Integrating science and land stewardship: Using soundscapes to monitor biodiversity in midwestern oak woodlands under managed and unmanaged scenarios
Oak Woodlands & Forests Fire Consortium Webinar
Temperate woodlands are biodiverse natural communities threatened by land use change and fire suppression. In the Baraboo Hills (southern Wisconsin, USA) The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is managing for oak woodland habitat within extensive forest preserves with the goal of maintaining biodiversity and promoting fire-dependent species and natural communities once widespread in the Midwestern USA. Because the diversity of woodland species spans many taxa, efficiently quantifying biodiversity and understanding site-specific management effects can be challenging. In this presentation, UW-Madison PhD candidate Maia Persche will discuss results from a three-year field study across managed and unmanaged sites and describe how woodland management results in changes to soundscapes, and how this bioacoustic signature can be integrated into ecological monitoring projects. Ann Calhoun, TNC’s Driftless Area Resilience Manager, will share how insights gained through this research approach can help us understand the biodiversity response to stewardship activities and how takeaways may inform adaptive management over time.
Thank you to the Oak Woodlands & Forests Fire Consortium for hosting this webinar!