We identify issues and uncertainties that pose obstacles to conservation and then—in collaboration with internal and external colleagues—develop science products that help overcome those obstacles.
This map and a series of others in the Conservancy's 2010 Mojave Desert Ecoregional Assessment have played a guiding role in siting—and mitigating the impacts of—renewable energy development throughout the Mojave Desert. The Assessment helped shape the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Completed and signed in 2016, the…
John M. Randall, Sophie S. Parker, James Moore, Brian Cohen, Laura Crane, Bill Christian, Dick Cameron, Jason B. Mackenzie, Kirk Klausmeyer, Scott Morrison
Regional conservation planning is critical to inform land and resource use decisions. The Mojave Desert Ecoregional Assessment represents an important advance in such planning, because of how its output characterized not just areas of high conservation value, but how conservation values distributed and graded across…
Susan Antenen , Dick Cameron, EJ Remson, Jason MacKenzie, Jim Gaither, Sophie Parker, Zach Principe, with Southern Sierra Partnership
This collaborative conservation assessment, characterizes the biodiversity, ecosystem services, ownerships, and land uses in the Southern Sierra and Tehachapi Mountains, and assesses threats to conservation values. The authors examine how a changing climate will impact or interact with these threats, forecast long-term responses in the landscape, and…
This dataset is a product of the Mojave Desert Ecoregional Assessment and characterizes the distribution of biodiversity conservation values and land disturbance to help inform regional land-use and conservation investment. The data were grouped into four categories of conservation value: Ecologically Core, Ecologically Intact,…
CL Burdett, KR Crooks, DM Theobald, KR Wilson, EE Boydston, LM Lyren, RN Fisher, TW Vickers, SA Morrison, WM Boyce
Long-term studies of animal movement can generate data that allow for robust modeling of habitat use by the species. This study characterizes and maps the distribution of habitat for mountain lions in coastal southern California, and combines those data with models of projected urban growth…
Conservationists around the world work in systems and on problems that often have clear analogues to the efforts of others. This essay highlights the importance of collaborating and sharing lessons learned as a means to make conservation not only more effective but also more efficient.
Reed Tollefson, Alison Sheehey, Brian Cohen, Sophie Parker, E.J. Remson, Zach Principe, Tom Maloney, Michael White
This Conservation Action Plan identifies targets, threats, and actions to achieve conservation success in the face of climate change in the Tehachapi Mountains. The Tehachapis lie at the convergence of four ecoregions in California and constitute an important landscape linkage between the Sierra Nevada Mountains…
John P. Parkes, David S.L.Ramsey, Norman Macdonald, Kelvin Walker, Sean McKnight, Brian S.Cohen, Scott A. Morrison
This paper describes the approach, planning, and field implementation of an intensive effort to eradicate a population of feral pigs from an island. Key elements of the project included comprehensive data collection of all field effort and outcomes, and comprehensive use of helicopters in nearly…
Oberbauer, T., L. Luna Mendoza, N. Citlali Oliveres, L. Barbosa Deveze, I. Granillo Duarten, S.A. Morrison
Guadalupe Island in Mexico is undergoing a dramatic ecological recovery following the eradication of feral goats. Unfortunately, that eradication came too late for some species and ecosystems, and almost too late for others. The precariousness of some of its extant biota is illustrated by its…
Kathryn M. Langin, T. Scott Sillett, Jongmin Yoon, Helen R. Sofaer, Scott A. Morrison, Cameron K. Ghalambor
Island archipelagos can provide useful opportunities for comparative studies in ecology. For example, breeding ecology of a songbird was studied on two of the California Channel Islands, which share many environmental attributes, such as general vegetation types, but differ in other ways, such as intra-…
E.C. Underwood, J.H. Viers, K.R. Klausmeyer, R.L. Cox, M. R. Shaw
The mediterranean biome is one of the rarest terrestrial ecosystem types on Earth, restricted to only 2% of the world’s land surface. Encompassing portions of southern Australia, central Chile, South Africa’s Cape Region, the Mediterranean Basin, and California and Baja California, the biome is renowned…
Victoria J. Bakker, Daniel F. Doak, Gary W. Roemer, David K. Garcelon, Timothy J. Coonan, Scott A. Morrison, Colleen Lynch, Katherine Ralls, Rebecca Shaw
Population models can be a critical tool in managing recovery of endangered species. This paper presents an analysis that became the foundation of recovery planning and tracking for the endangered island fox. By combining data from research and long-term monitoring efforts across the six islands…
Erik Nelson, Guillermo Mendoza, James Regetz, Stephen Polasky, Heather Tallis, D. Richard Cameron, Kai MA Chan, Gretchen C. Daily, Joshua Goldstein, Peter M. Kareiva, Eric Lonsdorf, Robin Naidoo, Taylor H. Ricketts, M. Rebecca Shaw
Humans benefit from the goods and services provided by natural ecosystems like water filtration, carbon storage, and recreational opportunities to name a few. Assigning economic value to these "ecosystem services" would allow planners to assess the true costs and benefits of different development and land…
Underwood, E.C., K.R. Klausmeyer, R.L. Cox, S.M. Busby, S.A. Morrison, M.R.Shaw
Mediterranean habitats are among the rarest on Earth. Characterized by warm dry summers and cool wet winters, they are restricted to only 2% of the Earth’s land surface–portions of southern Australia, Chile, South Africa, California and Baja California, and the Mediterranean Basin. Though small, these…
DSL Ramsey, J Parkes, SA Morrison
Populations at very low abundance can be very difficult to detect. Consequently, one of the biggest challenges of eradication projects is determining whether an inability to detect the species at the presumed end of a project means that it has been completely removed. A helpful…
Scott Morrison, Walter Boyce
Critical for biodiversity conservation is the retention of ecological connectivity in the landscape, so that wildlife—and the natural processes that sustain wildlife—can move around. Ideally, that cohesion would be protected by conserving landscape-scale linkages—large swaths of relatively intact habitat joining core reserve lands. Where linkages…
Caroline Christian , Lawrence Saslaw, H. Scott Butterfield
To better understand the ecological role of cattle grazing in managing Carrizo Plain National Monument, we initiated a long-term study in 1997 designed to evaluate the effects of cattle grazing on native plant communities and giant kangaroo rats. Contrary to grazing studies conducted elsewhere in…
Golet G.H., T. Gardali, C. Howell, J. Hunt, R. Luster, B. Rainey, M. Roberts, H. Swagerty, N. Williams
Studies that assess the success of riparian restoration projects seldom focus on wildlife. More often, vegetation is studied, with the assumption that animal populations will recover once adequate habitats are established. Authors of this paper present an exception: findings of a suite of studies that…
Eradication of invasive non-native species is often necessary to protect island ecosystems. Eradication efforts can nonetheless be risky investments. How they are planned and implemented can greatly reduce the risk of failure. Santa Cruz Island provides an interesting case study in eradication, because a variety…
Scott A. Morrison, Norman Macdonald, Kelvin Walker, Lynn Lozier, M Rebecca Shaw
One of the greatest challenges in pest eradication is knowing when it has been achieved. This paper discusses why that is challenging, and why it is so important to consider how that challenge will be met before any eradication effort is initiated. For many vertebrates,…