Multi-scale effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on lesser prairie-chicken populations in the US souther Great Plains.

Synopsis: Large-scale patterns of land use and fragmentation have been associated with the decline of many imperiled wildlife populations. Lesser prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) are restricted to the southern Great Plains of North America, and their population and range have declined by > 90% over the past 100 years. Our objective was to examine scale-dependent relationships between landscape structure and change and long-term population trends for lesser prairie-chicken populations in the southern Great Plains. We used a geographic information system (GIS) to quantify landscape composition, pattern and change at multiple scales (extents) for fragmented agricultural landscapes surrounding 10 lesser prairie-chicken leks. [...]