Agricultural News
USDA Says More Targeted CRP Acres Can Offset Projected Prairie Chicken Population Decline
Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:16:25 CST
The Natural Resources Conservation Service recently released a Conservation Insight about how USDA conservation programs contribute to Lesser Prairie-Chicken conservation in relation to projected climate change. A landscape-scale geospatial analysis - completed in 2011 by Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV) in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) - showed that if 10 percent of the land currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was spatially targeted to benefit the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, a one to two percent population decline could be offset. Simply put, more targeted CRP acres can offset a greater portion of the projected population decline of the species.
"This Conservation Effects Assessment Project shows the differences between our current and projected landscape, and highlights those areas that may remain similar," says TNC's Duane Pool, one of the report's authors and a landscape ecologist now at Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. "If we target our conservation efforts in those areas, we may be able to provide a climate resistant refuge for animals that depend on this landscape and time for birds to potentially adapt to the changing environment."
Climate change and dynamic vegetation models were used to project future climate and grassland habitat conditions in the PLJV region, including the current range of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken. The climate change models predicted that temperatures will increase by approximately 3°C (5°F) and that precipitation will decrease by approximately 32 mm/yr (1.3 in/yr) by 2060. The greatest changes in both temperature and precipitation will occur in Kansas, the northern portion of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken range, where the largest segment of the current population exists.
In addition, the vegetation model predicted a decline in above-ground vegetation across most of the region, suggesting that grassland plant communities will become shorter and sparser, which could result in less suitable habitat for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken and potentially cause a population decline. Targeted delivery of USDA conservation programs that establish grassland habitat can help offset these potential climate-induced changes.
"Spatial targeting of CRP and other grassland programs in high priority Lesser Prairie-Chicken areas will help alleviate some of the pressure put on this species by a changing landscape and help it survive," says Anne Bartuszevige, PLJV conservation science director and another of the report's authors.
For more information, read USDA Conservation Program Contributions to Lesser Prairie-Chicken Conservation in the Context of Projected Climate Change.
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