Habitat restoration opportunities, climatic niche contraction, and conservation biogeography in California's San Joaquin Desert.

ABSTRACT: A recent global trend toward retirement of farmland presents opportunities to reclaim habitat for threatened and endangered species. We examine habitat restoration opportunities in one of the world's most converted landscapes, California's San Joaquin Desert (SJD). Despite the presence of 35 threatened and endangered species, agricultural expansion continues to drive habitat loss in the SJD, even as marginal farmland is retired. Over the next decades a combination of factors, including salinization, climate change, and historical groundwater overdraft, are projected to lead to the retirement of more than 2,000 km2 of farmland in the SJD. To promote strategic habitat protection and restoration, we conducted a quantitative assessment of habitat loss and fragmentation, habitat suitability, cl

SUBMITTER: Stewart JAE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6333358 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature