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Setting Priorities for Land Conservation (1993) / Chapter Skim
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5 The Land Acquisition Process and Biological Preserves: A Role for Natural Sciences
Pages 113-138

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From page 113...
... 5 The Land Acquisition Process and Biological Preserves: A Role for Natural Sciences This chapter examines several ecological issues that pose challenges to He acquisition of conservation lands and reviews Be current state of knowledge regarding Lose issues. The dynamic nature of landscapes and ecological systems is reviewed at multiple scales, as is the importance of maintaining species and functional ecosystems in lands designated for conservation and the role of spatial configuration in reserve design.
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From page 115...
... Data must be acquired on minimum viable population sizes and sizes of habitats required to sustain them. For example, Sampson (1980)
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From page 117...
... In an area of the Laurentian Great Lakes in Ontario, regional patterns of fish assemblages appear to be determined by postglacial dispersal and lake Herman regimes, whereas environmental conditions such as lake depth and pH assume greater importance in determining species compositions of individual lakes (Jackson and Harvey, 1989~. Finally, a dynamic landscape in which the proportions of different habitat types change through time might exhibit a stable mosaic (Bormann and Likens, 1991)
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From page 118...
... A variety of authors have suggested that natural areas should be sufficiently large to include all normal stages in community development, and that natural processes of perturbation and recovery should tee allowed to occur unchecked (Sullivan end Chaffer, 1975; Pickett and Thompson, 1978~. Even in the absence of natural disturbances, landscapes are not static.
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From page 121...
... Short-term climatic fluctuations provide important insights into the response times of species and landscape mosaics to rapid environmental changes in disturbance regimes on the order of decades to centuries. For example, in northwestern Minnesota, changes in the charcoal influx to lake sediments demonstrate how alternating periods of cool-and-moist cycles and warm-and~ry cycles since 1240 A.D.
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From page 123...
... and Soule, 1981~. For example, the huge Kruger National Park in Soup Africa about 350 km long and 80 km wide in places- requires significant management to protect many of its species from major population declines and perhaps even extinctions (Aiken, 1988~.
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From page 124...
... demonstrated that populations In isolated patches experienced earlier local extinction and had tower average population sizes Wan patches connected by corridors to other patches. In addition, patches that formed part of a square or pentagon had higher population sizes and probability for survival Man those that formed part of a line or triangle.
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From page 128...
... Otherwise problems may result, such as Be toxic agricultural runoff Hat poisoned waterfowl in the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge. Acid rain emanating from anthropogenic sources far from a resews can alter lake acidity and even growing patterns or survival of trees.
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From page 131...
... The power of GIS lies in the ability to manipulate and analyze spatially distributed data (Figure 5~. A GIS consists of the computer hardware and software for entering, storing, transforming, measuring, combining, retrieving, and displaying digitized thematic
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From page 133...
... and to identify potentially suitable sites (Palmeirim, 1988; MiIne et al., 1989~. By selectively weighting habitat characteristics and describing spatial variables such as patch size, shape, and arrangement, die quality and quantity of habitat can be estimated Johnson, 1990~.
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From page 136...
... Natural ecosystems are spatially and temporally dynamic; furthermore, the importance of a single site to regional biological diversity is variable. The tendency, however, has been to establish geographically fixed wildlife refuges with immovable borders that inhibit species survival.
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From page 138...
... 138 SElTING PRIORITIES FOR LAND CONSERVA17ON dinate federal land acquisition, promote and facilitate collection and transfer of information, and develop a long-term plan aIld strategy for land acquisition. Such cooperation is a challenge that will require ~nstitutional innovation.
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Key Terms

  • land conservation
  • biological diversity
  • landscape patterns
  • land acquisition
  • conservation lands

  • disturbance regimes
  • regional planning
  • natural disturbances
  • sensing imagery
  • multiple scales

  • minimum viable
  • suitable sites
  • habitat hat
  • nongovernmental agencies
  • achieving sustainability

  • alternative arrangements
  • texas parks
  • population sizes
  • conservation strategies
  • acquisition process

  • potentially suitable
  • species populations
  • patch size
  • sustainability requires
  • viable population

  • attitudinal gradients
  • wildlife deparunent
  • distributed data
  • current spatial
  • management agencies


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