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Project Objectives

The project consists of four overall objectives. The first two objectives are focused on species distribution modelling:

  1. Identification of wildlife species that are anticipated to be adversely affected by the MPB outbreak and management response. Identification based primarily on three sources; one, 25 species selected for  "Hectares BC" pilot, which include a range of taxa and includes specialists and generalists; two, species identified by Ministry of Environment (Eric Lofroth), as "winners" and "losers" from the MPB outbreak, and three, species identified through the Nature Conservancies Interior Ecoregion assessment. The final selection of species will be approved by the project team.  Once selected information will be collated about their current range, distribution and habitat, including sources of occurrence data, published species accounts, and species specific expertise in preparation for modelling.
  2. Species distribution maps, including the methodologies to generate the species potential habitat. Review literature for existing species distribution models, including Nature serve's "element distribution modelling" approach (Beauvais et al. 2006), and provide recommendations for a proposed approach, that will be approved by the project team. The contractor will then provide technical support for the selected model. The method will include the development of a data base for each species, identifying the key environment correlates required to predict the species habitat, including information on how those elements will be impacted by MPB and timber salvaging. The resulting species distribution maps will be formatted so that they can be imported into Hectares BC.

    Under objectives 3 and 4 the species distribution modelling is used as a basis for the development of species specific habitat supply models:

  3. Provide a general description of ecological change resulting from MPB and related forestry activities, including shifts in forest pattern, structure and composition. Extend the species account information to include descriptions and probabilities of how they may respond to the observed and anticipated shifts in ecological state resulting from the MPB outbreak and related forestry activities, including an interpretation of the variation in occupancy over their range based on changes in habitat and population response. Identify what environmental variables are required for modelling habitat change and format for import to Hectares BC.
  4. Develop a habitat supply modelling framework using a two phase approach for the identified species using the information organized through the previous objectives:
    1. Phase one will be a simple model that can be easily implemented using existing information, including expert opinion, on how the species will respond to the MPB outbreak and timber salvaging activities. Use the provincial MPB projection model (Eng et al. 2005) to estimate the future landscape state, identifying and using the available environmental variables in the model to project the future supply of the species habitat and the potential occupancy of those habitats. Other ancillary models will be developed as required, such as modelling forest pathology like root rot to identify denning sites.
    2. Phase two will be a more detailed modelling methodology relying on empirical data, where available, and expert opinion. Key environmental correlates, not available in the phase one landscape modelling, will be identified along with methods and data requirements to temporally model those attributes. As part of phase two data and knowledge gaps for future research will be identified.
    3. The model framework will include methods to assess the uncertainty in vegetative and species response to landscape change, such as information gap theory (Regan et al. 2005) and scenario analysis (Peterson et al. 2003).

Deliverables

  1. Spreadsheet and accompanying documentation describing the species that will be most impacted by MPB and timber salvage, their species accounts including key environmental correlates that define their habitat and rules on how changes in landscape composition, pattern and structure will impact the supply and occupancy of habitat.
  2. A set of current species distribution maps formatted for uploading to Hectares BC.
  3. A descriptive framework for implementing the quick and simple phase one model and a more detailed and resource intensive phase two model.
  4. A report on the application of the species account information and simple modelling framework for selected species, including model code, input data and resultant data and spatial products.