Session Information
| Session | Poster Session | | Date | Monday (2008-04-07) | | Time | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM | | Room | Grand Terrace |
Presentation Information
| Presenter | Alexandra Wells | | Title | A predictive model for tallgrass prairie remnant distribution in the Southwest Grasslands Area of Wisconsin | | Affiliation | Department of Landscape Architecture, UW - Madison | | Authors | Alexandra Wells, John Harrington | | Keywords | Generalized linear models, GIS, Predictive modeling, Spatial analysis, Tallgrass prairie | | Presentation Type | Poster | Abstract:
Tallgrass prairie habitat, consisting of about 800,000 hectares in pre-settlement Wisconsin, now exists over less than 0.1% of the landscape. Because most of the land cover is used for intensive agriculture or pasture, there has been a corresponding loss of biodiversity and other ecosystem services such as water quality. Prairie remnants are small (often less than 5 acres), hard to locate on aerial photographs, and typically on private lands; therefore it can be difficult to locate previously unknown remnants in the field. In our study, we analyze environmental and geographic factors associated with the locations of known prairie remnants in the Southwest Grasslands Area (SGA) of Wisconsin, in order to create a predictive model of remnant distribution in the SGA study area. We use a general linear mixed model that incorporates environmental and spatial variables that best predict current SGA vegetation pattern. A geographic information system (GIS) is used to map potential prairie remnant locations in order to expedite the search for unknown prairie remnants that may exist in the SGA. Remnants contain many conservative prairie plant and insect species, and provide habitat for regionally declining grassland birds. A predictive landscape model may play a critical role in identifying the fragmented prairie habitat that still exists. |
|