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Hey, Mischa J.

Wildlife and Fisheries Biology Program

2006

M.S.

Systematic reserve design aims to optimize the efficiency of biological representation through empirically based selection of land parcels for protection. Recent approaches have incorporated spatial criteria into reserve design algorithms to promote reserve connectivity. The spatial scale of planning units used in systematic reserve design influences both the reserve connectivity and efficiency of feature representation. I employed a hierarchically structured planning unit framework to a heuristic reserve design model for the northern forest of New England. My target features were based on a remotely sensed land-cover classification and a physiographic classification of terrain. I compared cost efficiency and connectivity of the hierarchically designed reserve network with that of three reserve networks designed from single-scale planning units. I calculated connectivity metrics describing the configuration of reserve scenarios developed from different planning unit frameworks as well as the distribution of forest patches protected under each reserve scenario. The hierarchical framework had three clear advantages over single-scale schemes: (1) scale appropriate feature targets, (2) multi-scale evaluation of each parcel, and (3) improved incorporation of small currently conserved parcels. Because landscape requirements of wildlife species can be complex and highly variable, I assessed the ability of each reserve to support a suite of 18 hypothetical species representing a wide range of life history parameters and landscape requirements. Using spatially explicit population modeling software, I analyzed the number of suitable breeding territories, mean number of breeders, and population change after 200 years for each species under each of the four reserve scenarios. Results of the reserve design models and landscape metrics indicated that a hierarchically structured planning-unit framework may lessen the trade-off between reserve connectivity and cost efficient feature representation, when compared to the three single-scale schemes. Results of the population models indicated that the hierarchically designed reserve provided more suitable territories, and supported larger populations for the entire suite of hypothetical species than any of the single-scale reserves.