Past is prologue: historic landcover patterns predict contemporary grassland loss in the U.S. Northern Great Plains
Context Grasslands of the North American Great Plains are among the world’s most imperiled ecosystems. Determining landscapes at risk of grassland loss will benefit grassland conservation programs by enabling prioritization of parcels for acquisition. Objectives We hypothesized that gradients in the...
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Published in: | Landscape ecology 2022-12, Vol.37 (12), p.3011-3027 |
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Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | Context
Grasslands of the North American Great Plains are among the world’s most imperiled ecosystems. Determining landscapes at risk of grassland loss will benefit grassland conservation programs by enabling prioritization of parcels for acquisition.
Objectives
We hypothesized that gradients in the amount of grass in local landscapes resulting from past conversion would be a useful predictor of future conversion. We developed simple, intuitive models predicting grassland conversion across the United States northern Great Plains.
Methods
We used the grassland/herbaceous, pasture/hay, and emergent herbaceous wetland classes from the National Land Cover Database to evaluate grassland loss from 2001 to 2016. We classified the amount of grass in 13.2-km
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landscapes in 2001 into percentage bins and used generalized additive models to relate these values to the total and proportion of grassland lost, by percentage bin. We applied models to landcover data to create spatial surfaces predicting conversion.
Results
Area of grass lost was highest in 40–60% grass bins, except for heavily cropped states, where highest losses occurred in 10–20% grass bins. Percentage of grass in local landscapes was generally a strong predictor of state-level total grassland loss and proportion of grassland lost. Predicted conversion for remaining grasslands varied within and among states.
Conclusion
The amount of grass in local landscapes can be a useful indicator of grassland conversion. Our simple models complement species distribution models used to guide conservation in the region. Mechanistic models of conversion can be improved by including amount of grass in local landscapes. |
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ISSN: | 0921-2973 1572-9761 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10980-022-01528-3 |