Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Sep 26;17(9):e0274808.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274808. eCollection 2022.

Habitat amount or landscape configuration: Emerging HotSpot analysis reveals the importance of habitat amount for a grassland bird in South Dakota

Sprih Harsh  1 , Robert C Lonsinger  1 , Andrew J Gregory  2
Affiliations

Habitat amount or landscape configuration: Emerging HotSpot analysis reveals the importance of habitat amount for a grassland bird in South Dakota

Sprih Harsh et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Habitat loss and fragmentation are two important drivers of biodiversity decline. Understanding how species respond to landscape composition and configuration in dynamic landscapes is of great importance for informing the conservation and management of grassland species. With limited conservation resources, prescribed management targeted at the appropriate landscape process is necessary for the effective management of species. We used pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) across South Dakota, USA as a model species to identify environmental factors driving spatiotemporal variation in population productivity. Using an emerging Hotspot analysis, we analyzed annual count data from 105 fixed pheasant brood routes over a 24-year period to identify high (HotSpot) and low (ColdSpot) pheasant population productivity areas. We then applied classification and regression tree modeling to evaluate landscape attributes associated with pheasant productivity among spatial scales (500 m and 1000 m). We found that the amount of grassland at a local spatial scale was the primary factor influencing an area being a HotSpot. Our results also demonstrated non-significant or weak effects of fragmentation per se on pheasant populations. These findings are in accordance with the habitat amount hypothesis highlighting the importance of habitat amount in the landscape for maintaining and increasing the pheasant population. We, therefore, recommend that managers should focus on increasing the total habitat area in the landscape and restoring degraded habitats. Our method of identifying areas of high productivity across the landscape can be applied to other species with count data.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Distribution of roadside survey routes used to index the relative abundance of pheasants in South Dakota; data collected along the 105 survey routes within the highlighted 53 counties were used to assess factors driving pheasant productivity between 1993–2016.
Fig 2
Fig 2
Boxplots of pheasants*km-1 over a) 24-year and b) 11-year period across the study area (SA), HotSpot (HS), ColdSpot (CS) and AverageSpot (AS).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Trend in pheasants*km-1 over 24-year and 11-year (after vertical line) period across the study area (SA), HotSpot (HS), ColdSpot (CS) and AverageSpot (AS).
Fig 4
Fig 4
Areas under a) HotSpot and b) ColdSpot over an 11-year (2006–2016) period across the study area in South Dakota, USA. The legend shows the number of years an area was either a HotSpot or a ColdSpot.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Trend in area (km2) under different levels of pheasant productivity over 24-year and 11-year (vertical line) period across HotSpot (HS), ColdSpot (CS) and AverageSpot (AS).
Fig 6
Fig 6. Classification tree model of the influence of landscape attributes on pheasant HotSpots (HS) and Coldspots (CS) at different spatial scales (500 m and 1000 m).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Fahrig L. Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Biodiversity Author(s): Lenore Fahrig Reviewed work(s): Source: Annual Review of Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Biodiversity. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst. 2003; 34: 487–515.
    1. Haddad NM, Brudvig LA, Clobert J, Davies KF, Gonzalez A, Holt RD, et al.. Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Sci Adv. 2015; 1. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1500052 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wimberly MC, Narem DM, Bauman PJ, Carlson BT, Ahlering MA. Grassland connectivity in fragmented agricultural landscapes of the north-central United States. Biol Conserv. 2018; 217: 121–130. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.10.031 - DOI
    1. Yeager LA, Estrada J, Holt K, Keyser SR, Oke TA. Are Habitat Fragmentation Effects Stronger in Marine Systems? A Review and Meta-analysis. Current Landscape Ecology Reports. 2020; 5: 58–67. doi: 10.1007/s40823-020-00053-w - DOI
    1. Rocha EC, Brito D, Silva PME, Silva J, Bernardo PVDS, Juen L. Effects of habitat fragmentation on the persistence of medium and large mammal species in the Brazilian savanna of Goiás state. Biota Neotrop. 2018;18(3). doi: 10.1590/1676-0611-BN-2017-0483 - DOI

Publication types