Biodiversity Commons^™

Reducing Protected Lands In A Hotspot Of Bee Biodiversity: Bees Of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Joseph S. Wilson, Matt Kelly, Olivia Messinger Carril

Biology Faculty Publications

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a federally protected area found in central southern Utah. Designated in 1996 by President William J. Clinton, it was recently reduced in size by President Donald J. Trump in a proclamation that turned the one large monument into three smaller ones. A long-term, standardized study of the bees had been conducted from 2000–2003, revealing 660 species. The bee communities of the area are characterized by being spatially heterogeneous; most of the bees occur in isolated areas, with only a few being both abundant and widespread. Here we examine what affect the recent resizing of the …

Expanding Instream Flows To Protect Ecosystems In Overallocated River Basins, Belize A. Lane, David E. Rosenberg

Reports

Utahns are expressing a rapidly growing interest in protecting and enhancing instream flows for outdoor recreation and environmental benefits (Endter-Wada et al. 2015). However, many Utah rivers are already over-allocated for agricultural, municipal, hydropower and other water uses, making it difficult to procure additional water for instream flows. ‘Use it or lose it’ western water law and mentality encourages Utahns to use water rather than return it to rivers and ecosystems.

This briefing reviews existing instream flow practices allowed by the Utah water rights system and the challenges to implementation. We suggest key technical and legislative opportunities within and outside …

Conservation Of Aquatic Biodiversity In The Context Of Multiple-Use Management On National Forest System Lands, Brett B. Roper, James M. Capurso, Yvette Paroz, Michael K. Young

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USFS) manages 193 million acres of public lands across 43 states and Puerto Rico. The original intent behind reserving lands managed by the USFS was to improve and protect forests, secure favorable conditions for water flows, and furnish a continuous supply of timber for the nation. Through time national forests have evolved, so they are managed for a broad array of uses. Differing expectations have led to conflicts between aquatic conservation and other aspects of the USFS’ mandate. In the 1990s, these conflicting goals came to a head with the listing of the …

Multiple Facets Of Biodiversity Drive The Diversity-Stability Relationship, Dylan Craven, Nico Eisenhauer, William D. Pearse, Yann Hautier, Christiane Roscher, Forest Isbell, Michael Bahn, Carl Beierkuhnlein, Gerhard Bönisch, Nina Buchmann, Chaeho Byun, Jane A. Catford, Bruno E.L. Cerabolini, J. Hans C. Cornelissen, Joseph M. Craine, Enrica De Luca, Anne Ebeling, John N. Griffin, Andy Hector, Jes Hines, Anke Jentsch, Jens Kattge, Jürgen Kreyling, Vojtech Lanta, Nathan Lemoine, Sebastian T. Meyer, Vanessa Minden, Vladimir Onipchenko, H. Wayne Polley, Peter B. Reich, Jasper Van Ruijven, Brandon Schamp, Melinda D. Smith, Nadejda A. Soudzilovskaia, David Tilman, Alexandra Weigelt, Brian Wilsey, Peter Manning

Biology Faculty Publications

A significant body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity–stability relationship remains unclear. Here we used data from 39 biodiversity experiments and structural equation modeling to investigate the roles of species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and both the diversity and community-weighted mean of functional traits representing the ‘fast–slow’ leaf economics spectrum in driving the diversity–stability relationship. We found that high species richness and phylogenetic diversity stabilize biomass production via enhanced asynchrony. Contrary to our hypothesis, low phylogenetic diversity also enhances ecosystem stability …

Prioritizing Phylogenetic Diversity Captures Functional Diversity Unreliably, Florent Mazel, Matthew W. Pennell, Marc W. Cadotte, Sandra Diaz, Giulio Valentino Dalla Riva, Richard Grenyer, Fabien Leprieur, Arne O. Mooers, David Mouillot, Caroline M. Tucker, William D. Pearse

Biology Faculty Publications

In the face of the biodiversity crisis, it is argued that we should prioritize species in order to capture high functional diversity (FD). Because species traits often reflect shared evolutionary history, many researchers have assumed that maximizing phylogenetic diversity (PD) should indirectly capture FD, a hypothesis that we name the “phylogenetic gambit”. Here, we empirically test this gambit using data on ecologically relevant traits from >15,000 vertebrate species. Specifically, we estimate a measure of surrogacy of PD for FD. We find that maximizing PD results in an average gain of 18% of FD relative to random choice. However, this average …

Genetic Differentiation Between Two Species Of Buckwheat (Eriogonum), Paul G. Wolf, Jenessa B. Lemon

Browse all Datasets

Discovering the extent of genetic differentiation between closely related taxa facilitates decisions regarding species protection under the Endangered Species Act. Here, we analyze genotype data to explore the relatedness of two buckwheat species: Eriogonum soredium Reveal- a narrow endemic under consideration for protection, and a widespread close relative, Eriogonum shockleyi S. Watson. Eriogonum soredium grows only on Ordovician limestone outcroppings in west central Utah, whereas the range of E. shockleyi is broad, spanning the western United States from Colorado to California, and Idaho to Arizona. Eriogonum shockleyi is suspected of hybridizing with other buckwheats throughout this range. We detected higher …

Wordpress Plugins For Symbiota2, Venkatesh Kadali

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Symbiota is an open source project which helps biologists concentrate their efforts on curation of quality datasets rather than creating the tools. Symbiota’s graphical user interface is hardcoded into many PHP files resulting in poor maintainability and extensibility. The main goal of Symbiota is to separate the user interface of Symbiota with its core structure as the user interface is hard-coded with PHP. This helps in reducing the source lines of code. The secondary goal of Symbiota is to help Symbiota developers to add the Symbiota features to their website and also should identify whether the separation of user interface …

Can The Vaquita Be Saved From Extinction?, Gerardo Rodríguez-Quiroz, Wenceslao Valenzuela-Quiñonez, Héctor A. González-Ocampo, Alfredo Ortega-Rubio

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is considered the world’s most endangered marine mammal. It is the smallest member of the porpoise family endemic to the upper part of the Gulf of California. The current population is estimated at less than 30 individuals. The primary reasons for the species decline includes limited habitat and incidental mortalities associated with illegal gillnet fishing activities. Since 2008, the Mexican government has taken environmental and economic actions to protect the vaquita’s focusing in reducing by-catch deaths to zero. In 2015, a federal Agreement decreed by the Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y …

A Review Of Contemporary U.S. Wild Horse And Burro Management Policies Relative To Desired Management Outcomes, Keith A. Norris

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Legally defined “wild” horse (Equus ferus caballus ) and burro (E. asinus ; WHB) populations in the United States exceed established population objectives. The context of WHB policy and management can be categorized into ecological, geographical, legal, social, and political perspectives. Ecologically, all WHB populations in the United States are considered feral animals, but certain populations are afforded protection and management by the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA) of 1971. The current policy and management paradigms under which the WFRHBA is being implemented has contributed to rangeland degradation, poor WHB health, and impacts to native wildlife. This …

Framing Contemporary U.S. Wild Horse And Burro Management Processes In A Dynamic Ecological, Sociological, And Political Environment, J. Derek Scasta, Jacob D. Hennig, Jeffrey L. Beck

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA) of 1971 established all “unbranded or unclaimed” equids on U.S. public lands as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Today, >72,000 feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) and burros (E . asinus ; WHB) live on western U.S. public rangelands. The number of WHBs exceeds the Bureau of Land Management’s maximum Appropriate Management Level (AML) of 26,715 by a factor of approximately 2.7 and has nearly doubled from 2007–2015. The AML was set to balance WHB numbers with rangeland health and support other uses such as wildlife habitat …

Resource Selection Of Free-Ranging Horses Influenced By Fire In Northern Canada, Sonja E. R. Leverkus, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf, Marten Geertsema, Brady W. Allred, Mark Gregory, Alexandre R. Bevington, David M. Engle, J. Derek Scasta

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Free-ranging or feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) were important to the livelihood of First Nations and indigenous communities in Canada. The early inhabitants of the boreal region of British Columbia (BC) capitalized on naturally occurring wildfires and anthropogenic burning to provide forage for free-ranging horses and manage habitat for wildlife. This form of pyric herbivory, or grazing driven by fi re via the attraction to the palatable vegetation in recently burned areas, is an evolutionary disturbance process that occurs globally. However, its application to manage forage availability for free-ranging horses has not been studied in northern Canada. Across Canada, there …