U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, North Dakota, United States of America.
U. S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Dixon Field Station, Dixon, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 9;14(1):e0198382. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198382. eCollection 2019.
Birds are essential components of most ecosystems and provide many services valued by society. However, many populations have undergone striking declines as their habitats have been lost or degraded by human activities. Terrestrial grasslands are vital habitat for birds in the North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), but grassland conversion and fragmentation from agriculture and energy-production activities have destroyed or degraded millions of hectares. Conservation grasslands can provide alternate habitat. In the United States, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest program maintaining conservation grasslands on agricultural lands, but conservation grasslands in the PPR have declined by over 1 million ha since the program's zenith in 2007. We used an ecosystem-services model (InVEST) parameterized for the PPR to quantify grassland-bird habitat remaining in 2014 and to assess the degradation status of the remaining grassland-bird habitat as influenced by crop and energy (i.e., oil, natural gas, and wind) production. We compared our resultant habitat-quality ratings to grassland-bird abundance data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey to confirm that ratings were related to grassland-bird abundance. Of the grassland-bird habitat remaining in 2014, about 19% was degraded by crop production that occurred within 0.1 km of grassland habitats, whereas energy production degraded an additional 16%. We further quantified the changes in availability of grassland-bird habitat under various land-cover scenarios representing incremental losses (10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) of CRP grasslands from 2014 levels. Our model identified 1 million ha (9%) of remaining grassland-bird habitat in the PPR that would be lost or degraded if all CRP conservation grasslands were returned to crop production. Grassland regions world-wide face similar challenges in maintaining avian habitat in the face of increasing commodity and energy production to sate the food and energy needs of a growing world population. Identifying ways to model the impacts of the tradeoff between food and energy production and wildlife production is an important step in creating solutions.
鸟类是大多数生态系统的重要组成部分，为社会提供许多有价值的服务。然而，由于人类活动导致其栖息地丧失或退化，许多鸟类种群数量急剧下降。在北美大平原干草原区（PPR），陆地草原是鸟类至关重要的栖息地，但农业和能源生产活动导致草原转换和破碎化，已经破坏或退化了数百万公顷的土地。保护草原可以提供替代栖息地。在美国，保护储备计划（CRP）是维护农业土地上保护草原的最大计划，但自该计划于 2007 年达到顶峰以来，PPR 的保护草原已经减少了超过 100 万公顷。我们使用针对 PPR 进行参数化的生态系统服务模型（InVEST）来量化 2014 年剩余的草原鸟类栖息地，并评估剩余草原鸟类栖息地因作物和能源（即石油、天然气和风力）生产而退化的状况。我们将我们的结果栖息地质量评级与北美繁殖鸟类调查的草原鸟类数量数据进行了比较，以确认评级与草原鸟类数量有关。在 2014 年剩余的草原鸟类栖息地中，约有 19%因距离草原栖息地 0.1 公里范围内的作物生产而退化，而能源生产则进一步退化了 16%。我们进一步量化了在代表 CRP 草原从 2014 年水平逐步减少（10%、25%、50%、75%和 100%）的各种土地覆盖情景下，草原鸟类栖息地的可用性变化。我们的模型确定了 PPR 中 100 万公顷（9%）的剩余草原鸟类栖息地，如果所有 CRP 保护草原都恢复为作物生产，这些栖息地将被丧失或退化。在全球范围内，草原地区都面临着类似的挑战，即如何在满足不断增长的世界人口对粮食和能源需求的情况下，维持不断增加的商品和能源生产对鸟类栖息地的影响。确定在粮食和能源生产与野生动物生产之间权衡取舍的影响模型的方法，是制定解决方案的重要步骤。
