SWAMP: An agent-based model for wetland and waterfowl conservation management

Authored by Kevin M. Ringelman, Matt L. Miller, Jeffrey C. Schank, John M. Eadie

Date Published: 2014-01

DOI: 10.1177/0037549713511864

Sponsors: Delta Waterfowl Association

Platforms: MASON

Model Documentation: ODD Flow charts Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

The management of North American waterfowl is widely recognized as a premier example of a successful conservation program. Conservation managers on the wintering grounds typically use simple estimates of food availability and population-wide cumulative energy demand to determine how many birds can be supported on a given landscape. When attempting to plan for future needs due to land reallocation, climate change, and other large-scale environmental changes, simple bioenergetic models may not capture important impacts on individual behavior, such as changes in metabolic costs due to increased travel-time and reduced food accessibility leading to non-linear declines in forager success. We describe the development of an agent-based model of foraging waterfowl that uses explicit individual behavior to generate more detailed and potentially more accurate insights into the impact of environmental changes on forager success and survival. While there is growing recognition of the potential utility of agent-based models in conservation planning, there has yet to be an attempt to formulate, validate, and communicate such a model for use as a decision support tool to guide habitat management conservation for wetlands in North America. Our model seeks to provide the foundational framework for such an effort. We predict that this model will be a useful tool for stakeholders making conservation management decisions.

Tags

Individual-based model Simulation environment Policy Spatially explicit Waterfowl Foraging ecology population conservation management rice wetlands Energy Functional-response Body-mass Female northern pintails Mallards