| dc.description.abstract | Over the past 50 years, Ontario’s forest landscape has changed due to ever increasing
natural resource management. The natural vegetation pattern, forest composition, and the
fire regime have been altered. Maintaining wildlife species diversity is an important goal
of current forest management. However, little is understood about the impacts of large-scale
land use and landscape scale processes that influence wildlife. This project used
trapline harvest statistics from 1972-1990 to identify broad-scale effects of forest
management, weather, and landscape structure on furbearers (marten, beaver, fisher, and
lynx).
Spatial variables for logging and fire disturbance, forest cover type, weather, spatial
pattern, and road density were compiled in a geographic information system (GIS) and
standardized by trapline. Regression models were created for each species and analysed
at five spatial scales ranging from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR)
district (5000 sq. km) to the ‘provincial’ (800,000 sq. km) scales. The models were then
compared temporally and spatially for consistency in variable contribution to the
regression models. Forest cover type, weather, and spatial pattern variables accounted for
the greatest variation in furbearer harvest, while disturbance and road density variables
accounted for little variation. Model predictive capability ranged from 10 to 55% for all
species. Marten models had the greatest predictive power (r2) at the ‘OMNR District’
scale, while fisher and beaver models had the highest r2 values at the ‘Hills site region’
and ‘provincial’ scales, respectively. Lynx models were inconsistent with relatively low
predictive power at all scales.
The models suggest that disturbance from forest management is not affecting furbearer
harvests. Landscape scale variables such as forest cover type, weather, and landscape
pattern account for a relatively high proportion of marten, beaver, and fisher harvests.
These variables and the predictive power of the models reveal the influence that broad
landscape factors have on wildlife. | |
