[MCN] Mule deer, housing sprawl, and fossil fuel development

[Lance Olsen]

Global Change Biology - Early View -Online Version of Record 
published before inclusion in an issue 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2486/earlyview

Increases in residential and energy development are associated with 
reductions in recruitment for a large ungulate
Heather E. Johnson,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Durango, CO, USA
Jessica R. Sushinsky,
Wildlife Conservation Society and Department of Fish, Wildlife, & 
Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Andrew Holland,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Eric J. Bergman,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Trevor Balzer,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Grand Junction, CO, USA
James Garner,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Montrose, CO, USA
Sarah E. Reed
Wildlife Conservation Society and Department of Fish, Wildlife, & 
Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

Abstract [open access]
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13385/full

Land-use change due to anthropogenic development is pervasive across 
the globe and commonly associated with negative consequences for 
biodiversity. While land-use change has been linked to shifts in the 
behavior and habitat-use patterns of wildlife species, little is 
known about its influence on animal population dynamics, despite the 
relevance of such information for conservation. We conducted the 
first broad-scale investigation correlating temporal patterns of 
land-use change with the demographic rates of mule deer, an iconic 
species in the western United States experiencing wide-scale 
population declines. We employed a unique combination of long-term 
(1980-2010) data on residential and energy development across western 
Colorado, in conjunction with congruent data on deer recruitment, to 
quantify annual changes in land-use and correlate those changes with 
annual indices of demographic performance. We also examined annual 
variation in weather conditions, which are well recognized to 
influence ungulate productivity, and provided a basis for comparing 
the relative strength of different covariates in their association 
with deer recruitment. Using linear mixed models, we found that 
increasing residential and energy development within deer habitat 
were correlated with declining recruitment rates, particularly within 
seasonal winter ranges. Residential housing had two times the 
magnitude of effect of any other factor we investigated, and energy 
development had an effect size similar to key weather variables known 
to be important to ungulate dynamics. This analysis is the first to 
correlate a demographic response in mule deer with residential and 
energy development at large spatial extents relevant to population 
performance, suggesting that further increases in these development 
types on deer ranges are not compatible with the goal of maintaining 
highly productive deer populations. Our results underscore the 
significance of expanding residential development on mule deer 
populations, a factor that has received little research attention in 
recent years, despite its rapidly increasing footprint across the 
landscape.
-- 
++++++++++++++++++
The Economist        21 July 2001

Big Scary Monsters
Mortgage-lending agencies in America

4 excerpts

"The driving force behind what little economic growth is now taking 
place in the world is, you might argue, America's housing market."

"Yet, says John Lonski, an economist at Moody's, a credit-rating 
agency, the economy relies too much on a single sector, housing, to 
avoid recession."

"Indeed, there may right now [2001] be the makings of a bubble in 
house prices."

"Perhaps housing loans should be subsidised, particularly for the 
poor, because home ownership is desirable.  Even if true, this only 
partly gets Fannie and Freddie off the hook.  For their ambitions 
focus ever more on moving upmarket.  They are lobbying for the cap on 
mortgages that they can offer to rise, from $275,000 to $412,000 - to 
help the 'ill-housed wealthy', perhaps, murmurs one analyst."






















-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bigskynet.org/pipermail/missoula-community-news_bigskynet.org/attachments/20160823/a840daa4/attachment-0002.html>