Landscape Configuration Effects on Habitat Quality in a Highly Fragmented Agricultural Region

GIS Seminar

Landscape Configuration Effects on Habitat Quality in a Highly Fragmented Agricultural Region

Matthew Stephenson, GIS certificate candidate, natural resource ecology and management

Advisor: Brian Gelder, research manager, agricultural and biosystems engineering, and adjunct assistant professor, community and regional planning

Abstract

The process of habitat fragmentation is typically viewed as detrimental to habitat quality, with the resulting smaller, more isolated patches often suspected as population sinks. These processes are still active areas of research, however.

Prairie strips are a new agricultural conservation practice that consist of linear strips of diverse native vegetation situated within or adjacent to row crops. However, the process of restoring small linear patches of grassland may contribute to small mean patch sizes and large mean patch isolation by creating habitat within an otherwise sterile row crop matrix.

We investigated the relative contributions of habitat area and configuration to habitat quality for grassland-breeding birds to assess if prairie strips were population sinks or if they were sufficient habitat for some species.