Datasets / Developing an Ecological Integrity Index for Shrublands: Measures to Promote Migratory Bird and New England Cottontail Habitat


Developing an Ecological Integrity Index for Shrublands: Measures to Promote Migratory Bird and New England Cottontail Habitat

Published By US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior

Issued over 9 years ago

US
beta

Summary

Type of release
a one-off release of a single dataset

Data Licence
Not Applicable

Content Licence
Creative Commons CCZero

Verification
automatically awarded

Description

Ecological integrity refers to the degree to which an ecosystem resembles the natural or historical range of variation of that ecosystem in function, species composition, and vegetation structure. Ecological integrity is a complex concept that embodies a great number of variables, presenting some real challenges in monitoring and management. In recent years, NatureServe, in collaboration with a number of partners, has developed an approach to assessing ecological integrity by identifying key variables and a set of standard, repeatable measures of those variables Faber Langendoen et al. 2009. This process allows for the establishment of a baseline assessment, and a means to detect change over time. In general, the method first identifies the major ecological attributes to be measured: landscape context and condition, patch size, vegetation, substrate, and stressors. Each attribute is assessed separately and assigned a value based on the metrics provided, and the metrics are integrated into an overall rank, or index. To calculate the index, we used a metrics Excel workbook developed by NatureServe FaberLangendoen et al. 2008. The metrics spreadsheet provides a range of values for each metric, and the user enters the appropriate scores for each. Land use and stressor impacts both require the evaluation of a number of factors, so a land use index and a stressor impact evaluation are calculated in separate spreadsheets and those scores are pulled into the overall metrics spreadsheet.The management goals of refuge staff are to establish a baseline assessment of an identified patch of shrubland within the refuge, against which to compare the effectiveness of differing management strategies. Landscape connectivity and surrounding land use are neither within the purview of the USFWS staff, nor likely to change significantly over the period of adaptive management. The patch size to be assessed was also selected a priori and as a fixed measure would not change. For this reason, we deviated from the above methods and did not evaluate patch size or landscape context in calculation of the baseline index. The metrics we measured include: vegetation, soil, hydrology, and land use.