People and Decisions: Meeting the Information Needs of Managers Page: 3 of 5
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STUDIES IN AVIAN BIOLOGY
fields and cut-over forests to a closed forest en-
vironment. Prescribed burning was aggressively
re-introduced in 1977 to assist in the recovery
of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides bo-
realis), and later to restore pre-settlement fire
dependent communities. All these activities have
without doubt altered vegetative conditions and
wildlife populations to the extent that there are
no truly un-impacted communities remaining.
Despite past land use, the SRS currently sup-
ports a remarkably species-rich flora and fauna,
although their relative abundance and distribu-
tion probably differs significantly from pre-set-
tlement conditions.
The Atomic Energy Commission sponsored
an inventory of the entire flora and fauna in the
early 1950s, and subsequently supported re-
search on ecological processes. Over the inter-
vening decades, public values changed as evi-
denced by the amount of environmental legis-
lation passed in the 1970s. People saw native
plants, animals, and their communities as non-
market "resources" that they wanted restored
and sustained. What was once an innovative
idea, i.e., inventory and monitoring, became an
essential task. And whereas scientists historical-
ly set the direction of scientific studies, regula-
tory compliance demanded a more deliberate re-
search agenda than just increasing our knowl-
edge of ecological processes.
By 1989, the prospect of new legislation or
directives aimed specifically at biodiversity and
ecosystem management suggested the need to be
proactive. However, the potential mandates were
too subjective ("ecosystem management"), in-
tangible ("naturalness"), unmeasurable ("integ-
rity"), or unamenable to study (whole ecosys-
tems) to adequately define research questions. In
the simplest sense, we had to know what species
were here in the past, what species could poten-
tially be here based on range and habitats, and
how to restore those species. It was important to
establish which species were utilizing the site,
and whether they were resident, summer mi-
grant, winter migrants, or transients. We needed
to develop long-term monitoring that provided
accurate and unbiased estimates, and which was
relatively easy and inexpensive to perform. We
had to refine and test expected relationships be-
tween vegetation types, successional stages,
landscape variables, structural variables, silvi-
cultural activities, and species occurrence or
abundance in order to predict possible impacts
or benefits from manipulations. Were there
source vs. sink habitats for sensitive species?
Were there trends occurring over time and how
were species distributed across SRS? We need
to provide for all species, yet give particular at-
tention to certain rare species, which incurs risksin that decisions are based on limited informa-
tion about a few.
THE SOLUTION
The strategic solution was to target simple
measurable objectives that could be more di-
rectly related to the public's perception of the
issues. After some struggle, a document evolved
that defined the biodiversity objective for SRS
as "sustaining and restoring native species in
structurally and functionally desirable commu-
nities" (SROO 1993). The definition recognized
the long history of human influence at SRS, the
need to minimize the amount of technology in-
volved in sustaining and restoring species, and
that goals would be determined by human per-
ceptions of a diverse landscape, not just techni-
cal indices.
The SRI research program was delineated into
broad themes: ecological restoration studies, key
species and resources, landscape patterns and
processes, and monitoring. Ad hoc groups of
managers and scientists met formally and infor-
mally to develop and delineate specific research
questions. Within the broad areas, major ques-
tions were identified that addressed areas of
"tension" between alternative competing hy-
pothesis. Some of these questions had implica-
tions for establishing the pattern and distribution
of potential vegetation types across the SRS
landscape, such as pre-settlement vegetation,
land use history, and ordination of remnant nat-
ural communities. Others were targeted at the
effects of specific silvicultural manipulations
and their effects on community richness and
abundance. Development of restoration strate-
gies obviously was important given past land
use, but also important were answers to ques-
tions about key resources, such as soft fruit or
large woody debris, and their influence on the
viability and distribution of native species. Re-
search on landscape patterns and processes test-
ed landscape and population processes that
might significantly improve more traditional
wildlife habitat models. The latter included a
large experimental study of corridors.
Under these broad themes, a number of avian
studies were initiated. In many research projects,
the avian community was seen as a response
variable to various large scale experimental
treatments, such as creation of bottomland hard-
wood canopy gaps, removal of large woody de-
bris, tree thinning, and site preparation. One
study was directed at the importance of soft fruit
to fall and winter migrants. The variation in
community and species characteristics also were
measured along gradients of successional stage,
clear-cut size, hardwood patch size in agricul-
tural and forested landscapes, and patch isola-106
NO. 21
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Blake, J.I. & LeMaster, E. People and Decisions: Meeting the Information Needs of Managers, article, October 1, 2000; New Ellenton, South Carolina. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc736038/m1/3/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.