Critical Thinking Skills

1. Critical Thinking Skills • First, need to differentiate between beliefs and knowledge • Process: • Gather complete information • Question the methods, conclusions, sources of study • Tolerate some level of uncertainty • Look at the Big Picture

2. Scientific Method Reject Fail to Reject

3. "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. ...To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution to intelligent tinkering."(Aldo Leopold, champion of conservation & father of wildlife biology)

4. “In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his [her] fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.” Aldo Leopold

5. History of Wildlife Management Making way for “modern” wildlife species

6. History of Wildlife Management • Humans colonize N.A. – Quaternary Period, Pleistocene Epoch – ice ages 13,000 ybp - evidence for 50,000 ybp

7. History of Wildlife Management • Large mammal extinctions (exploitation?) • = 66% of megafauna extinct

8. History of Wildlife Management • American Indians • wildlife • fire

9. History of Wildlife Management • 500 ybp, Europeans arrive…. • Spanish bring horses, livestock

10. History of Wildlife Management • 500 ybp, Europeans arrive…. • Other Europeans exploit fisheries, fur, meat, feathers…. (1870-1915)

11. History of Wildlife Management • Fur trade & near extinction of beaver (Castor canadensis)

12. History of Wildlife Management • Market hunting • Near extinction of bison : 60M to ~150

13. History of Wildlife Management • Market hunting • Bison • Successful extinction of passenger pigeon • - immense abundance (400 km long, 1800)

14. History of Wildlife Management • Passenger pigeon • immense abundance (400 km long, 1800) • 1878 – 3 months, 1.5 M pigeons from MI to market

15. History of Wildlife Management • Passenger pigeon • last sighting 1899 • 14-yr old boy shot last wild pigeon in Ohio (1900) • last captive pigeon died: • Male (1912) • Female (1914)

16. History of Wildlife Management • Habitat loss & Exploitation

17. History of Wildlife Management • Habitat loss & Exploitation Or is it gone?

18. History of Wildlife Management Or is it gone? http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multimedia/videos/index_html http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multimedia/sounds

19. History of Wildlife Management • U.S. policy • Manifest Destiny • Land Rush • Agricultural Development

20. History of Wildlife Management • Fear of losing species at such fast rates (especially game species)…..birth of modern wildlife conservation movement…

21. Modern Wildlife Management • Aldo Leopold • wrote Sand County Almanac • wrote Game Management • 1st university wildlife program (UW-Madison) • Land Ethic

22. April 22, 1970

23. Recent Epoch (~0.01 Mybp - present) • historic time • green & industrial revolutions • rapid loss of biodiversity *Largest extinction event?

24. Our Insatiable Appetite for Energy

25. Guild Concept • guild = group of species that exploit the • same class of resources in similar way • community guild = no taxonomic restrictions; guild members chosen based on investigator-defined resources • assemblage guild = guild members based on taxonomic relations

26. Habitat • An area supporting a particular type of vegetation (habitat type) • An area with the combination of resources and environmental conditions that allows a species (or population) to occupy, survive and reproduce • habitat quality as relative term

27. Habitat Quality • Good habitat means there are higher densities of a species compared to Poor habitat…….Right!? • Not necessarily….Van Horne (1983) pointed out that animal density may not be the most accurate measure of habitat quality. • Quality relates more to vital rates (survival and reproduction), vitality of offspring, temporal nature

30. Habitat • Habitat from an evolutionary perspective • Species distribution relative to habitat dist’n • Climatic events • Pleistocene Epoch & dist’n of modern species • Evolutionary underpinnings • Adaptation & Evolution for habitat

32. Behavior is Important!

33. Concept of Habitat Selection • Wildlife perceiving correct configuration of habitat needed for survival – differences based on age/experience/chance? – hierarchy to decision process • Niche concept (time/place/functional role) & habitat selection

34. Hutchison’s n-dimensional hypervolume

35. Concept of Habitat Selection • Hutchison = n-dimensional hypervolume as explanation of the niche • Fundamental vs. Realized Niche • Species 2 • Species 1

36. Testing the Hutchinsonian Niche Concept of Habitat Selection • James – work with birds in Arkansas…quantified habitat relationships • How do birds select habitat? • niche gestalt : each species has characteristic perceptual world…responds to that world as organized whole … search image concept • How do we (as wildlife biologists) “see” through the eyes of wildlife species?

37. Scale Dependence of Habitat Selection 1st Order 2nd Order 3rd Order 4th Order Macrohabitat vs. Microhabitat

38. Habitat Selection ProximateFactorsvs. UltimateFactors *Immediate *Evolutionary context context *Predation *Fitness relations *Competition *Abiotic factors

39. Human Resource Use Human Values & Attitudes (Socio-political)

40. *Naturally patchy distribution of resources *Heterogeneity supports greater diversity right!?

41. habitat interspersion – Leopold’s Law of Interspersion

42. Managing for Biodiversity Paradigm of Wildlife Biology & Conservation Biology

43. Human-induced “heterogeneity”

45. Land-use Trends: Private vs. Public

46. Human Land Use Practices • Agriculture • Suburban Development • Let’s pick on Indiana: • 97% of land in state = privately-owned • In central Indiana, • 70+% of land in row crop • <10% in forest • Urban sprawl intensifying

47. Intensive Agriculture & Clean Farming

48. Timber Extraction & Fragmentation

49. Formation of Terrestrial “Islands”

50. Oceanic Island = Terrestrial Island ?????