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Measuring Habitat and
Biodiversity Outcomes
Sara Vickerman and Frank Casey
September 26, 2013
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What is biodiversity?
Variety of life and its processes
Genetic, species, habitat, large landscapes
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Biodiversity conservation requires:
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Right amount, configuration, and management of
land and water in each region (coarse filter)
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Attention to individual elements (fine filter)
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Broad agreement that biodiversity is
threatened by:
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Human development
Degradation, conversion of native habitat
Invasive species
Toxics, other direct mortality
Climate change
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Many approaches to tracking impacts and
conservation outcomes to habitats and
species but . . .
Little progress reaching agreement on
more consistent approach
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Effectiveness of biodiversity
conservation is difficult to
measure
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Goals often not stated or agreed upon
May conflict with human activities
Focus on single species, habitats
Need measures at multiple scales – species to
landscapes
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Status and trends for biodiversity
poorly monitored
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Nobody is responsible for comprehensive system
Biodiversity is not uniformly regulated
Tendency to re-invent the wheel
Low priority for public and policy-makers
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Why consistent metrics?
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To help improve conservation outcomes –
what works, what doesn’t
Work across land ownership boundaries
Connect disparate program investments to
address scale issues
Align management plans
Apply adaptive management
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Practicality
Speed
Cost
Level of involvement
Capture everything
Precision
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Purpose
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To examine a few efforts to date
Engage experts in conversation
Propose workable, practical framework
Test alternative approaches
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Three approaches with considerable
overlap
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Individual habitat metrics
Ecological Integrity Assessments
Biodiversity Index
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Site level metrics
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Developed by Willamette Partnership and others
Prairie, wetland, salmon, water temperature
Focus on regulations that drive trading
or mitigation programs
Measuring Up report outlined
framework for biodiversity metrics
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Defenders metrics
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Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bullitt funded
Address unregulated biodiversity values in Western U.S.
Oak, floodplain, sage brush / sage grouse
Percent of optimal ecological functioning
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What the metrics measure
• Site level conditions
– Context
– Vegetation
– Species
– Abiotic
– Practices
– Risk
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Sagebrush metric: Final scores
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Where to find these metrics
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Marketplace for Nature web site
http://marketplace.conservationregistry.org
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Counting on the Environment – Willamette
Partnership http://willamettepartnership.org/
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Challenge with site level metrics
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Should they be habitat specific?
How many habitats?
Who develops, maintains, updates them?
How do they connect to larger landscape
scale metrics?
Not useful for landscape scale conservation
planning
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Increasing ecological
integrity
Setting Ecological Integrity Goals
Ecosystem
Conservation Goal
Rank
A
Rank
B
Rank
C
Rank
D
Increasing human disturbance
Ecological Integrity Monitoring
Level 1) Remote assessment
Level 2) Rapid field assessment
Level 3) Intensive assessment
Level 1: Remote assessment
Landscape context – Connectivity,
surrounding land use, patch size,
and stressors
Level 2: Rapid field assessment
 Landscape characteristics
 Vegetation cover and composition
 Soil condition
 Disturbance regimes
 Wildlife abundance and composition
 Stressors
 Calibration of remote techniques
Level 2: Rapid field assessment
Photo plots as example
1957
2006
Level 3: Intensive assessment
Application
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Initially to select priority conservation areas
Useful where natural habitat of interest
Also used for wetland assessment, monitoring
Expanded to measure habitat quality
Can be applied at multiple scales
NatureServe network supports
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Challenges
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Might not fit where biodiversity is a secondary
goal
• Less useful where data are limited - like other
methods, requires sustained investment
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Challenge of representing biodiversity
Biodiversity is an ecosystem service
• People harvest, consume wild plants
and animals
• Healthy ecosystems filter water, control
erosion, pollinate crops
• Nature has cultural (existence) values
• Landscape pattern, functions, species,
combine – Biodiversity Service Score
Biodiversity can be characterized by:
• Mapped features
• Quantitative tabular data
• Narrative description
Assumptions underlying biodiversity
framework
• Coarse filter looks at habitat abundance, type,
integrity, rarity and distribution
• Fine filter looks at species needs not captured
in coarse filter
• Ecological integrity characterizes functioning
systems that support native biodiversity
Ecological integrity
• Vegetation, structure, composition
• Ecological processes – fire, hydrology
• Species composition
– Common species
– Invasive species
• Rare, uncommon species not good
indicators
Species measures
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Rarity weighting applied – priority
Relevant regulations
Migratory patterns for some fish, wildlife
Population sizes
Biotic condition
Application for biodiversity index
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Broad scale conservation planning
Context of ecosystem service assessments
Linked to social, economic factors
Impact of corporate sourcing decisions
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Challenges
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May be too complex as presented
Needs translation for broad application
Requires high quality, detailed information
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Questions for the group
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Examples of habitat/biodiversity measures ?
Other approaches?
Field applications?
Collaborate to find creative solutions?
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Sara Vickerman
Defenders of Wildlife
Svickerman@defenders
http://marketplace.conservationregistry.org/
Defenders of Wildlife