Participation Assignment 1: GIS-based Red-cockaded Woodpecker Foraging Matrix Application

               

Red-cockaded woodpecker
(Photo Credit: USFWS)

 The red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) is a federally endangered bird endemic to the United States.  It has been at the forefront of conservation efforts due to its dramatic decline in recent decades.  RCWs are obligate residents of old growth pine forests of the Southeast United States, an ecosystem that is highly fire-dependent.  The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the government agency responsible for harboring and protecting endangered species, has created a GIS-based habitat index matrix which scores suitable foraging habitat in the vicinity of know RCW recruitment locations.

                RCWs roost and nest in excavated cavities of living pine trees which are arranged in small clusters, with one bird per cavity.  Thus they have a “home” cluster to which they return each night after spending the day foraging and that they fiercely defend from adjacent RCW families.  Their foraging efforts are most efficient if they utilize habitat within a specific radius of their home cluster.  The RCW foraging matrix is used to quantitatively score the habitat within such a radius of a cluster.  The analysis is based on the assumption that RCW families will primarily forage within this area.

Array of cluster locations and circular buffer with
overlaid land use data
(Photo Credit: USFWS)

Concentric rings of varying radii from an RCW cluster are analyzed for suitability.  Forestry and land use data (dominant tree type, stand density, extent of undergrowth, etc.) collected in the field can be overlaid to these circles and the total area of “good-quality foraging habitat” can be determined.  The matrix computes a score of suitable foraging habitat within each concentric ring, giving higher priority to those circles with smaller radii (i.e. closer to the cluster core) so that land managers may alter silviculture or fire practices to produce more and better foraging habitat.  Thus an adaptive management strategy is applied using the output scores of the matrix.  The parameters as to what qualifies as “good-quality foraging habitat” is constantly changing with new and better information from applied ecological research.

Currently, the foraging matrix is an application published and updated by USFWS for intra- and extra-agency usage.  GIS specialists at wildlife refuges or the like may use this application by simply providing the given input data.

The article linked here is a master’s thesis that evaluates several clusters using the RCW foraging matrix. http://search.proquest.com/docview/89111636/previewPDF?accountid=14787