0000000001323923
AUTHOR
Veronika Braunisch
Effects of retention forestry on bats: relations between forest structure and the landscape matrix
With more than 1200 species worldwide and comprising roughly one fifth of all mammalian species bats are of great importance for global biodiversity. As bio-indicatorsa they are frequently selected target species for conservation programmes. Most species depend on forests for at least part of the year: forest gaps are used as foraging sites, old and dead trees as roosting locations. However - in spite of the expanding forest area in Europe - only a small proportion thereof is set aside for nature conservation purposes. The vast majority is primarily managed for wood production, which leads to a simplified forest structure, lacking gaps, dead wood and senescent trees. Retention programmes, i…
Structural complexity in managed and strictly protected mountain forests: effects on the habitat suitability for indicator bird species
Increasing the proportion of unmanaged forest in multi-functional forest landscapes is a central goal of international and national conservation strategies. However, the structural development in newly created forest reserves and its impact on forest species remain are controversially discussed, especially with regard to potential negative effects on light-demanding species in the first phase after reserve designation. We evaluated the effect of management cessation on habitat characteristics of four bird species indicative of different seral stages and structural components: Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), Hazel grouse (Bonasa bonasia), Three-toed woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus) and Pyg…
Outdoor recreation causes effective habitat reduction in Capercaillie Tetrao urogallus: a major threat for geographically restricted populations
Outdoor recreation inflicts a wide array of impacts on individual animals, many of them reflected in the avoidance of disturbed areas. The scale and spatial extent, however, at which wildlife populations are affected, are mostly unclear. Particularly in geographically isolated populations, where restricted habitat availability may preclude a relocation to undisturbed areas, effective habitat reduction may remain underestimated or even unnoticed, when animals stay in disturbed areas and only show small-scale responses. Based on telemetry data of 12 individuals, we investigated the spatial and seasonal effects of outdoor recreation, on western capercaillie Tetrao urogallus, considering two sc…
Age and season-related habitat selection patterns of the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) in the Swiss Alps: a basis for predicting conflict-zones with wind energy construction
The recent increase of wind energy use in Central Europe incurs potential impacts on wildlife. Large soaring raptors, like the bearded vulture, are particularly exposed to collision risk with wind turbines as they sometimes converge in selecting fairly similar combinations of landscape and wind conditions. Considerable efforts and resources have been invested to re-instate the species in the European Alps. There exists a risk, however, that this success will be jeopardized by the sprawl of the wind parks across the alpine massif. We used a maximum entropy modelling approach to predict the potential distribution of the bearded vulture across the Swiss Alpine range using presence-only data. W…