Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T12:25:36.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adaptive management plans rooted in quantitative ecological predictions of ecosystem processes: putting monitoring data to practical use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2021

Christian Damgaard Open the ORCID record for Christian Damgaard [Opens in a new window]
Christian Damgaard*
Affiliation:
Bioscience, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, 8600 Silkeborg, Denmark
*
Corresponding author: Professor Christian Damgaard, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

The adoption of adaptive management plans has been advocated in order to ensure the most effective management of natural habitats. Here, it is demonstrated how a hierarchical structural equation model that is fitted to temporal ecological monitoring data from a number of sites may be used to generate quantitative local ecological predictions and how these predictions may form the basis of adaptive management plans. Local ecological predictions will be made for the cover of the dwarf shrub cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix) on Danish wet heathlands, which is an indicator of the conservation status of wet heathlands under different management scenarios. Based on a realistic example, the model predictions conclude that grazing by livestock on wet heathlands with a relatively low cover of cross-leaved heath cannot be recommended as the only management practice. Generally, ecological monitoring data may be used to generate quantitative and credible local adaptive management plans where uncertainty is taken into account.

Keywords

adaptive management plansbiodiversitychanging environmentconservation plansErica tetralixhierarchical structural equation modelwet heathlands
Type
Research Paper
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 27 - 32
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Foundation for Environmental Conservation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahms, B, DiPietro, D, Graffis, A, Hollander, A (2017) Managing biodiversity under climate change: challenges, frameworks, and tools for adaptation. Biodiversity and Conservation 26: 2277–2293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, RJ, Ruppert, D, Stefanski, LA, Crainiceanu, C (2006) Measurement Error in Nonlinear Models: A Modern Perspective. Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damgaard, C (2012) Trend analyses of hierarchical pin-point cover data. Ecology 93: 1269–1274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damgaard, C (2019a) A critique of the space-for-time substitution practice in community ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 34: 416–421.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damgaard, C (2019b) Spatio-temporal structural equation modeling in a hierarchical Bayesian framework: what controls wet heathland vegetation? Ecosystems 22: 152–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damgaard, C (2020) Measurement uncertainty in ecological and environmental models. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 35: 871–873.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damgaard, C, Nielsen, KE, Strandberg, M (2017) The effect of nitrogen deposition on the vegetation of wet heathlands. Plant Ecology 218: 373–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damgaard, C, Strandberg, M, Kjær, C, Sørensen, PB (2019) Use ‘risk of system failure’ rather than additive aggregation methods of indicators when assessing habitat quality. Ecological Indicators 107: 105564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damgaard, C, Strandberg, MT, Kristiansen, SM, Nielsen, KE, Bak, JL (2014) Is Erica tetralix abundance on wet heathlands controlled by nitrogen deposition or soil acidification? Environmental Pollution 184: 1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damgaard, C, Thomsen, MP, Borchsenius, F, Nielsen, KE, Strandberg, M (2013) The effect of grazing on biodiversity in coastal dune heathlands. Journal of Coast Conservation 17: 663–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damgaard, C, Weiner, J (2021) The need for alternative plant species interaction models. Journal of Plant Ecology 14: 771–780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, KP, Augustine, DJ, Monroe, AP, Derner, JD, Aldridge, CL (2020) Adaptive rangeland management benefits grassland birds utilizing opposing vegetation structure in the shortgrass steppe. Ecological Applications 30: e02020.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, TP, Jackson, ST, House, JI, Prentice, IC, Mace, GM (2011) Beyond predictions: biodiversity conservation in a changing climate. Science 332: 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EU (1992) Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora [www document]. URL http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1992:206:0007:0050:EN:PDF Google Scholar
Fernández-Giménez, ME, Augustine, DJ, Porensky, LM, Wilmer, H, Derner, JD, Briske, DD, Stewart, MO (2019) Complexity fosters learning in collaborative adaptive management. Ecology and Society 24: 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grace, JB (2021) Instrumental variable methods in structural equation models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 12: 1148–1157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, M (2008) Management of Natura 2000 Habitats. 4010 Northern Atlantic Wet Heaths with Erica tetralix. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.Google Scholar
IPBES (2019) Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. ES Brondizio, J Settele, S Díaz, HT Ngo (eds). Bonn, Germany: IPBES Secretariat.Google Scholar
Jung, M, Rowhani, P, Scharlemann, JPW (2019) Impacts of past abrupt land change on local biodiversity globally. Nature Communications 10: 5474.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lykke, IMØ, Strandberg, M, Nielsen, KE, Barfod, A, Damgaard, C (2015) Strukturelle ligningsmodeller som beslutningsgrundlag indenfor naturvaltningen – et eksempel fra pleje af klokkelyng på våde heder. Silkeborg, Denmark: DCE.Google Scholar
Miljøstyrelsen (n.d.) National naturbeskyttelse. Miljøstyrelsen [www document]. URL https://mst.dk/natur-vand/natur/national-naturbeskyttelse/ Google Scholar
Muff, S, Riebler, A, Held, L, Rue, H, Saner, P (2015) Bayesian analysis of measurement error models using integrated nested Laplace approximations. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics) 64: 231–252.Google Scholar
Nielsen, KE, Bak, JL, Bruus, M, Damgaard, C, Ejrnæs, R, Fredshavn, JR et al. (2012) Naturdata. Dk – Danish monitoring program of vegetation and chemical plant and soil data from non-forested terrestrial habitat types. Biodiversity & Ecology 4: 375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nygaard, B, Nielsen, KE, Damgaard, C, Bladt, J, Ejrnæs, R (2014) Fagligt grundlag for vurdering af bevaringsstatus for terrestriske naturtyper. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitet, Institut for Bioscience.Google Scholar
Rinella, MJ, Strong, DJ, Vermeire, LT (2020) Omitted variable bias in studies of plant interactions. Ecology 101: e03020.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strandberg, M, Damgaard, C, Degn, HJ, Bak, JL, Nielsen, KE (2012) Evidence for acidification-driven ecosystem collapse of Danish wet heathland. Ambio 41: 393–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Timmermann, A, Damgaard, C, Strandberg, MT, Svenning, J-C (2015) Pervasive early 21st-century vegetation changes across danish semi-natural ecosystems: more losers than winners and a shift towards competitive, tall-growing species. Journal of Applied Ecology 52: 21–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westgate, MJ, Likens, GE, Lindenmayer, DB (2013) Adaptive management of biological systems: a review. Biological Conservation 158: 128–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, BK, Szaro, RC, Shapiro, CD (2009) Adaptive Management: The US Department of the Interior Technical Guide. Washington, DC, USA: US Department of the Interior.Google Scholar
Wolfram, S (2020) Mathematica. 12.1.1.0 ed. Champaign, IL, USA: Wolfram Research, Inc.Google Scholar
Yanai, RD, See, CR, Campbell, JL (2018) Current practices in reporting uncertainty in ecosystem ecology. Ecosystems 21: 971–981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar