Forecasting the Effects of Land-Use Change on Forest Rodents in Indiana

Abstract

Forest cover in the upper Wabash River basin in Indiana was fragmented due to agricultural conversion beginning more than 175 years ago. Currently, urban expansion is an important driver of land-use change in the basin. A land transformation model was applied to the basin to forecast land use from 2000 to 2020. We assessed the effect of this projected land-use change scenario on five forest rodent species at three scales: using occupancy models at the patch level, proportional occupancy models at the landscape level, and ecologically scaled landscape indices to assess the change in connectivity at the watershed level. At the patch and landscape scales, occupancy models had low predictability but suggest that gray squirrels are most susceptible to land-use change. At the watershed scale, declines in connectivity did not correspond with the decline of forest. This study highlights the importance of map resolution and consideration of matrix elements in constructing forecast models. Unforeseen drivers of land use, such as changing economic incentives, may also have important ramifications.