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Dr. David D. Diamond

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Summary and Initial Evaluation of Enduring Features Information for the Conterminous USA, with Evaluation of Potential Use for Ecoregion Assessment
Concerns about the influence of climate change on biota have emerged over the past decade, and responses in species populations and distribution patterns have already been documented (Parmesan 1996, Thomas and Lennon 1999). Current climates and communities will not simply migrate, but rather will re-form in novel ways over time (Fox 2007; Hunter et al. 1988; Williams and Jackson 2007). Due to the uncertainty of future climatic patterns and species responses, enduring features of the landscape (geophysical settings) are appropriate targets of assessment, planning, and conservation (Anderson and Ferree 2010, Beier and Brost 2010, Brost and Beier 2012; Hunter et al. 1988). Only recently have enduring features been...
Conserving a network of representative physical environments is a strategy that could conserve species both now and into the future, while allowing them to move in response to the climate. The key to implementing such a strategy is to define the physical environments in a way that is maximally relevant to species. We created comprehensive maps of geology, elevation zones, and landforms for the Eastern U.S. and then examined the relationships between these factors and 3434 rare species at 85,613 locations. Based on an index of importance derived from the number of species samples and an index of the percent above expected that a species was found on a feature, most species showed strong preferences for specific settings:...
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Enduring features (EFs; geophysical settings) are worthy conservation targets. We assembled data on EFs for the nation and performed an ecoregion-based GAP Analysis on their conservation status. Ecoregions that circumscribe mountains tend to have more EFs, and ecoregions in the west, where public lands make up more of the total land area, have more EFs within conservation lands. The middle of the country is relatively low in EF diversity, but nonetheless the number of EFs in conservation lands is low. Areas of high EF diversity in the Edwards Plateau also contained a diversity of rare species occurrences. We generated a new EF data set for the eastern USA and evaluated the distribution of rare species in terms of...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: Completed, Data.gov Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network, Data.gov Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network, Data.gov Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network, Data.gov Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network, All tags...
Enduring features (EFs; geophysical settings) are worthy conservation targets. We assembled data on EFs for the nation and performed an ecoregion-based GAP Analysis on their conservation status. Ecoregions that circumscribe mountains tend to have more EFs, and ecoregions in the west, where public lands make up more of the total land area, have more EFs within conservation lands. The middle of the country is relatively low in EF diversity, but nonetheless the number of EFs in conservation lands is low. Areas of high EF diversity in the Edwards Plateau also contained a diversity of rare species occurrences. We generated a new EF data set for the eastern USA and evaluated the distribution of rare species in terms of...
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