Context
Knowledge about spatial patterns of human dimensions data within landscape ecology is nascent despite its importance in natural resources management. We explored this topic within the context ...of utility roadside forest management, a complex situation involving ecological, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of forests and reliable power.
Objectives
We applied spatial interpolation to investigate patterns of human attitudes toward roadside vegetation management data across an exurban landscape.
Methods
Mail surveys (
n
= 1962) were used to collect social science data from residents in four areas of Connecticut, USA. For each area, three attitudes variables were evaluated for spatial autocorrelation using Moran’s
I
statistic. Based on identified autocorrelation distance or scale, attitudes were interpolated using inverse distance weighting. Model validation of interpolated surfaces was completed using root mean square error.
Results
Significant spatial autocorrelation was present for five of 12 study area-attitude pairings (one focused on professionalism; two focused on safety; three focused on tradeoffs between reliable power and maintaining trees) at distances ranging from 200 to 2400 m. Accuracy of interpolations varied among study areas, suggesting that the choice of spatial scale of analysis influenced model results.
Conclusions
Social processes influencing attitudes were spatially heterogeneous, existing at disparate scales for the same variables in different locations. Collectively, “enough” roadside forest may exist to ameliorate intermittent vegetation management aesthetically, yet underlying social processes influencing roadside forest outcomes likely are not mutually exclusive. Interpolation assumptions often applied toward ecological studies did not work well for social processes studied in this analysis.
Roadside forests are susceptible to damage from storm events given their exposure and related vulnerability to impacts of multiple stressors. Challenges to management are further complicated in ...exurban landscapes, where roadside forests are interspersed among fragmented land ownership entities with diverse management objectives. Our objective was to evaluate forest management community information sharing about biophysical stressors affecting roadside vegetation for multiple forestland tract types in Connecticut. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews (n = 39). Results from social network analysis illustrated network structure and interrelationship patterns among community members. Overall network cohesion was low. Core network positions were dominated by few stakeholders. Communication occurred among subgroups comprised of individuals representing several different stakeholder occupation groups. Low cohesion may be inherent of the fragmented exurban landscape with relations focused on shared objectives. Community longevity may depend upon maintaining core-position connections and a less-centralized network composed of individuals from various occupations.
Context
For the roadside forest, utility vegetation management is a driver of landscape change involving tradeoffs between reliable electric power and preservation of trees. However, little is known ...about public perceptions of vegetation management in the landscape context.
Objectives
Our objective was to evaluate social and residential context characteristics associated with resident attitudes toward roadside utility vegetation management across Connecticut.
Methods
We used a mail survey to collect social science data from residents in two study areas in Connecticut. We measured landscape characteristics associated with tree cover and development density at multiple scales around each respondent household. Random forest predictive models were used to assess attitudes toward vegetation management as explained by social and residential context variables.
Results
Respondents generally had positive attitudes toward vegetation management, agreeing that it improves public safety and minimizes power outages. Social variables revealed that residents were more likely to have favorable attitudes if they had greater knowledge about trees, believed that trees should be used for human benefits, prioritized reduced power outages over forest aesthetics, and considered changes in the roadside forest to be acceptable. Residential context variables were not as strongly associated with attitudes as social variables, but did rank as important for two out of three attitudes variables.
Conclusions
Attitudes toward vegetation management may be influenced by residential context, yet likely are formed independently of it. Spatial heterogeneity of exurban land use and social characteristics suggest encompassing variability in approaches to roadside forest management policy.
Context
An exciting research frontier is the intersection of wildlife ecology and social science. Associated research is embracing a spatial approach to integrating ecological and social data to ...investigate the complex relationships between wildlife and humans across landscapes. However, there is a lack of coherence on the status, current methodology, and potential future directions of this body of research to advance landscape analyses.
Objectives
We provided a review of the current state of the science of social-ecological research and modeling of human-wildlife interactions across space, with a goal of compiling state-of-the-art approaches, methods, major findings, limitations, and future directions.
Methods
We performed a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles published from January 2000 to August 2023. We synthesized methods, lessons learned, and key themes in the literature.
Results
Synthesized findings pointed to the importance of spatial context in shaping wildlife and human attributes and their interactions, and the demonstrated value of adding social science data to contest past practices of oversimplifying the complex drivers of human-wildlife interactions. Challenges and limitations included spatial scale mismatches, the limits of assigning causality, misaligned terminology, and need for more in-depth and diverse social science data collection methods and frameworks.
Conclusions
These studies highlighted the potential for social-ecological analyses to inform management through identification of key levers, scenario modeling, and avoidance of “panacea traps.” Our results also chart a path forward that calls for more extensive data integration, investigation of feedbacks, and multi-scale approaches to more deeply understand human-wildlife relationships across landscapes.
Environmental challenges are complex and require expertise from multiple disciplines. Consequently, there is growing interest in interdisciplinary environmental research that integrates natural and ...social science, an often arduous undertaking. We surveyed researchers interested and experienced in research at the human-environment interface to assess perspectives on interdisciplinary research. Integrative interdisciplinary research has eluded many of our respondents, whose efforts are better described as additive multidisciplinary research. The respondents identified many advantages and rewards of interdisciplinary research, including the creation of more-relevant knowledge. However, they also reported significant challenges and obstacles, including tension with departments (49%) or institutions (61%), communication difficulties, and differing disciplinary approaches, as well as institutional barriers (e.g., a lack of credit in promotion and tenure). Most (52%) believed that developing interdisciplinary breadth should begin as early as the undergraduate level. We apply our results to recommendations for successful interdisciplinary endeavors.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Landscape characteristics affect human-wildlife interactions. However, there is a need to better understand mechanisms that drive those interactions, particularly feedbacks that exist between ...wildlife-related impacts, human reaction to and behavior as a result of those impacts, and how land use and landscape characteristics may influence those components within coupled human and natural systems. Current conceptual models of human-wildlife interactions often focus on species population size as the independent variable driving those interactions. Such an approach potentially overlooks important feedbacks among and drivers of human-wildlife interactions that result from mere wildlife presence versus absence. We describe an emerging conceptual framework that focuses on wildlife as a driver of human behavior and allows us to better understand linkages between humans, wildlife, and the broader landscape. We also present results of a pilot analysis related to our own ongoing study of urban rodent control behavior to illustrate one application of this framework within a study of urban landscapes.
Timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) are endangered throughout the northeastern United States where multiple factors contribute to population declines. Challenges exist to managing rattlesnake ...populations because there is little information about human dimensions of this species or other small predators that are venomous or perceived as hazardous. Our objective was to evaluate relationships between resident attitudes and behavioral intentions toward timber rattlesnakes. A mail survey (n = 593) was used to collect data from residents who live near a rattlesnake population in central Connecticut. Two variables defined resident attitudes toward rattlesnakes: coexistence with the species and perceived threats from the species. Rattlesnake-related factors and situational factors appeared to contribute more heavily to behavioral intentions toward rattlesnakes than general wildlife value orientations. Attitudes predicted behavioral intentions toward rattlesnakes. Results will help wildlife managers incorporate human factors into appropriate management and public outreach strategies.
In October 2011, the Halloween Nor’easter produced unusually early and heavy snowfall while leaves were still on the trees, causing extensive damage throughout the northeastern United States. This ...storm is an example of winter weather whiplash, in which an abrupt, back-and-forth swing in winter weather affects coupled human and natural systems. Research on the social-ecological drivers and impacts of winter weather whiplash is scarce because most studies only consider meteorological causes and consequences of extreme events. In this study, we used publicly available data of snowfall accumulation, vegetation phenology, road density, and per capita income to predict storm impacts, which we estimated with textual analysis of Halloween Nor’easter newspaper coverage. We demonstrated that a combination of meteorological, natural, and human system drivers was better able to predict the impact of the storm than meteorological drivers alone. Although we focused on the Halloween Nor’easter, our work highlights the necessity of understanding how multiple drivers and hazards can intersect to create rare and possibly novel conditions that may become more common as the climate warms and becomes more variable.
Forest policymakers and managers have long sought ways to evaluate the capability of forest landscapes to jointly produce timber, habitat, and other ecosystem services in response to forest ...management. Currently, carbon is of particular interest as policies for increasing carbon storage on federal lands are being proposed. However, a challenge in joint production analysis of forest management is adequately representing ecological conditions and processes that influence joint production relationships. We used simulation models of vegetation structure, forest sector carbon, and potential wildlife habitat to characterize landscape-level joint production possibilities for carbon storage, timber harvest, and habitat for seven wildlife species across a range of forest management regimes. We sought to (1) characterize the general relationships of production possibilities for combinations of carbon storage, timber, and habitat, and (2) identify management variables that most influence joint production relationships. Our 160000-ha study landscape featured environmental conditions typical of forests in the Western Cascade Mountains of Oregon (USA). Our results indicate that managing forests for carbon storage involves trade-offs among timber harvest and habitat for focal wildlife species, depending on the disturbance interval and utilization intensity followed. Joint production possibilities for wildlife species varied in shape, ranging from competitive to complementary to compound, reflecting niche breadth and habitat component needs of species examined. Managing Pacific Northwest forests to store forest sector carbon can be roughly complementary with habitat for Northern Spotted Owl, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and red tree vole. However, managing forests to increase carbon storage potentially can be competitive with timber production and habitat for Pacific marten, Pileated Woodpecker, and Western Bluebird, depending on the disturbance interval and harvest intensity chosen. Our analysis suggests that joint production possibilities under forest management regimes currently typical on industrial forest lands (e.g., 40- to 80-yr rotations with some tree retention for wildlife) represent but a small fraction of joint production outcomes possible in the region. Although the theoretical boundaries of the production possibilities sets we developed are probably unachievable in the current management environment, they arguably define the long-term potential of managing forests to produce multiple ecosystem services within and across multiple forest ownerships.
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