Matthew Koehler

Loss of Predators in Northern Hemisphere Affecting Ecosystem Health

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The entire report, Large Predators Limit Herbivore Densities in Northern Forest Ecosystems, is available here.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 9, 2012) — A survey on the loss in the Northern Hemisphere of large predators, particularly wolves, concludes that current populations of moose, deer, and other large herbivores far exceed their historic levels and are contributing to disrupted ecosystems. The research, published recently by scientists from Oregon State University, examined 42 studies done over the past 50 years.

It found that the loss of major predators in forest ecosystems has allowed game animal populations to greatly increase, crippling the growth of young trees and reducing biodiversity. This also contributes to deforestation and results in less carbon sequestration, a potential concern with climate change.

“These issues do not just affect the United States and a few national parks,” said William Ripple, an OSU professor of forestry and lead author of the study. “The data from Canada, Alaska, the Yukon, Northern Europe and Asia are all showing similar results. There’s consistent evidence that large predators help keep populations of large herbivores in check, with positive effects on ecosystem health.”

Densities of large mammalian herbivores were six times greater in areas without wolves, compared to those in which wolves were present, the researchers concluded. They also found that combinations of predators, such as wolves and bears, can create an important synergy for moderating the size of large herbivore populations.

“Wolves can provide food that bears scavenge, helping to maintain a healthy bear population,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus at OSU and co-author of the study. “The bears then often prey on young moose, deer or elk — in Yellowstone more young elk calves are killed by bears than by wolves, coyotes and cougars combined.” In Europe, the coexistence of wolves with lynx also resulted in lower deer densities than when wolves existed alone.”

In recent years, OSU researchers have helped lead efforts to understand how major predators help to reduce herbivore population levels, improve ecosystem function and even change how herbivores behave when they feel threatened by predation — an important aspect they call the “ecology of fear.”

“In systems where large predators remain, they appear to have a major role in sustaining the diversity and productivity of native plant communities, thus maintaining healthy ecosystems,” said Beschta. “When the role of major predators is more fully appreciated, it may allow managers to reconsider some of their assumptions about the management of wildlife.”

In Idaho and Montana, hundreds of wolves are now being killed in an attempt to reduce ranching conflicts and increase game herd levels. The new analysis makes clear that the potential beneficial ecosystem effects of large predators is far more pervasive, over much larger areas, than has often been appreciated.

It points out how large predators can help maintain native plant communities by keeping large herbivore densities in check, allow small trees to survive and grow, reduce stream bank erosion, and contribute to the health of forests, streams, fisheries and other wildlife.

It also concludes that human hunting, due to its limited duration and impact, is not effective in preventing hyper-abundant densities of large herbivores. This is partly “because hunting by humans is often not functionally equivalent to predation by large, wide-ranging carnivores such as wolves,” the researchers wrote in their report.

“More studies are necessary to understand how many wolves are needed in managed ecosystems,” Ripple said. “It is likely that wolves need to be maintained at sufficient densities before we see their resulting effects on ecosystems.”

“The preservation or recovery of large predators may represent an important conservation need for helping to maintain the resiliency of northern forest ecosystems,” the researchers concluded, “especially in the face of a rapidly changing climate.”

Slug Life: Effects of Forest Land Management on Terrestrial Mollusks

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The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.  They have just released this new literature review summarizing the effects of logging, road building and burning on snails and slugs, which was funded by the Forest Service/BLM Interagency Special Status and Sensitive Species Program.

Summary:
Snails and slugs are essential components of forest ecosystems. They decompose forest litter, recycle nutrients, build soils, and provide food and calcium for birds, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, and invertebrates. Although mollusks have been a crucial part of the ecology of temperate forests for millennia, recent loss and fragmentation of natural habitats due to clearcut logging, road-building, and altered fire regime have resulted in both extinction and extinction risk for many mollusk species (e.g., Curry et al. 2008). Mollusks (including aquatic species) represent 20% of all threatened animals, and 37% of known animal extinctions since 1600 A.D. (Seddon 1998 in Dunk et al. 2004). In an era where the extinction rate is an estimated 400 times the natural rate (reviewed in Werner & Raffa 2000), it is important for land managers to take mollusks into consideration when developing or re-evaluating strategies for managing forests ecosystems to achieve forest health and biodiversity conservation goals.

Key findings of the review include:
•    While some level of exposure in the physical environment is tolerated by certain mollusks, most species are extremely sensitive to temperature and moisture extremes.
•    Research suggests that the majority of snails and slugs are dependent on litter from deciduous trees and have higher abundances in multispecies forests with strong broadleaf components. Additionally, mollusks in deciduous forests appear to rebound from disturbance more quickly than in coniferous forests.
•    Forests with old-growth characteristics supply microhabitat and microclimate conditions capable of supporting a diversity of mollusks, and forest age is often positively correlated with mollusk richness and abundance.
•    Numerous studies stress the importance of refugia in gastropod recolonization potential and community resilience following forest disturbance. Since land mollusks are small animals with limited mobility and dispersal capabilities, the maintenance of refugia in disturbed habitat is particularly important for this group. Refugia should include logs, snags, fallen branches, and other forms of coarse woody debris, as well as areas with thick leaf-litter. Woody debris and litter provide islands of habitat, food, and protection from microclimatic extremes, increasing species’ tolerance of temporarily inhospitable environments.
•    Research suggests that in order to reduce microclimate extremes and protect gastropods, partial cuts should be favored over clearcuts, aggregated (group) retention over dispersed retention or thinning, and larger group retention over smaller group retention. In particular, harvesting with large group retention helps to maintain pre-harvest boreal gastropod assemblages and will likely conserve boreal gastropod species if used as a tool for biodiversity management.
•    Fragmented habitat limits the dispersal and post-disturbance recolonization potential of gastropods. Tracts of intact forest and connected groups of old trees help provide dispersal corridors for gastropods and can lead to significant increases in the survival of disturbance-sensitive species.
•    Research suggests that techniques that minimize soil compaction and damage to (or removal of) the organic layer favor survival of gastropods. For example, Timberjacks have been found to cause less damage to the organic mat and resident invertebrate populations than feller bunchers, single-grip harvesters, and grapple skidders.
•    Due to the tendency of mollusks to avoid non-vegetated and/or dry environments, even narrow, unpaved roads with low traffic densities are barriers to the dispersal of mollusks.
•    Numerous studies have found negative and long-lasting responses of gastropods to fire, including population extirpation and reductions in abundance and species richness. Small burns surrounded by unburned plots have been most successful at maintaining gastropod community structure. Although there is little information comparing gastropod responses to differences in burn severity and frequency, it is presumed that a fire regime involving low-intensity burns at infrequent fire-return intervals (>5 years) would best maintain gastropod communities.

Download the entire literature review here.

Here Comes the Sun, There Goes the Mojave

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Over the past few months, this blog has explored some of the differences between the ways smaller, grassroots non-profit conservation organizations go about their campaigns compared with the actions taken (or not taken) by the largest, most well-funded conservation groups in America. We’ve covered this dynamic as it relates to logging, lawsuits and collaboration…but not how it impacts solar energy development on public lands.

This weekend, the LA Times took at how one smaller grassroots group – the Wildlands Conservancy – working their tails off to protect southern California’s Mojave Desert feels abandoned by many of the biggest, and best known, conservation groups in the country.

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Calif. — April Sall gazed out at the Mojave Desert flashing past the car window and unreeled a story of frustration and backroom dealings. Her small California group, the Wildlands Conservancy, wanted to preserve 600,000 acres of the Mojave. The group raised $45 million, bought the land and deeded it to the federal government.

The conservancy intended that the land be protected forever. Instead, 12 years after accepting the largest land gift in American history, the federal government is on the verge of opening 50,000 acres of that bequest to solar development. Even worse, in Sall’s view, the nation’s largest environmental organizations are scarcely voicing opposition. Their silence leaves the conservancy and a smattering of other small environmental organizations nearly alone in opposing energy development across 33,000 square miles of desert land.

“We got dragged into this because the big groups were standing on the sidelines and we were watching this big conservation legacy practically go under a bulldozer,” said Sall, the organization’s conservation director. “We said, ‘We can’t be silent anymore.’ “

Read the entire LA Times article here.

Conservation in the Real World: Suckling responds to Kareiva

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Thanks to Sharon for posting the article about Peter Kareiva’s research and thoughts, which recently appeared on Greenwire, as well as linking to Conservation in the Anthropocene, written by Kareiva, together with Robert Lalasz and Michelle Marvier.   The comments section quickly filled up with some great perspectives.  Regular commenter “TreeC123” highlighted the fact that the Breakthrough Journal invited Kierán Suckling, with the Center for Biological Diversity, to provide a response to the piece by Kareiva et al titled Conservation in the Real World.  Below are snips:

Had the article been published a century ago, the author’s decision to frame the environmental movement through a critique of Emerson (1803-1882), Hawthorne (1804-1864), Thoreau (1817-1862) and Muir (1838-1914) might have made sense. But alleged weaknesses of these dead white men is an entirely inadequate anchor for an essay that bills itself as a rethinking of contemporary environmentalism. Indeed, the only 20th century environmentalist mentioned in the essay is the novelist and essayist Ed Abbey. It is frankly bizarre that Kareiva et al.’s depiction of environmentalists is not based on NRDC, the Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited, Environment America, 350.org, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, or indeed, any environmental group at all.

Bizarre, but necessary: Kareiva et al.’s “conservationist” straw man would have fallen to pieces had they attempted to base it on the ongoing work of actual conservation groups.

Consider their take on wilderness. The straw man is constructed by telling us (without reference to an actual conservation group, of course) that “the wilderness ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by humankind.” Then the authors smugly knock it down with the shocking revelation that “The wilderness so beloved by conservationists — places ‘untrammeled by man’ — never existed.”

Do Kareiva et al. expect readers to believe that conservation groups are unaware that American Indians and native Alaskans lived in huge swaths of what are now designated wilderness areas? Or that they mysteriously failed to see the cows, sheep, bridges, fences, fire towers, fire suppression and/or mining claims within the majority of the proposed wilderness areas they have so painstakingly walked, mapped, camped in, photographed, and advocated for? It is not environmentalists who are naïve about wilderness; it is Kareiva et al. who are naïve about environmentalists. Environmental groups have little interest in the “wilderness ideal” because it has no legal, political or biological relevance when it comes to creating or managing wilderness areas. They simply want to bring the greatest protections possible to the lands which have been the least degraded….

At a time when conservationists need honest, hard-headed reassessment of what works and what needs changing, Kareiva et al. offer little more than exaggerations, straw-man arguments and a forced optimism that too often crosses the line into denial. There are plenty of real biodiversity recovery stories to tell, but to learn from them, we have to take off the blinders of sweeping generalizations and pay attention to the details and complexities of real-world conservation work. That’s the breakthrough we need to survive the Anthropocene.

Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral

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I’ve been down and out with the crud this week, so some items I’ve been meaning to post have been stacking up.  Researchers from Europe and the United States have ‘collaborated’ on a new study titled, “Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral.”  Below is the abstract and a snipped portion from the study.

Abstract
Owing to the peculiarities of forest net primary production humans would appropriate ca. 60% of the global increment of woody biomass if forest biomass were to produce 20% of current global primary energy supply. We argue that such an increase in biomass harvest would result in younger forests, lower biomass pools, depleted soil nutrient stocks and a loss of other ecosystem functions. The proposed strategy is likely to miss its main objective, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, because it would result in a reduction of biomass pools that may take decades to centuries to be paid back by fossil fuel substitution, if paid back at all. Eventually, depleted soil fertility will make the production unsustainable and require fertilization, which in turn increases GHG emissions due to N2O emissions. Hence, large-scale production of bioenergy from forest biomass is neither sustainable nor GHG neutral.

Environmental consequences
Homogeneous young stands with a low biomass resulting from bioenergy harvest are less likely to serve as habitat for species that depend on structural complexity. It is possible that succession following disturbance can lead to young stands that have functional complexity analogous to that of old forests; however, this successional pathway would likely occur only under natural succession. A lower structural complexity, and removal of understory species, is expected to result in a loss of forest biodiversity and function. It would reverse the trend towards higher biomass of dead wood (i.e. the Northwest Forest Plan in the United States) to maintain the diversity of xylobiontic species.

Cumulative impacts of bioenergy-related management activities that modify vegetation, soil and hydro- logic conditions are likely to influence erosion rates and flooding and lead to increased annual runoff and fish habitat degradation of streams. Young uniform stands with low compared to high standing biomass have less aesthetic value for recreation and are less efficient in avalanche control and slope stabilization in mountains owing to larger and more frequent cutting. A potential advantage is that younger forests with shorter rotations offer opportunities for assisted migration, although there is great uncertainty in winners and losers (species, provenances, genotypes) in a future climate. Plantations, however, largely contribute to pathogen spread, such as rust disease.

Forests offer several important ecosystem services in addition to biomass and some would be jeopardized by the bioenergy-associated transition from high to low standing biomass. Agriculture provides a visible example for abandoning most ecosystem services except biomass production; communities in intensive agricultural regions often rely on (nearby) forested water sheds for drinking water, recreation and offsetting GHG emissions from intensive agriculture.

David Letterman’s Own Private Wilderness

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We’ve certainly discussed and debated the proposed Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act from Montana’s Senator Max Baucus on this site before. However, a new article in today’s Great Falls Tribune covers one aspect of this issue that we definitely haven’t discussed before.

You’ll have to read the entire article to more fully understand the issue, but the general gist is that in Teton County, Montana – which includes much of the Rocky Mountain Front landscape – old public County Road No. 380 was unilaterally declared private in 1988, which closed off public access to not only state lands, but also portions of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in the Deep Creek area.  Today, old County Road No. 380 terminates near a large horse barn on land owned by Late Show host David Letterman.  As the Great Falls Tribune reports:

What makes the fight over old County Road No. 380 unique is that it accesses public land that abuts the proposed 17,000-acre “Deep Creek Addition” to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex contained in Sen. Max Baucus’ “Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.”  If Baucus’ bill passes and becomes law, the new federally designated wilderness area would be inaccessible from the east.

Anderson pointed out that the Heritage Act’s supporters have promoted the measure with assurances that it would maintain access for hunters and recreationists. Anderson said if old County Road No. 380 isn’t reopened to the public, only one landowner will have access to that new wilderness — Late Night talk show host David Letterman — who owns the only piece of private land adjacent to wilderness proposed by the Heritage Act.

Toward an Era of Restoration in Ecology: Successes, Failures, and Opportunities Ahead

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Given the many discussions we’ve had on this blog concerning the top of restoration, this new research from Katharine N. Suding, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley should be of great interest to readers.  The title of the paper is “Toward an Era of Restoration in Ecology: Successes, Failures, and Opportunities Ahead” (PDF copy here).  Below is a teaser from the Abstract (emphasis added). – mk

Abstract
As an inevitable consequence of increased environmental degradation and anticipated future environmental change, societal demand for ecosystem restoration is rapidly increasing. Here, I evaluate successes and failures in restoration, how science is informing these efforts, and ways to better address decision-making and policy needs. Despite the multitude of restoration projects and wide agreement that evaluation is a key to future progress, comprehensive evaluations are rare. Based on the limited available information, restoration outcomes vary widely. Cases of complete recovery are frequently characterized by the persistence of species and abiotic processes that permit natural regeneration. Incomplete recovery is often attributed to a mixture of local and landscape constraints, including shifts in species distributions and legacies of past land use. Lastly, strong species feedbacks and regional shifts in species pools and climate can result in little to no recovery. More forward-looking paradigms, such as enhancing ecosystem services and increasing resilience to future change, are exciting new directions that need more assessment. Increased evidence-based evaluation and cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer will better inform a wide range of critical restoration issues such as how to prioritize sites and interventions, include uncertainty in decision making, incorporate temporal and spatial dependencies, and standardize outcome assessments. As environmental policy increasingly embraces restoration, the opportunities have never been greater.

Flathead NF wants to cut down 270 of the biggest, best larch for seeds

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Forest activists at Montana’s Swan View Coalition are calling BS on the FS over the Flathead National Forest’s plans to cut down 270 of the biggest, genetically best western larch trees remaining on the forest in order to, get this, collect seed cones.  Yep, that right, while the federal government could put a man on the moon 43 years ago, apparently the only way to collect western larch cones in 2012 is to chop down large diameter western larch trees up to 28″ in diameter and up to 200 years old.

Of course, as the Swan View Coalition points out, the Forest Service in Oregon seems to have no problem collecting western larch cones through the use of a crane to easily and safely pick larch cones, while letting the big, old larch trees live to see another day…or another century or two.   Heck, the Forest Service even has this nice little slideshow showing larch cone collection on Oregon’s Ochoco National Forest.

You can learn more about this proposed project by visiting the Swan View Coalition’s website, where you’ll find links to the Flathead National Forest’s press release, as well as a copy of Swan View Coalition’s comment letter to the Forest Service.   SVC is encouraging people to send their own comments into the Flathead National Forest through email or by writing: Flathead National Forest, 650 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell, MT 59901.

Mature & Old-growth Forests Hold Keys to Adapting to Climate Change

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The following press release and article come from the Geos Insitute. – mk

Ashland, Oregon – Scientists released new findings today on the importance of mature and old-growth 
forests in preparing the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southwest Oregon and northern California for global 
climate disruptions. Published in the January edition of The Natural Areas Journal (Volume 32: 65-74)
by the Natural Areas Association, the study calls on regional land managers to protect mature and old-growth 
forests as an insurance policy for fish and wildlife facing mounting climate change pressures from 
rising temperatures, declining snow levels, and reductions in fog along the coast.  Click here to read the article.

The project was led by the Ashland-based Geos Institute who brought together scientists with
 back grounds in climate change science, Klamath-Siskiyou regional ecology, and conservation planning to
 comb through data on temperature and precipitation changes and to develop recommendations to help 
adapt ecosystems while the ecological and economic costs are relatively low.

According to Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist & President of Geos Institute, who led the project
 team, “for millennia our region’s mature and old-growth forests have been a wellspring for nature and
 they now hold the keys to sustaining the very ecosystem benefits we will increasingly depend on for 
fresh water, clean air, and viable fish and wildlife populations as global climate disruptions increasingly 
impact our area.”

One of the authors of the study, Reed Noss, Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of
 Central Florida, underscored the importance of the studies findings for land managers. “Climate change,
 combined with habitat loss and fragmentation, is the greatest threat we face to nature. This study shows
 that land managers can reduce impacts of climate change by protecting older forests in a region whose 
biological diversity has been recognized globally as among the top ten coniferous forests on earth.”

The study used computer mapping and extensive data sets on regional climate and wildlife distributions to 
determine what areas are most likely to hang on to their local climatic conditions for wildlife seeking
 refuge from rising temperatures and changes to precipitation caused by climate change disruption. Old growth 
and mature forests, with their closed canopies and moist environments, are predicted to remain cooler for longer periods of time, therefore providing refuge for species that depend on these conditions.

Key Findings:
• Based on related studies undertaken by Geos Institute and partners, climate disruptions in the
 Rogue basin, for instance, will likely include: (1) an increase in average annual temperatures 
from 1 to 3° F by around 2040 and 4 to 8° F by around 2080; (2) substantial increases in
 summer temperatures of 7 to 15° F by 2080; and (3) snow turning more often to rain in lower
 elevations with a decrease in average January snowpack and corresponding decline in spring 
runoff and stream flows. Other studies document significant reductions in fog along the coast,
 which pose risks to coastal redwoods.

• While all of the regions’ older forests are important, those on north-facing slopes and in canyon 
bottoms, lower- and middle-elevations, and wetter coastal mountains will provide for cooler, 
moister conditions as the rest of the region heats up.

• Several areas deserve immediate conservation attention because they contain high 
concentrations of older forests with preferred climatic conditions, including along the southern
 bend of the Klamath River Northern in California; lower slopes of the Klamath River from 
around China Point eastwards to Hamburg in California; northern slope of the Scott Bar 
Mountains and along the lower Scott River in California; coastal areas in Oregon and in the
 foothills behind the redwood belt in northwestern California; the Middle Smith River in
 California; areas west of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, southwest Oregon; southeastern 
watersheds of the Siskiyou Mountains (e.g., Dillon and Rock Creek area, California); and the 
northern Siskiyou Mountains to western Siskiyou Crest region, California. These areas are
 likely to serve as wellsprings of nature as the climate increasingly shifts.

• BLM landholdings in western Oregon are noteworthy as they contain over 1.6 million acres of 
mature and old-growth forests, which are critical for threatened species like the spotted owl and
 marbled murrelet, and 1.8 million acres of habitat critical to coho salmon recovery. These are
 some of the last low-elevation forests in the region that can still function as a climate refuge but 
are at the biggest risk from logging proposals being championed by Congress.

• Reducing non-climate stressors from logging, roads, and other land uses is the single most
 important adaptation measure that land managers can take now to reduce climate related 
impacts.

Center for Biological Diversity on the New Planning Rule

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For Immediate Release, March 23, 2012

Contact: Taylor McKinnon, (928) 310-6713 or [email protected]

Obama’s Forest Service Weakens Protections for Wildlife on All National Forests

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Forest Service today released its new final rule to govern the nation’s 193-million-acre national forest system. The new rule significantly weakens longstanding protections for fish and wildlife species on national forests. While the Forest Service was previously required to ensure the viability of those populations, the new rule largely defers to local Forest Service officials.

“The Forest Service today completed what it’s been trying to do for 12 years, which is to weaken wildlife protections and public accountability on our national forests,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These forests, owned by the American people, are vitally important habitat for hundreds of species now vulnerable to climate change — yet the Forest Service is weakening, rather than strengthening, the safety net that keeps them alive.”

Congress enacted the National Forest Management Act in 1976 to guide management of the national forest system, which consists of 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. In 1982, the Forest Service adopted national regulations to provide specific direction for activities such as logging, mining, livestock grazing and recreation. Those rules included strong, mandatory protections for fish and wildlife, requiring the Service to monitor and maintain viable populations.

The new rule represents the Forest Service’s fourth attempt since 2000 to weaken those 1982 regulations. All three previous attempts were challenged in court by the Center and allies; federal courts found all three unlawful. Like the 2000, 2005 and 2008 rules, the Obama administration’s rule would decrease protections for wildlife and increase the discretion of local Forest Service officials.

The Forest Service’s 1982 regulations required that the Forest Service maintain viable populations of fish and wildlife; that requirement applied to both forest plans and site-specific projects. The new rule requires that the Forest Service only maintain viable populations of species “of conservation concern,” and only at the discretion of local forest supervisors; plan protections set forth for those species can be voluntary “guidelines” rather than mandatory “standards.” The new rule also replaces the longstanding administrative appeal process with a pre-decision objection process; it eliminates opportunities for post-decision administrative solutions, leaving litigation as the public’s only means to correct harmful and unlawful decisions.

“At a time when the emergency room is already overflowing with endangered species, weakening preventative care is exactly the wrong approach,” said McKinnon. “But by making species protection voluntary rather than necessary, that’s exactly what today’s rule does.”