Gros Morne National Park of Canada
Maintaining Landscape Connectivity in the Greater Gros Morne Ecosystem
Background
Commercial forest harvesting adjacent to Gros Morne National Park of Canada represents a significant potential threat to the ecological integrity of this protected area. In addition to loss of habitat, harvesting can potentially result in the long-term spatial separation of populations in isolated habitat patches. Metapopulation theory suggests that long-term isolation of sub-populations can threaten the viability of a species in a region. For Gros Morne National Park of Canada, this may translate into the loss of ecosystem integrity through the loss of native biodiversity (e.g., the Newfoundland marten population could become extirpated from the park greater ecosystem). This project involves overlapping studies that assess landscape connectivity using several species at different spatial scales. This is a multi-year project that began in 1999.
Project Goals
Project Description
Animals differ in the way that they move around their habitat, and in the physical characteristics that they require in their habitat. This study looks at uncut forest and logged areas and compares how birds and insects move through natural and altered habitats. Phase 1 of the project related the occurrence of particular invertebrate and bird species to forest structure using statistical models. Detailed surveys were done in over fifty, 5km² plots. These data were then compared with landscape habitat attributes from the GIS database. Statistical models were used to reveal the effects of local habitat features and landscape configurations on species occurrence. These data are critical to a better understanding of how forest harvesting affects the distribution of organisms, and the probability of a species persisting in a harvested landscape over the long-term. Phase 2 of the project is underway. Research is now focussing on the mechanisms explaining the distribution of dragonflies and forest songbirds.
Dragonfly Research
Female dragonfly
© Parks Canada / Michael Burzynski
Research has been conducted to assess the influence of multiple scales of habitat structure on dragonfly ( Odonata ) populations. The specific aim of the work was to determine whether large-scale landscape change (commercial forestry) has affected populations of dragonflies inhabiting peatlands. Dragonflies respond to structural features of their habitat within bogs. They also navigate through larger landscape features - peatland, forest, and disturbance patches - at larger spatial scales. Loss of peatland habitat, or of the forest patches between peatlands, has the potential to change their movement behaviour and population distribution.
Large scale mark-recapture experiments were conducted to determine how two species of dragonflies (Hudsonian whiteface and Four-spotted skimmer) move from one peat-land to another through natural forest and harvested forest. The experiments took place in ten bogs, some separated by clear-cuts and some separated by forest or scrub. Dragonflies were captured in sweep nets and each individual was marked on the wing with a unique number. The dragonfly was quickly released at the point of capture. Some were recaptured on subsequent days as the process continued. Bogs were visited on a rotating schedule with equal time and effort allocated to each site. When marked dragonflies were encountered, their numbers and locations were recorded as a re-capture. From these data, several parameters are being modelled: daily survivorship of the dragonflies, rates of movement between bogs, and more specifically, rates of movements through different habitats.
Songbird Research
Banding songbirds provides permanent marks to examine movement and long-term population persistence.
© Parks Canada / Stephen Flemming
Translocation - homing experiments were designed to directly assess the relative ability of different bird species to move through landscapes with different sized and shaped clearcuts, bogs, and forest. These involved the capture of territorial male songbirds, and their translocation to a site about 4km distant. Homing success and homing time are being used as relative measures of movement ability across these landscapes. The study species included: Fox Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Birds were captured using song/call tapes and mist nets. Captured individuals were fitted with coloured bands, placed in holding bags, and driven to pre-determined release sites. After release, researchers patrolled the original capture location for up to 10 days, checking for returning birds.
Project Team
- Dr. Philip Taylor, Acadia University
- Dr. Stephen Flemming, GMNPC
- Michelle McPherson, Acadia Univ.
- Kristin Powell, Acadia University
- Crita Chin, Acadia University
- Lori Hann, GMNPC