Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
2.6 Conclusions
Effective environmental management requires detailed knowledge of resource dis-
tribution and wildlife management requires the ability to relate these resources to
species ecology and population changes. The study presented here successfully esti-
mated forest successional changes and habitat carrying capacity changes for deer
at Mount St. Helens between 1984 and 2002. Like any modeling effort, the inte-
gration of multiple data layers and various model assumptions increases potential
uncertainty in output estimates. This may be unavoidable in many cases, yet some
estimate of potential uncertainty could improve the value of habitat models for man-
agement decision making (Davies et al.
2010
). Our efforts to introduce random
variation indicated a high degree of uncertainty around specific model estimates,
but still indicated statistically significant declines in habitat quality. The patterns of
changed indicated by our models were similar to those observed in actual deer pop-
ulation changes and strongly suggest that a more even interspersion of closed and
open canopy forests will be essential for successful deer management in this region.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Weyerhaeuser Corporation for the use of for-
est management data. In particular we thank Ross Gilcrist for sharing his ground photos and
Janette Bach helping compile GIS data. This work was partially supported by a NASA Technology
Transfer grant to Indiana State University 1995-1999.
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