Benefits

This project addresses DoD’s needs by linking federally listed species habitat requirements and population parameters at the landscape level, specifically for the purpose of identifying and ranking key habitat parcels on and in the vicinity of target installations. The DSS is applicable to problems involving land use change, habitat fragmentation, habitat restoration, evaluation of management options, range design, and land acquisition. As such, on installations harboring RCWs it can be applied to help resolve the impact of habitat fragmentation on and in the vicinity of DoD installations on endangered and threatened species. The DSS allows users to project the impact of any change in land use or management within their existing land base, or additions to or subtractions from that land base, on their RCW populations. Specifically users will be able to assess the effects of landscape fragmentation, habitat loss, habitat restoration, recruitment cluster construction, and the absence of management actions on current and future RCW populations. In addition, the DSS is specifically designed to enable evaluations of the importance of individual habitat parcels to an RCW population and to track dispersal of birds between user-defined groups of territories. The DSS will enable managers to make more accurate projections about the dynamics of their RCW populations and of their management actions on those populations. The DSS can inform critical management decisions with regard to listed species habitat and population management while complementing related DoD issues such as training and readiness planning and compatible use buffers surrounding installations.