Abstract
The Rio Grande Delta and surrounding rangelands in Texas has become one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the United States over the last 35 years. We assessed how land cover trends contributed to the large-scale processes that have driven land cover change since 1987. We classified LANDSAT imagery from 1987 to 2016 to quantify different rates of land cover change and used housing density scenarios to project changes in the amount and spatial distribution of woody cover until 2050 and its potential impact on wild felid habitat. Since 1987, woody cover increased from 3.9% along with patch and edge density, whereas mean patch area and Euclidean nearest neighbor decreased. Closer inspection revealed that woody encroachment of small patches (<1 ha) was the leading cause of woody cover increase by a magnitude of 4, with an observed significant skewness and kurtosis in the frequency distribution of patch size across years. By 2050, urbanization will be the dominant landscape type and at least 200 km2 of woody cover may be lost, thereby affecting felid populations in South Texas. These results provide important information for predicting future woody cover fragmentation and its potential impact on the connectivity of wild felid populations.
Highlights
Deforestation and degradation of native vegetation for agricultural land use and urbanization have had profound global effects on wildlife [1,2]
Rangeland-herbaceous decreased from 4831 km2 (48%) to 3563 km2 (35.4%), agricultural area decreased from 2415 km2 (24.9%) to 2013 km2 (20.0%) and urban land cover increased from 493 km2 (4.1%) to 1851 km2 (18.4%)
edge density (ED) and patch density (PD) increased across the study area and Euclidean distance to nearest neighbor (ENN) decreased from 201.7 m (SD = 142.2 m) to 82.0 (SD = 55.2 m) (Figure 3)
Summary
Deforestation and degradation of native vegetation for agricultural land use and urbanization have had profound global effects on wildlife [1,2]. The global extent of urban lands increased by 58,000 km from 1970 to 2000, with the largest area of change occurring within North America [4]. As habitat fragmentation and degradation rates increase, the ability of certain wildlife species to survive or disperse into new areas will be affected [7]. In North America, the rate of urbanization and habitat fragmentation is currently outpacing the rate of land preservation and human population growth rate [5]. Persistence and connectivity among jaguar populations have been severely limited due to deforestation caused by agriculture, human development, and rangeland conversion [7,14,17]
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