Explore the vast range of titles available.

Voluntary incentive programs are a keystone policy tool for increasing private landowner conservation behavior. Although landowner participation in conservation incentive programs is well studied, limited empirical research has focused on whether and why landowners continue to conduct conservation practices on their land after payments end, which we term persistence. The assumption is that a landowner who participates in an incentive program will likely continue the conservation practice after the payments end. This assumption fits with conservation policies that limit the number of years or times a landowner can receive payments for a given practice. If persistence occurs, it would provide cost‐effective outcomes from conservation funding investments. However, there is little published information to support persistence. Based on the narrow body of research on persistence of landowner conservation behavior, as well as persistence research in other fields, we identified five pathways that may support persistence outcomes and insights for when persistence could be expected. We then provide recommendations for policy, practice, and research. With billions of dollars invested annually in programs to incentivize landowners to take conservation action, an empirical examination of landowner conservation behavior persistence is sorely needed for shaping more effective incentive programs and policies.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are two global challenges that can be addressed simultaneously through reforestation of previously cleared land. However, carbon markets can encourage reforestations that focus on maximizing carbon storage, potentially at the expense of biodiversity conservation. To identify opportunities to optimize reforestation design and management to meet both goals, we examined the forest stand features associated with carbon stocks in biomass and soil, as well as bird abundance and diversity, in remnant and restored riparian forest stands in central California, U.S.A. Within three decades of reforestation, both planted and naturally regenerating riparian forest stands provided significantly greater carbon storage and avian biodiversity benefits compared to baseline conditions. They were also similar to a remnant riparian forest stand. We identified a synergy between carbon storage and biodiversity benefits in their positive associations with understorey cover, but we also identified a trade‐off in their relationships to forest stand density. Biomass carbon stocks were strongly positively related to stand density, while bird density and diversity suffered at the highest stand densities. The variability in understorey cover across forest stands indicates an opportunity for further enhancement of carbon and biodiversity benefits in areas where understorey cover is low, while the variability in stand density suggests an opportunity to re‐examine reforestation goals and consider thinning to achieve those goals. Synthesis and applications. We identified synergies and trade‐offs between carbon storage and biodiversity in their relationships to forest stand features, indicating opportunities to optimize reforestation design and management to achieve multiple goals. Our approach can be adapted to other reforestation efforts intended to simultaneously address the global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Foreign Language Resumen El cambio climatico y la pérdida de biodiversidad son dos problemas globales que se pueden enfrentar con la reforestación de tierras previamente degradadas. Sin embargo, los mercados de carbon promueven reforestaciones enfocadas en maximizar el almacenamiento de carbon, posiblemente a cuestas de la conservación de la biodiversidad. Para identificar oportunidades de diseño y gestión de programas de reforestación enfocados en estos dos objetivos, evaluamos las características de rodales de bosques que determinan las medias de carbon en la biomasa y en los suelos, y que también determinan la abundancia y diversidad de aves en rodales de bosques riparios remanentes y restaurados en el centro de California, Estados Unidos. En tres décadas de reforestación, los rodales de bosques riparios sembrados y regenerados naturalmente incrementaron de manera significativa el almacenamiento de carbono y los beneficios para la biodiversidad de aves comparado con condiciones de referencia. Los rodales de bosques riparios también mostraron características similares a un rodal de bosque ripario remanente. Hemos identificado una sinergia entre el almacenamiento de carbono y beneficios a la biodiversidad porque estan positivamente asociadas con la cobertura del sotobosque, pero también identificamos una compensación con la densidad del rodal de bosque. Las reservas de carbono en la biomasa demostraron una fuerte relación positiva con la densidad del rodal, mientras que la densidad y la diversidad de las aves sufrieron en las densidades más altas del rodal. La variabilidad en la cobertura del sotobosque en los rodales de bosque indica una oportunidad para augmentar beneficios de carbon y de biodiversidad en áreas donde la coberatura esté baja, mientras que la variabilidad en la densidad de los rodales sugiere una oportunidad para reexaminar las metas de reforestación posiblemente considerando el raleo para alcanzar las metas. Síntesis y aplicaciones. Identificamos sinergias y compensaciones entre el almacenamiento de carbono y la biodiversidad con las características de rodales de bosque, indicando oportunidades para optimizar el diseño y la gestión de programas de reforestación para lograr objetivos múltiples. Nuestro enfoque se puede adaptar a otros esfuerzos de reforestación dedicados a enfrentar simultáneamente los problemas globales de cambio climatico y la pérdida de biodiversidad. We identified synergies and trade‐offs between carbon storage and biodiversity in their relationships to forest stand features, indicating opportunities to optimize reforestation design and management to achieve multiple goals. Our approach can be adapted to other reforestation efforts intended to simultaneously address the global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Conservationists must develop new strategies and adapt existing tools to address the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. To support statewide climate change adaptation, we developed a framework for assessing climate change vulnerability of California's at-risk birds and integrating it into the existing California Bird Species of Special Concern list. We defined climate vulnerability as the amount of evidence that climate change will negatively impact a population. We quantified climate vulnerability by scoring sensitivity (intrinsic characteristics of an organism that make it vulnerable) and exposure (the magnitude of climate change expected) for each taxon. Using the combined sensitivity and exposure scores as an index, we ranked 358 avian taxa, and classified 128 as vulnerable to climate change. Birds associated with wetlands had the largest representation on the list relative to other habitat groups. Of the 29 state or federally listed taxa, 21 were also classified as climate vulnerable, further raising their conservation concern. Integrating climate vulnerability and California's Bird Species of Special Concern list resulted in the addition of five taxa and an increase in priority rank for ten. Our process illustrates a simple, immediate action that can be taken to inform climate change adaptation strategies for wildlife.

Juvenile survival is often found to be more sensitive than adult survival to variation in environmental conditions, and variation in juvenile survival can have significant impacts on population growth rates and viability. Therefore, understanding the population-level effects of environmental changes requires understanding the effects on juvenile survival. We hypothesized that parental care will buffer the survival of dependent juveniles from variation in environmental conditions, while the survival of independent juveniles will respond more strongly to environmental variation and, in turn, drive the overall variation in annual juvenile survival. We tested this parental-care hypothesis using a 30-year mark-recapture data set to model the survival of juvenile Song Sparrows ( Melospiza melodia ) during the dependent and independent stages. We examined the effects of weather, density, and cohort mean fledge date and body mass on annual variation in survival during the first 12 weeks after fledging, as well as effects of individual fledge date and body mass on individual variation in survival. The primary driver of annual variation in juvenile survival was precipitation during the previous rainy season, consistent with an effect on food availability, which had a strong positive effect on the survival of independent juveniles, but no effect on dependent juveniles. We also found strong support for effects of body mass and fledge date on individual survival probability, including striking differences in the effect of fledge date by stage. Our results provided evidence that different mechanisms influence juvenile survival during each stage of fledgling development, and that parental care buffers the survival of dependent juveniles from variation in environmental conditions. Consequently, variation in juvenile survival was driven by independent juveniles, not dependent juveniles, and studies focused only on survival during the dependent stage may not be able to detect the major drivers of variation in juvenile survival. We recommend that future efforts to understand or project the population-level effects of environmental change not only examine the effects on juvenile survival, but specifically consider the survival of independent juveniles, as well as how the drivers of variation in juvenile survival may vary by stage.

We used light-level geolocators to describe the migratory geography of Swainson's Thrushes (Catharus ustulatus) from a breeding population in central coastal California. Between 11 June and 20 July 2010, we attached geolocator tags to 35 Swainson's Thrushes at three sites in Marin County, California, and recovered 12 in the following two breeding seasons. All 12 birds spent the winter in Mexico, north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Eleven of the birds went to the Jalisco region in western Mexico, but two of those birds (18% of total) moved east in midwinter to either the Sierra Madre Oriental or Sierra Madre del Sur; the 12th bird went directly to one of the latter regions. The return rate over the next 2 years for tagged birds (34%) was not statistically lower than that for control birds (45%). We combined our results with the results of an earlier study that used geolocators on Swainson's Thrushes from British Columbia to quantify the strength of migratory connectivity using Mantel's correlation coefficient. Our estimate of the strength of migratory connectivity for Swainson's Thrushes (rm = 0.72) was much stronger than that reported using band returns of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) in the Eastern Hemisphere (rm = 0.03). To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative measure of migratory connectivity derived from geolocators.

A new term, Multiple‐Benefit Conservation, has emerged in the conservation community, but has not been defined. We define Multiple‐Benefit Conservation as conservation efforts designed to simultaneously benefit local communities of people, enhance ecological function, and improve habitat quality for fish and wildlife. Its key features are setting ecological and societal goals at the outset and defining success as achieving these goals simultaneously. This is in contrast to efforts aimed at one goal that may also produce co‐benefits; it is inclusive of ecosystem services but not limited by a focus solely on human benefit. Strengths of this approach include that it is constructive, inclusive of multiple worldviews, easily communicated, solutions‐oriented, and compelling. Multiple‐Benefit Conservation as we define and describe it here appears to provide a pathway useful for designing conservation efforts that are more likely to be inclusive, that will quantify trade‐offs among goals, and can embrace pluralistic conservation leadership.

The migratory biology and connectivity of passerines remains poorly known, even for those that move primarily within the temperate zone. We used light-level geolocators to describe the migratory geography of a North American temperate migrant passerine. From February to March of 2010, we attached geolocator tags to 33 Golden-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia atricapilla) wintering on the central coast of California, USA, and recovered four tags the following winter (October to December 2010). We used a bayesian state-space model to estimate the most likely breeding locations. All four birds spent the breeding season on the coast of the Gulf of Alaska. These locations spanned approximately 1200 kilometers, and none of the individuals bred in the same location. Speed of migration was nearly twice as fast during spring than fall. The return rate of birds tagged the previous season (33%) was similar to that of control birds (39%), but comparing return rates was complicated because 7 of 11 returning birds had lost their tags. For birds that we recaptured before spring migration, we found no significant difference in mass change between tagged and control birds. Our results provide insight into the previously-unknown breeding provenance of a wintering population of Golden-crowned Sparrows and provide more evidence of the contributions that light-level geolocation can make to our understanding of the migratory geography of small passerines.

To evaluate the current status of the western population of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) along the Sacramento and Feather rivers in California's Sacramento Valley, we conducted extensive call playback surveys in 2012 and 2013. We also quantified the amount and distribution of potential habitat. Our survey transects were randomly located and spatially balanced to sample representative areas of the potential habitat. We estimated that the total area of potential habitat was 8,134 ha along the Sacramento River and 2,052 ha along the Feather River, for a total of 10,186 ha. Large-scale restoration efforts have created potential habitat along both of these rivers. Despite this increase in the amount of habitat, the number of cuckoos we detected was extremely low. There were 8 detection occasions in 2012 and 10 occasions in 2013 on the Sacramento River, in both restored and remnant habitat. We had no detections on the Feather River in either year. We compared our results to 10 historic studies from as far back as 1972 and found that the Yellow-billed Cuckoo had unprecedentedly low numbers in 2010, 2012, and 2013. The current limiting factor for the Yellow-billed Cuckoo in the Sacramento Valley is likely not the amount of appropriate vegetation, as restoration has created more habitat over the last 30 years. Reasons for the cuckoo decline on the Sacramento and Feather rivers are unclear.

The ranges and abundances of species that depend on freshwater habitats are declining worldwide. Efforts to counteract those trends are often hampered by a lack of information about species distribution and conservation status and are often strongly biased toward a few well-studied groups. We identified the 3,906 vascular plants, macroinvertebrates, and vertebrates native to California, USA, that depend on fresh water for at least one stage of their life history. We evaluated the conservation status for these taxa using existing government and non-governmental organization assessments (e.g., endangered species act, NatureServe), created a spatial database of locality observations or distribution information from ~400 data sources, and mapped patterns of richness, endemism, and vulnerability. Although nearly half of all taxa with conservation status (n = 1,939) are vulnerable to extinction, only 114 (6%) of those vulnerable taxa have a legal mandate for protection in the form of formal inclusion on a state or federal endangered species list. Endemic taxa are at greater risk than non-endemics, with 90% of the 927 endemic taxa vulnerable to extinction. Records with spatial data were available for a total of 2,276 species (61%). The patterns of species richness differ depending on the taxonomic group analyzed, but are similar across taxonomic level. No particular taxonomic group represents an umbrella for all species, but hotspots of high richness for listed species cover 40% of the hotspots for all other species and 58% of the hotspots for vulnerable freshwater species. By mapping freshwater species hotspots we show locations that represent the top priority for conservation action in the state. This study identifies opportunities to fill gaps in the evaluation of conservation status for freshwater taxa in California, to address the lack of occurrence information for nearly 40% of freshwater taxa and nearly 40% of watersheds in the state, and to implement adequate protections for freshwater taxa where they are currently lacking.

We evaluated the contribution of interspecific interactions, intraspecific processes, and environmental forcing to variation in speciessa' abundance in a habitat undergoing rapid successional change. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical approach to a 29‐yr time series of territory density of seven landbird species at a site in coastal California where secondary plant succession has occurred. We found that interspecific interactions were the least important driver in our system, explaining between 0% and 5% of variation. The combined effects of vegetation and rainfall variation explained 6% to 30% of variation in species trends. Intraspecific processes explained between 0% and 39% of variation. Between 27% and 90% of variation was attributed to unexplained variation. Our results demonstrate that in the system studied, interspecific interactions among landbirds are relatively unimportant. These results suggest that in some cases it may be valid to model projections of individual populations to predict community responses to future conditions; however, this conclusion should be interpreted with caution because interspecific interactions in our community did not include novel interactions that could result from distributional shifts in species ranges.