" is a suggestion that is OK for the general public, but for the sophisticated deer hunter or outdoor enthusiast, the "cervid fan" ( the deer are in the family cervidae) the phrase is meaningless. Modern managers rarely use "habitat" because it, too, is too gross, almost meaningless. They use "faunal space", meaning the multidimensional world in which animals, any of them, live. Ecologists know well the papers on the n-dimensional "niche"s; or niche-space. Not that concept needs to be broadened for full meaning within faunal resource management work. Habitat usually means food and cover, but that includes water, boundaries, policy (for example, whether the area is protected by national park laws), dens, length of night (hours), viewing distance and other factors including some 15 essential nutritional components of "food."
"Habitat", as large as its connotations, is an inadequate word for what is going on in the world of the individual animal. A fawn in a bed near its mother or that same fawn in exactly the same bed of its mother is no longer present, is an animal in two entirely different conditions. A deer at the center of a herd on a wind-swept ridge on a winter day is protected from wind. The protection is the same as that provided by a dense clump of white pines. The animals themselves are habitat!
Animals live in a multi-dimensional space; they are a function of many factors. They live in faunal space. The phrase and its use will push us to analyze these factors, gain control over them, and adjust them simultaneously to achieve the full set of benefits that are potential from the animal resource. The modern advanced deer hunter or sportsperson will be notable because they will no longer talk about "habitat" and replace that limited idea with faunal space.
There are only three things that a manager can do with faunal space:
That is true for most of things in wildlife management. It represents a general statement, a concept within general systems theory, and the more general concepts that we have, the better will be our analyses...and our designs. The world of faunal resource management is enormously large. General concepts are essential.
We have to know what we want to do among these three statements about rates, and that requires that we state objectives. Assuming that they have been stated and that demand is a part of the statement, then approximate numbers of animals needed to meet demand can also be stated. We may then decide how many we now have, then estimate the difference between that and the number we need, and if the animals are known to be responsive to changes in their environment, we can invest in tactics to cause the change in abundance that will overcome the difference. Where 100 animals are perceived to be needed, and the estimated population is now 70, then work may begin to cause the improvements that will increase the population by 30 animals...and not one animal more...because of the costs. This is straight-forward marginal analysis in basic economics. (Also note that the manager cannot claim to have produced 100 animals. These are the results of Nature or past managers' work; only the extra production can be properly tallied.) The habitat can be made less favorable and the population will decline (at a cost) or by careful annual work, it can be stabilized. Of course all of these numbers have limits, so when someone claims they need 100 animals, it may be reasonability assumed that they mean from 90 to 110 animals. The population estimate has the same or greater bounds (confidence limits or bounds for the statistical estimate), and expected effects are approximations. The combinations of several probabilities can result in some low probabilities for "success."
Jakinchuk(1982) said of wildlife habitat inventory -- what are the questions and how are the answers used? (Rarely does the use of inventories in wildlife work justify the excessive statistical requirements applied...and the associated costs and risks often involved.) Where are the animals? reflects on the population and its behavior and here it becomes evident that the animals cannot be separated from where they live. Inventory, thus includes the animals and their behaviors (e.g., of the foods present, what are they eating (availability Vs. preference).) Where could they be? (seasonal differences and probability of occurrence) When are they there? What do they need to survive over an extended period (say 100 years at least)? What are the constraints on their expansion? How many are there? What is the range of abundance (perhaps the desired limit will be reached naturally?) and How much space of a particular type do they need to maintain a stated level? What are the consequences of natural catastrophe?
Perhaps these are the questions for inventory. I am not sure. Inventory seem a passive activity. The efforts ahead are to analyze the present faunal space and to increase, stabilize, or decrease it in light of natural processes, the desired population levels, and costs...all of them. Maybe all of that is called inventory. So be it. Inventory is very expensive.
There are several thousand large animals in North America that can be called wildlife. There are several time this many in Africa and Central and South Americas and in the Indo-Chinese parts of the world. Each is unique; each has special requirements. Given the time and cost that have allowed knowledge to accumulate about the white-tailed deer and to realize that an insufficient amount is known about this one species, then the prospects for the others seem remote. A more general approach is needed. In the business world, the new expression is "look for the problem pattern, then solve it for everything." Perhaps this is at the core of the general systems approach
We start by rejecting "habitat" as the appropriate word. We use faunal space and that is described elsewhere.We make an abiotic emphasis since by using the factors that influence all aspects of the environment of the animals we may gain some control over them before they are mixed and integrated into the plants and animals being observed. We can use them as factors in analytical equations (models) that allow us to explain relations, say, between animal abundance and precipitation. This may allow us to predict (having connotations about the future, not just "estimate") the effects of irrigating an area on animals.
Next we adopt a closed system view point and put a boundary around an area (pointing: "that area").
 |
| An old hand-constructed wildlife clearing C-16, Big Levels Wildlife Refuge, 1941. Andropogon in foreground, grapes and sumac at edge of chestnut oaks. |
The population, by definition exists somewhere. Without a boundary, it exists everywhere and this is un-analyzable. Feedback, always in progress, allows us to adjust the boundary later, enlarging or reducing it. The boundary reflects concepts about the context of the general system. Next we realize how indefinite the boundary really is. Watershed boundaries are questionable. Political boundaries for counties are debated. Even surveyed lines can be questioned and GPS work sheds new light on ownerships. Even horizontal Vs topographic or surface area can be questioned. Determining the exact area is critical to estimating density and we run into problems with Areas before we count the first animal and then have to divide animals by area to get the estimate of density. Abundance is the count, density is the count per unit area (typically the hectare with 2.47 hectares per acre), and A*, hereinafter, is the area per animal (typically horizontal hectares per animal). One deer per 15 hectares has more intuitive appeal and tendency to flow into managerial ideas than knowing that there are 0.07 deer per hectare.
| First the boundary |
|---|
|
Area is probably the most important variable, most easily gained, and one most often ignored in order to get to what is perceived to be the science of any wildlife issue. Think of islands of different size. There are density limits. The larger the watershed, potentially the more animals there(SCS art,1959) may be within it, assuming all other conditions are the same. Of course they are not the same and thus we can begin the further analyses. The most devious trick of the manager is to claim animal increases achieved simply by expanding the area claimed (changing the boundary) as that which is managed.
Next, although biomes and types and ecological classification are important, most species will differ more between ages of forest stands or communities than they will between minor differences in community types. Of course desert animals are different that those of a fir forest, but within a region, animals will differ more between major age differences than between stand types. There are too many subtleties and exceptions to try to make the point more precisely. The emphasis: concentrate on the age of communities.
| Age over type |
|---|
Communities are always changing. One of the most important concept of ecology is that of the changes in an area that create conditions in which a new group of plants and animals can flourish, even though the previous ones may find the new conditions (resulting from their existence) unsuitable. Once called succession, there were many connotations and erroneous views of that process. We prefer to simplify it to transitions and recognize that there may be many pathways to the same advanced end state, the old-aged community, the ancient forest, the primitive community, the glacial derelict community, etc. Climax is so-much-debated that it carries no special meaning. Even thought there are many pathways to a common advanced-age community, the end state is predictable (within generally acceptable bounds). The conditions to this state, the intermediate age categories, become very important. These categories of the transition are the entities to which species can be directly related. It is within communities of these types and ages that you find species of interest. Once called seres, these age classes have the conditions for select species. Some species have gross needs and they may be found in several of these categories. Others have very specific needs. They may occur in only one or a few categories. The manager's task is to perpetually provide and assure a stable inventory of such categories if stability is the demand. Otherwise they may be decreased or increased, depending on the objectives of the clients. If the area in the boundary is small, assuring adequate acreages with the proper ages (as in timber rotation) can be very difficult. If impossible, the manager needs to tell the clients as soon as possible. Balancing clients' expectations with potential achievements is the essence of people management, that of avoiding dissonance. The union of populations, faunal space work, and people management must be stress continually.
Nesting
  |
| Grouse nest on Big Levels wildlife area, 1941 (same nest) |
Working with the Objective Equation may provide additional insights in how to use the above information.
Exercise: Think about flight distances and migrations ... distance of course, but also time and energy required, distance for vectors to spread disease, and risks of predation. A website that gives distances "as the crow flies" might be of some help and general interest. Type in two place names and you get back straight-line distance, elevations, maps, and directions.
Robert H. Giles, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 1993
Abstract: Wildlife managers see limitations to conventional watershed-based planning and management decision-making. Computer capabilities now allow alternatives in habitat analysis and management to be considered. For the future, we suggest that a concept of unique nearness sequences will be useful in faunal system management. The concept is grounded in the following: (1) every spot (1 m2) in the field is unique; (2) every spot is related to adjacent or nearby phenomena; and (3) every spot changes with reasonably predictive sequences over time. Models of the ecology, energetics, esthetics, and economics of each site provide the basis for goal-seeking systems for regions, states, and provinces. Such systems when developed with dynamic report preparation, become planning systems and decision-aiding systems, making static plans passe.
Because of growing concern about the many meanings of once-familiar and agreed-upon words used by participants in conferences such as this, we wish to build a brief conceptual structure. We wish to be understood and not misunderstood. We do not have time to describe why we reject certain alternatives or to list support for our brief paper. We start by limiting wildlife to fauna, only those macroscopic. and only those for which at least two methods are known by which the population can be influenced by managers. Thus this paper is only about manageable macrnfauna, both terrestrial and aquatic.
Next, we use faunal space in a way implied by Hutchinson (19 ) who described the ecological hyperspace. We think that the word "habitat" was once useful, and still is useful in some groups. We suggest that it can be replaced by a multidimensional view that includes the familiar variables of area, forage, stem and plant density, exposed soil, foliage layers and their density, and many others of the "surround" of the individual animal. There are already enough variables named to convince anyone that an animal is a function of, influenced by many variables, thus lives in a multidimensional space. We think the physical and biotic elements of habitat are important and have been stressed. We wish to emphasize, however, that an animal is also a function of the presence of another animal, examples being wolves in a pack contra the singular wolf or singular fox kit compared to a litter of four. We also wish to emphasize that a manager of a migratory animal, short-distance (e.g., deer moving over 2 farm ownerships) or long-distance migrants (e.g., the neo-tropical migrants), are very much a function of several unique sets of physical and biotic factors including the population itself (i.e., the surrounding flock with which it migrates). An animal and a population is a function of past environments (e.g., calcium availability 3 years ago) and past populations (within which we include predators in the same way we tally stems or bunches of grass). In summary, we no longer think "habitat" is theoretically or practically useful and argue for use of the concept of n-dimensional faunal space.
Next, we suggest that, at least at a minimum, wildlife workers study the three dimensional physical space within which populations live. Some are almost A exclusively upper canopy feeders; others live mostly in the top 7 cm of soil. The relevant faunal space is a volume deep into the ground and high above the vegetation canopy. Ignoring plant roots is as silly (unwise) for the habitat analyst as ignoring the volume within which many of the prey-base of the macrofauna live.
We have observed the species-area curve relations developed by many workers, i.e., the relationship of
S=cAz
where S is the number of species on an island, a proportionality constant, A the area and z a rate phenomenon. We suspect that the variance reported in values of z may be related to the faunal volume and area edge available to animals, not to map area. Fagan et al. (19 ) found strong habitat differences within an area influenced species numbers. Giles (1978, in prep.) has described the "tunnel" at land use edges, a rectilinear volume with length, width, height, and quality --a measure correlated with and called by some "edge effect."
As we have studied these actual, three-dimensional volumes and conceptual volumes, we have become aware that every spot on the land of Earth may be unique. We realize there are about 1.52 x 1014 m2 of land on Earth. If we postulate a mere 200 soil types, 8 aspects, 6 land forms, 6 slope classes or categories, 20 elevation classes, 20 rainfall classes, 150 land use classes, we have more than enough unique classes into which to fit potentially every square meter. Of course there will be duplicates; but of course we have listed only 9 discriminating variables. We suspect there are at least 50. (There are 1.12 x 1015 classes available if we use 50 variables each having only 2 conditions, not 150 ( as shown above.) These numbers are mere arithmetic to ma~e two simple points. One, is that each spot on Earth (we think a meter is as far as we need to go) is potentially unique. To group"spots" causes loss of information about sites. Point 2, computer capability now exists to handle all such spots. We no longer need the summary statistic! We no longer need to group and classify. The computer has changed all of that. We may want to compare things with old groupings and some people may want or insist upon "big pictures" and "bottom lines" but we are now of the view that every spot, every square meter, every subunit of a wild faunal management system should be viewed as unique.
A particular consequence of this view is that we must reject our personal long-held view that the watershed is an appropriate planning and descriptive unit. It is a unit; it can be good for some purposes, but it is not longer the best or most desirable unit. Watershed analysts have long known about the non-replicatability of watershed studies. Each is unique. There is over-aggregation within such a unit. A high point in a watershed does not have the same characteristics as a low point. A southern aspect has few of the hydrologic properties of a northern aspect. We believe each unit, each "finite element" of a watershed needs to be treated separately. The cell size is important, of course, and a function of many factors (those typical in any land use sampling design). We think watershed planning is an improvement over other types of planning but managers should not be trapped by it before engaging the land cell or volume.
If it is not possible for a person to accept such a view, then surely every volume having a meter-base must be unique!
Before we venture any further, let us suggest the implication of this simple view of how habitats can be analyzed, evaluated, and managed for the future. We do not go into detail, only suggest that
Contiguity
Faunal system managers understand edges better than anyone except those who work with tile. Evident in the field, is that plants in each spot of the land (whatever the scale, hectare to meter) are related to the factors in the spot (hereinafter called the map "cell" but meaning the total column, the volume above and below the mapped land surface). They also know that they are related to the moisture and erosiion from the cell that is at a higher elevation, the wind temperature from the side, the pollution creeping uphill (Giles ). What is measured in ecology classes "in the quadrat" is a scant image of the operational factors for a plant or animal. (It is a small wonder that explanatory equations using conventional within~cell observations have yielded the explanatory-descriptive power that they have!) The within-cell factors pale in influence to nearby cell factors and to differences in sequences of events within cells.
We have observed from our first geographic information system work in 1969 (Fales 1969) and that in 19 (Hoar ) that overlay mapping such as advocated by McHarg ( ) is useful. We observed "weights" included in such systems (as if adding several maps of one factor) were useful. We have worked with exclusion mapping with Boolean limits, suggesting where a species could not occur because conditions were limiting or unsuitable. These were a type of model but we have seen and done cell-specific modeling. By this we mean developing a computer program with non-linear equations and conditional statements that take many mapped data sets as inputs and create a new map of some phenomenon (e.g., probable soil erosion from a cell, suitability of the cell for an animal species, probable game harvest, or probable recreational sightings).
We are of the view that, at least for future maps, every cell adjacent to each map cell should be examined and factors operative from the edge cells should modify the interior-cell condition. In practice, the computer selects a cell, studies all contiguous cells, re-computes, then moves to the next cell in sequence and repeats the study... usually for thousands of cells. The result is a cell having a factor (like presence of water or species x) or being adjacent to a cell with the named factor.We think contiguity analyses can shed new light on within-cell phenomena. Evident outside-cell phenomena of interest are roadway pollution, animal territory, riparian influence (Giles and Nielsen ( ), livestock influence, and human noise.
Nearness Add 2-3-4 cell groups idea.
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| Figure 1. Map cell B is contiguous to cell C but whether call A is contiguous to all C (or, if so, should its data be treated in the same way as that of cell B) has been a problem in some analyses. |
We once worked on direct solar radiation (Lawrence ) to a surface cell but, now seek to study that radiationas it may be influenced by intermediate mountains. The solar radiation received by the plants in a cell is not only a function of its date and latitude but by topography kilometers away.
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| Figure 2. Not contiguity but nearness to a feature may be an important factor to be mapped, cell by cell. Off-site or out-of-cell factors may be more influential in explaining the variance in some mappable factor than within-cell factors usually analyzed. |
The literature on "landscape ecology" has grown rapidly. We applaud only its practical contribution to faunal systems management which is that manageable wild macrofauna in a spatial volume are a function of things contiguous and things far away, things on nearness sequences. Managers remember that permutations of things are all possible sequences of combinations of things and is computed as n! Where n is 20, then the permutations are 2.4 x 1018. In faunal systems work for over 70 years people have discussed patchiness, interspersion, fragmentation, and edge relations, all of which are correlated. All are expression of why one cell is better or worse than another for a species. It is better (or not) due to its surroundings, things outside the cell, and some are strongly related the more near the cell; others conditional (if present, then the animal can exist); and some negatively related (e.g., pollution emitting sources, nesting sites). We are of the view that nearby out-side-the-cell phenomena observations may explain more of the variance within animal populations (as of typical interest) than carefully, costly made within-cell, site observations.
Cumulative
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| Figure 3. All conditions in cells surrounding C may be accumulated and made a new mappable factor for cell C, then the computer instructed to move to cell D to repeat the operation (and similarly for all cells; the "roving-window" concept). |
Landscape ecology measures (Forman and Godron 19 ) tend to take on relevance to faunal systems when a map cell (the hypervolume discussed above) is seen as the topic of interest. Outside-cell conditions can be analyzed as contiguous, cumulative, or distant i.e., at various places on a continuum. Faunal space is analyzed and some cases evaluated, i.e., characterized for its value (at least relative value) to a species or taxon being managed. We suggest that neither analysis nor evaluation be done without there being a role for such evaluation within a planning system.
A planning system is a dynamic computer system for producing reports. Once called "plans", those reports are now conceived as being newspapers, used but discarded tomorrow. Plans, these "dusty books on the shelf", are no longer relevant now that computer capabilities exist for word processing, mapping, analyses, expert systems, and multimedia presentations from CD-ROMs. The faunal space analyses, we believe, should emerge from clear needs within the planning system design. Specific information is denoted as needed. Field observers collect the data, analysts work on it and entries are made to the system. Because all parts of a well-designed system are tightly linked (as if itself is an ecosystem), then any change may cause changes throughout the system. A report today may differ from that tomorrow in any (or all) parts of the system, not just some numerical changes in a table or a change in a few map cells in one of 25 maps in a document.
The planning system is based, as we currently are designing one, the interactive economics, ecologic, esthetic, and energetic components. The key ecologic components are atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. The overriding paradigm is that of "general systems theory". The more we work with and study the planning system, the more we realize it can (and we think "should") become the core of the faunal system agency or company, the central theme or organizing pattern. We think that people's needs and wants are achieved in space, the same places where wild animals live. To understand them both, requires detailed analyses and then use of these analyses to create a sequence of actions needed to achieve optimum conditions. Faunal resource systems include maps, but that is merely a way to depict a place or space where a resource exists. A resource is a four-factor entity -- valued energy (or matter), time, space, and variety (Watt 19 Odum ). Planning systems that include the elements we have listed can serve faunal resource management systems well in the future.
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