Landscape Ecology最新文献

{"title":"Is it a mixedwood? Spatially-explicit responses to gradients in forest structure and composition in three boreal bird species.","authors":"Leonard Patterson, Brendan Casey, Erin Bayne","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02369-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-026-02369-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Mixedwood forests are typically defined using coarse measures of stand composition and do not account for spatial configuration or scale. Such definitions may oversimplify how birds perceive habitat, potentially biasing past attempts to identify mixedwood habitat associations.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>(1) Quantify how continuous gradients in tree species composition, spatial configuration, and forest age influence species' abundance; (2) Identify the spatial extent and grain at which these relationships are strongest.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We analyzed ~ 9200 point counts across the forested region of Alberta, Canada. We used a multi-scale design to assess the influence of forest composition, configuration, and age within 150, 500, and 1000 m extents at 5 m and 30 m grains on species' relative abundance.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Spatial configuration was the strongest predictor for all three species. Black-throated green warbler and bay-breasted warbler responded most strongly to fine-grain, local (150 m) configuration, with abundance peaking in intimately-mixed stands. Tennessee warbler responded most to configuration at the broadest extent (1000 m), also favouring intimate mixtures. The proportion of conifer and forest age consistently emerged as the second and third most important predictors, respectively. Predicted abundance on synthetic landscapes showed consistently higher abundance (∼ 4-10 times higher) in intimate versus segregated mixedwoods.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Species-specific and spatially-explicit mixedwood definitions that include spatial configuration better capture bird habitat use than composition alone. Preserving or restoring intimate mixtures of coniferous and deciduous species at fine spatial scales may be particularly beneficial for our focal species.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 6","pages":"104"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13230301/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148165618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Post-fire structural forest recovery associated with climate extremes in dry sub-boreal forests.","authors":"Sarah Smith-Tripp, Nicholas Coops, Christopher Mulverhill, Joanne White, Sarah Gergel","doi":"10.1007/s10980-025-02266-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-025-02266-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Recent large and high-severity wildfires have burned vast areas of coniferous forests throughout Western North America. These burned landscapes are recovering amid increasingly frequent climate extremes, such as drought. We need to understand how post-fire climate extremes and other ecological drivers (such as fire impacts) influence patterns and trends of coniferous recovery.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>We worked at a landscape scale (> 400,000 hectares) to investigate the association between distinct post-fire forest recovery and ecological drivers in dry sub-boreal forests. We created structural recovery groups distinct in patterns and trends of coniferous cover and density and then modeled their association with ecological drivers.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We used Landsat time-series data to identify unique spectral recovery, which we grouped based on post-fire regrowth and stocking estimates. Remotely Piloted Aircraft light detection and ranging (lidar) provided structural estimates 5-21 years post-fire. We modeled the association between structural recovery groups and ecological drivers with random forests. For each category of drivers (site conditions, climate, climate anomalies, pre-fire composition, and fire impacts), we used individual models to identify important drivers. We then incorporated the most important drivers in a global model to highlight the drivers that were important across categories.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Initial spectral trends indicated longer-term differences in structural forest recovery. Climate anomalies (such as post-fire extremes in temperature and precipitation) and pre-fire basal area best predicted observed structural groupings-abnormally cold and dry summers after the fire were associated with slow conifer establishment. Comparatively, areas with a higher pre-fire basal area maintained a mixed canopy of deciduous and coniferous stems.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>At a landscape scale, post-fire climate conditions best predicted structural forest recovery, suggesting management plans should be adaptable to the conditions experienced post fire.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02266-y.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 1","pages":"14"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12779702/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145953835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond the patch: leveraging functional habitat delineation in fragmentation-biodiversity research.","authors":"Matthew Dennis, Jonathan Huck, Claire Holt, Ewan McHenry, Erik Andersson, Sonali Sharma, Dagmar Haase","doi":"10.1007/s10980-025-02290-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-025-02290-y","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Context: &lt;/strong&gt;Theoretical and methodological developments in the field of fragmentation-biodiversity research continue to rely on the central concept of the habitat patch where patch size and number are considered particularly relevant to spatially structured ecological communities. However, although great interest has been shown in the effects of habitat fragmentation, appropriate methods for the spatial delineation of habitat have not received equal attention. In this paper, we argue that existing methods are not consistent with a functional definition of habitat as they fail to address key methodological challenges. These relate to the need to acknowledge a) the contribution of multiple resource types to habitat, b) the influence of neighbouring land cover types and c) the &lt;i&gt;continuity-contiguity problem&lt;/i&gt; (the tendency of habitat to exhibit properties of gradation and aggregation).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;In this second of two papers on this topic, we present an application of a new methodological framework outlined by Dennis et al. (this issue) that offers a route to a more functional definition and delineation of habitat through the use of spatial kernels and the generation of Type 1 and 2 fuzzy sets from landscape classification algorithms. We present a demonstration of the framework applied to a real-world landscape, in which we illustrate the impact of adopting alternative perspectives with respect to habitat delineation on the ecological process of habitat connectivity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods: &lt;/strong&gt;We demonstrate the functional delineation of habitat for a focal generic woodland species (FGWS) in a real-world landscape classified through the application of a fuzzy Random Forest classifier. We employ nesting, foraging and dispersal parameters relevant to the FGWS to achieve a functional estimate of habitat. We test the influence of habitat fragmentation (number of patches controlling for total habitat amount) on potential functional connectivity for the FGWS based on contiguous (emphasising aggregation and homogeneity), continuous (emphasizing gradation) and functional (integrating multiple resource types and neighbourhood effects) habitat perspectives.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;Our results indicate large discrepancies between the three perspectives on habitat delineation across key fragmentation-relevant metrics (total area, number of patches and potential functional connectivity). Importantly, a functional habitat perspective supports markedly different conclusions (compared to contiguous and continuous perspectives) with respect to the relationship between fragmentation (number of patches) and connectivity, and estimates of the contribution of individual habitat patches to landscape-scale connectivity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion: &lt;/strong&gt;The functional habitat perspective, operationalized by harnessing uncertainty in landscape classification and employing spatial kernels to parameterise neighbourho","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 2","pages":"37"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12852187/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146108432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Uncovering the spatio-temporal patterns and drivers of 30 years of greening in South UK landscapes.","authors":"Guilherme Castro, Julia Koricheva, Justin Moat, Phil Wilkes, Tim Wilkinson, Cristina Garcia","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02383-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-026-02383-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Anthropogenic pressures are pushing ecosystems towards collapse by disrupting their structure and functioning. Whilst ecological responses to climate and land cover changes are widely addressed at the global scale, a notable knowledge gap remains at the landscape level-a critical scale for translating science into action<b>.</b></p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To evaluate the impacts of anthropogenic pressures on ecosystem functioning at the landscape scale. Specifically, we assess the influence of climate trends and land cover changes on the spatial and temporal patterns of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) over a 30-year period (1995-2024).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Using Sussex (UK) as a study area, we examined spatio-temporal patterns in climate trends and NDVI - used as a proxy for vegetation distribution and productivity-over three decades based on satellite imagery. We characterized the spatial heterogeneity of observed changes and evaluated the role of climate and land cover changes as drivers of long-term NDVI dynamics.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found an overall increase in NDVI across the study area and all land cover types (MK <i>tau</i> value = 0.605, p-value < 0.01, TS slope = 0.0044 ∆NDVI yr⁻¹), marginally correlated with increasing average temperatures (ρ ≈ 0.34, p = 0.067). This increase in NDVI showed spatially heterogenous patterns with distinct hotspots of NDVI change (Local Moran's I) linked to changes in land cover types. We detected rising temperatures in Sussex (annual average temperatures: Mann-Kendall (MK) <i>tau</i> value = 0.297, p-value = 0.022, Theil-Sen (TS) slope = 0.026 ℃ yr⁻¹), but rainfall levels have not changed significantly (annual average rainfall: MK <i>tau</i> value = 0.21, p-value = 0.108, TS slope = 4.91 mm yr⁻¹).</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>These findings show a positive relationship between rising temperatures and vegetation greening, as reflected by NDVI gains with spatially heterogenous patterns associated with land cover changes and hotspots of NDVI change. Our study provides spatially explicit evidence to support effective landscape management strategies and inform policies by demonstrating the interaction between anthropogenic pressures at the landscape level. Because the landscape is a relevant scale at which environmental change and its outcomes are perceived, our results offer insights to address the effects of global and local changes.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-026-02383-2.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 8","pages":"129"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13385007/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148551134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Local-scale increase masks landscape-scale loss of species richness in managed Pannonian grasslands.","authors":"Elias Kapitany, Thomas Wrbka, Stefan Dullinger","doi":"10.1007/s10980-025-02256-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-025-02256-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>While biodiversity decline is undebated on the global level, landscape-scale trends are poorly known and local assemblages even show stable species richness, accompanied by pronounced turn-over. The landscape-scale consequences of local-scale species turnover likely depend on whether species replacement is random or biased towards more frequent species in the metacommunity, but this potential bias is insufficiently studied.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Here, we use grassland ecosystems of a Central European national park to simultaneously analyse time-series of local-scale species richness and landscape-scale species incidence to better understand how trends are linked at these two scales.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>From 2013 to 2024 we sampled 120 plots per year and used regression methods to quantify changes in the number of species per assemblage, the incidence of species across assemblages and the relationship between initial incidence of species and incidence trends. To explore possible drivers of change, we further evaluated trends of community means of environmental indicator values.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found that local species richness has increased within the study period from 18 species per plot in 2013 to 21 species in 2024, while the overall number of species sampled per year stayed the same. In contrast, when looking at individual species trends we found an average decline of species' incidence in the region. While a small pool of already common species became more frequent, the majority of species became rarer, leading to a pronounced homogenization of plant communities on the sampled sites. Indicator-value analysis showed that the species turnover was mainly influenced by desiccation of grasslands, significantly biassing incidence changes towards species that prefer drier conditions.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We conclude that in typical Central-European grassland ecosystems, anthropogenic drivers rather decrease landscape-scale than local-scale biodiversity, because they tend to homogenize environmental conditions. The resulting species turn-over can stabilize local species richness but depletes the metacommunity, thereby posing future risks to the regional biodiversity.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02256-0.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 1","pages":"10"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12738669/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145851612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Causal machine learning methods for understanding land use and land cover change.","authors":"F Eigenbrod, Peter Alexander, Nicolas Apfel, Ioannis N Athanasiadis, Thomas Berger, James M Bullock, Gregory Duveiller, Julian Equihua, Isaura Menezes, Rodrigo Moreira, Dilli Paudel, Vasileios Sitokonstantinou, Markus Reichstein, Simon Willcock, Tamsin Woodman","doi":"10.1007/s10980-025-02279-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-025-02279-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Understanding the roles of different drivers in land use and land cover change (LULCC) is a critical research challenge. However, as LULCC is the result of complex, socio-ecological processes and is highly context dependent, achieving such understanding is difficult. This is particularly true for causal modelling approaches that are critical for effective policy formulation. Causal machine learning (ML) methods could help address this challenge, but are as yet poorly understood or applied by the LULCC community.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To provide an accessible introduction to the state of the art for causal ML methods, their limitations, and their potential applications understanding LULCC.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We conducted two workshops where we identified the most promising ML methods for increasing understanding of LULCC dynamics.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We provide a brief overview of the challenges to causal modelling of LULCC, including a simple example, and the most relevant causal ML approaches for addressing these challenges, as well as their limitations.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Causal ML methods hold considerable promise for improving causal modelling of LULCC. However, the complexity of LULCC dynamics mean that such methods must be combined with domain understanding and qualitative insights for effective policy design.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 2","pages":"25"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12816019/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146020823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mechanisms of animal distribution: bridging advances in movement analysis with hierarchical and optimal foraging theories.","authors":"Daniel Fortin, Ilhem Bouderbala","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02378-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-026-02378-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Linking individual movements to population-level distributions remains a central challenge in ecology. Animal distributions arise from interdependent movement decisions across spatiotemporal scales. However, most studies focus on a single scale or treat them in isolation, constraining our ability to uncover the mechanisms shaping landscape-level patterns.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>We evaluated whether hierarchical foraging decisions operating across nested scales can be recovered from movement data alone. Specifically, we tested whether multi-state step-selection functions (HMM-SSFs) can identify scale-dependent behavioural organization arising from mechanistic decision rules.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We developed a model in which agents exploit resource sites grouped into camps within home ranges. Movement decisions were governed by energetic gains and the costs of travel, missed opportunities, and predation risk. We fitted HMM-SSFs to simulated movements to infer behavioural states and transitions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>HMM-SSFs accurately identified latent behavioural states corresponding to within-site resource exploitation, within-camp movements, and between-camp relocations. Transitions among states responded to spatial variation in resources and risk. States emerged from model inference without being imposed a priori. The recovered behavioural hierarchy aligned with predictions from foraging theory. These results demonstrate that hierarchical decision-making leaves identifiable signatures in movement trajectories.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We demonstrate that multiscale processes can be inferred from movement data within a unified framework. Although results may be noisier for field observations than for simulations, complementary field methods can help mitigate this limitation by informing both the analysis and its interpretation. This approach therefore provides a valuable foundation for linking behaviour across scales in dynamic environments.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-026-02378-z.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 8","pages":"130"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13395824/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148585873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Habitat-shifting predatory and herbivorous reef fishes exhibit spatial partitioning despite shared biophysical drivers of seascape use.","authors":"Isla N Spence, Courtney E Stuart, Lisa M Wedding, Simon J Pittman, Joseph E Serafy, Jeremiah Blondeau, Stephanie J Green","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02456-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-026-02456-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Climate change and anthropogenic stressors are degrading coastal biogenic habitats, disrupting the vital pathways fish use to shift from nearshore nurseries to offshore reef environments. Although fishes are critical for ecosystem health, spatial management rarely accounts for the interconnectedness of fish habitat needs across their life cycle.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To examine and compare drivers of habitat use for subadult size classes of five habitat-shifting fishes from two feeding guilds: mesopredators and herbivores. To assess the multi-species suitability of existing management zones.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We used MaxEnt to model habitat suitability for our focal fishes across the Florida Keys, USA, and performed permutation analyses to compare habitat use patterns and drivers among species. We used predicted suitability maps to quantify suitability for 58 management zones.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Benthic habitat type was the strongest driver, with patch- and aggregate-reefs emerging as the most suitable across species. Habitats were more moderately suitable for mesopredators across the nearshore-offshore gradient, while <i>S. guacamaia</i> stood out among the herbivores as preferring nearshore and mid-channel habitats over offshore habitats. We observed spatial partitioning, even among species with similar diets and preferred habitat types. All management zones were more suitable than the region-wide average, with restoration zones exhibiting higher predicted suitability than protection zones. Considering their high suitability for these species, patch reefs are underrepresented in current management practices.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our findings highlight the need to preserve connected habitat corridors that span nearshore-offshore gradients, and we encourage practitioners to incorporate habitat suitability into site selection. To maximize ecosystem benefits, future work should consider the habitat and connectivity needs of a broader range of species and functional groups.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-026-02456-2.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 11","pages":"201"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13649890/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149168183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disturbance-mediated apparent competition across boreal landscapes: the role of primary productivity.","authors":"Branden T Neufeld, Clara Superbie, Cheryl A Johnson, Daniel Fortin, Philip D McLoughlin","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02336-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-026-02336-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Disturbance-mediated apparent competition (DMAC) links landscape disturbance, alternative prey, and predator dynamics in ways that can reduce caribou recruitment and survival. Although DMAC underpins national recovery planning for boreal caribou (<i>Rangifer tarandus caribou</i>), its mechanisms have been evaluated mainly in southern, more productive forests. Understanding how DMAC operates across the full range of productivity in Canada is necessary for landscape-scale conservation.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>We tested the hypothesis that net primary productivity (NPP) governs the strength of DMAC by influencing predator-prey assemblages and shaping patterns of disturbance. Our objective was to determine how these NPP-linked factors influence caribou recruitment and adult female survival at a continental scale.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Using data on caribou recruitment (40 study areas) and survival (30 study areas) from across Canada, along with maps of NPP, disturbance footprints, estimates of moose density, and species richness, we assessed how NPP influences DMAC's effects on caribou.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Many of the explanatory variables were strongly correlated. Recruitment and survival declined with increasing NPP, anthropogenic disturbance, predator richness, prey richness, and moose density. Higher NPP increased disturbance, which in turn increased prey and predator richness and decreased caribou recruitment. For survival, NPP increased moose density and ultimately decreased caribou survival.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>At a continental scale, DMAC diminishes as a potential limiting factor to caribou as NPP declines. Anthropogenic disturbance is concentrated in high-NPP portions of the landscape. High-NPP regions support greater predator and alternative prey species, increasing predation risk for caribou calves. Recognizing the role of NPP in concentrating anthropogenic disturbances and altering trophic interactions is essential for conservation strategies.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-026-02336-9.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 5","pages":"88"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13158249/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147935510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are forestry clearcuts ecological traps for caribou?","authors":"Tazarve Gharajehdaghipour, Katie Tjaden-McClement, Tyler B Muhly, Jan F Kamler, Zoe Konanz, A Cole Burton","doi":"10.1007/s10980-026-02411-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10980-026-02411-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Context: </strong>Woodland caribou (<i>Rangifer tarandus caribou</i>) declines are linked to increased predation facilitated by industrial land-use changes, including logging, through mechanisms such as disturbance-mediated apparent competition.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>We hypothesized clearcuts could exacerbate predation risk by functioning as ecological traps in low-productivity landscapes, drawing caribou during summer when nutritional demands are high. We predicted caribou would select clearcuts as or more strongly than other landcovers, with clearcuts providing comparable or greater forage but imposing fitness costs.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Using step-selection functions, we analyzed habitat selection for 71 GPS-collared caribou in west-central British Columbia, Canada. We assessed forage availability through vegetation surveys at 56 paired clearcut and uncut plots, and inferred predation risk from wolf (<i>Canis lupus</i>), coyote (<i>C. latrans</i>), grizzly (<i>Ursus arctos</i>), and black bear (<i>U. americanus</i>) detections from 149 camera traps.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Caribou selected regenerating (≤ 25 years old) clearcuts as or more strongly than other landcovers, whereas older clearcuts (26-39 years old) were used neutrally or avoided. Compared to paired uncut areas, forage was greater in regenerating clearcuts, but not in older clearcuts. Predation risk was elevated in clearcuts and near roads, with higher activity of wolves (clearcuts), coyotes (roads), and black bears (both).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We provided partial evidence that regenerating clearcuts may function as ecological traps during summer in low-productivity landscapes. Elevated predation risk does not necessarily equate to reduced fitness, and alternative mechanisms (e.g., risk-sensitive foraging) require further investigation. Regardless, selection of high-risk clearcuts by caribou represents an understudied pathway potentially contributing to population declines. We recommend limiting new clearcutting and improving protection of caribou summer ranges.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-026-02411-1.</p>","PeriodicalId":54745,"journal":{"name":"Landscape Ecology","volume":"41 9","pages":"152"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13503452/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148820305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}