ISSUES
Mid-elevation forests throughout the Western U.S. have changed through tree harvests, grazing, and fire suppression. Fire suppression resulted in overstocking of trees and ground fuels, which has increased catastrophic fires, reduced overall primary forest productivity (forest health), and reduced the resilience of forests to global change. Forest restoration is needed to protect communities, to improve forest health, and to restore the biodiversity native to these forests. Thus, restoration should increase the biodiversity in the food webs of species such as the northern goshawk, a sensitive species in most of our National Forests. While abundance and diversity of prey is a principle factor limiting their viability, there is uncertainty on how to provide the old forest habitats of this apex predator.
IMPORTANCE
Managers increasingly understand the level of compatibility between research on goshawk habitat, ecological restoration, sustainability, and restoration of fire-adapted ecosystems. However, we need to improve our understanding of how to disperse and sustain habitats of plants and animals in the goshawk food web in large landscapes. Understanding should result in more sustainable fire-adapted ecosystems while protecting communities, providing firefighters a safer suppression environment, and protecting the viability of threatened and sensitive species.
OVERALL OBJECTIVE
Forest composition and structure strongly influence goshawk habitat selection and hunting behavior, prey abundance, and goshawk reproduction and survival. Previous research of goshawk demographics and prey dynamics offers extraordinary opportunities to combine long-term (21 yrs) in-situ observations with advanced remote sensing methods to characterize forest habitats. These methods will identify critical elements of goshawk habitat by comparing the frequency of occupancy, reproduction, and survival of territorial goshawks with the habitats and prey species compositions within their territories. Similarly, we will investigate the effects of landscape-level habitat mixes on prey abundance and diversity within the sample of goshawk territories.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
- Increased understanding of the critical compositional and structural elements of goshawk habitat.
- Development and improvement of management recommendations for restoring and sustaining goshawk habitats.
- Improved understanding of ecological responses of goshawks and their prey to forest restoration.