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Clark, Jeremy M.

Wildlife and Fisheries Biology Program

2006

M.S.

Ecological Land Units (ELUs), composed of elevation, bedrock geology, and landforms, can provide predictive estimates of forest type and bird species distributions and inform conservation management decisions. For three watersheds (622,800-ha) in northeastern Vermont and New Hampshire, ELUs were aggregated into physiographic groups, then validated with field surveys. Predictions of forest type were based on these physiographic groups. I based predictions of bird species occurrence on habitat associations with predicted forest type. For validation, I selected 81 9-ha sites to survey for dominant forest type and forest bird species. The overall kappa value (0.50) for forest type classification indicated moderate predictive capability for physiographic groups. The observed occurrence of each bird species in all forest types allowed calculation of detectability and site occupancy estimates. Logistic regression of bird observations provided an estimate of species occurrence for each forest type. These results provided parameters to set conservation targets for reserve design using physiographic groups and predicted bird species. Two watersheds in northern New Hampshire and western Maine, totaling almost 700,000 ha, were selected as models for conservation reserve planning. I used C-Plan software to compute efficient solutions for conservation targets based on the goal of protecting the diversity of abiotic physiographic groups and potential habitat for bird species. The most satisfying reserve solution required an additional 16,912 ha to protect the diversity of physiographic groups and 14,164 to 28,236 ha of potential bird habitat per species while also reserving land for intensive forest management. Exclusion of areas for continued forest management was compatible with expansion of the current conserved lands to develop a reserve network.