Habitat amount or landscape configuration: Emerging HotSpot analysis reveals the importance of habitat amount for a grassland bird in South Dakota.

ABSTRACT: Habitat loss and fragmentation are two important drivers of biodiversity decline. Understanding how species respond to landscape composition and configuration in dynamic landscapes is of great importance for informing the conservation and management of grassland species. With limited conservation resources, prescribed management targeted at the appropriate landscape process is necessary for the effective management of species. We used pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) across South Dakota, USA as a model species to identify environmental factors driving spatiotemporal variation in population productivity. Using an emerging Hotspot analysis, we analyzed annual count data from 105 fixed pheasant brood routes over a 24-year period to identify high (HotSpot) and low (ColdSpot) pheasant population

SUBMITTER: Harsh S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9512187 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature