The spatial extent of contaminants and the landscape scale: An analysis of the wildlife, conservation biology, and population modeling literature
Authored by TM Carlsen, JD Coty, JR Kercher
Date Published: 2004
DOI: 10.1897/02-202
Sponsors:
United States Department of Energy (DOE)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Many contaminant releases to the terrestrial environment are of small
areal extent. Thus, rather than evaluating the ecological impact on
species in the immediate vicinity of the release, it may be more
ecologically meaningful to determine if population impacts occur at the
landscape level. In order to do this, the cumulative impact of all
releases in the landscape under consideration must be evaluated. If the
release sites are viewed as localized areas that are no longer available
for use by ecological receptors (i.e., no longer part of the habitat), this can be thought of as a form of habitat fragmentation. Habitat
fragmentation is typically viewed as the loss of large areas of habitat
within a landscape, leaving small isolated patches of intact habitat
within a hostile matrix. Small-scale contaminant releases, on the other
hand, result in small uninhabitable areas within a primarily intact
habitat. With this consideration in mind, we analyzed the wildlife and
conservation biology literature to determine if information on habitat
size requirements such as home-range or critical patch size could inform
us about the potential for impact at the landscape level from release
sites based on the size of the release alone. We determined that
evaluating the impact of release size had to be conducted within a
contextual basis (considering the existing state of the landscape).
Therefore, we also reviewed the population modeling literature to
determine if models could be developed to further evaluate the impact of
the spatial extent of chemical releases on the landscape. We identified
individual-based models linked to geographic information systems to have
the greatest potential in investigating the role of release size with
respect to population impacts at the landscape level.
Tags
behavior
Dynamics
Metapopulation
Fragmentation
Simulation-model
Consequences
Patch size
Habitat loss
Depletion model
Destruction