Multi-Scale Impacts of Environmental Change on Wildlife Occurrence and Connectivity

Extreme natural disturbance events, human population growth, and climate change are causing rapid shifts in vegetation composition and structure with broad implications for wildlife conservation. In both southeastern forested wetlands and montane spruce-fir forests, these threats are particularly urgent. Field-collected date, satellite imagery, and airborne light detection and ranging data were used in combination with species presence/absence data to determine how recent disturbance (wildfire) and historic land use have impacted wildlife distribution and connectivity with particular focus in connecting research outcomes to new management objectives.