Congaree Biosphere Region Research
Situated in the Midlands of South Carolina, the Congaree Biosphere Region is internationally recognized for its unique biodiversity and potential for sustainable development. The reserve is a member of the UN Man and the Biosphere Programme and is centered around Congaree National Park the largest remaining tract of old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the nation. As a portion of my dissertation research I sampled and modeled the breeding bird community, modeled the structural connectivity of focal species, and integrated data streams to create a systematic conservation plan for the region.
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Breeding Bird Community
I developed a spatially balanced repeat point count design of select public and private lands across the Congaree Biosphere. I sampled locations that spanned the urban to wilderness gradient in order to assess how the passerine community spatially-varied from human commensal generalists to bottomland specialists. I used a multi-species occupancy model to analyze passerine community occupancy.
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Multi-scale Connectivity & Systematic Conservation Planning
Spatial extent, grain-size, analysis type, and focal species are decisions that often have to made when designing a landscape connectivity analysis. But how do all these compounding decisions influence connectivity model results? What are the cascading effects of the inference from these results on conservation decision-making?
I modeled the connectivity of three focal species at two different spatial extents using Circuitscape 5 and Omniscape. These results were then used in program Marxan to produce three different systematic conservation plans. Results showed that though there was some deviation between the connectivity results, the overall inference from these models and he final conservation plans all identified the same major areas within the study area.
