SPB Academic F’ublishing bv, Amsterdam Using diffusion models to simulate the effects of l.pdf

Landscape Ecology vol. 11 no. 1 pp 51-64 (1996) SPB Academic F’ublishing bv, Amsterdam Using diffusion models to simulate the effects of land use on grizzly bear dispersal in the Rocky Mountains Randall B. Boone’ and Malcolm L. Hunter, Jr.2 ‘Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; 1s2Department of Wildlife Ecology, 5755 Nutting Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5755, USA Abstract Timber harvests proposed for Trail Creek Watershed, in southwestern Montana, U.S.A., have been opposed because grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) dispersal from northern Montana wildernesses into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem may be less likely. We used an individual-based model to simulate grizzly bear responses to: 1) region- level management practices represented by ownership patterns, and 2) watershed-level changes in habitat availabili- ty due to proposed harvests and road building. We assigned permeabilities (i.e., values that represent how easily a bear can move through a patch) to ownership blocks (region-level) and habitat patches (watershed-level) based upon a literature review, and used a correlated random-walk diffusion model to simulate movements. Simulated bears were placed into rasterized landscapes in a stratified random manner. At the regional level, bears moved 5 1500 times (i.e., = 1530 km), and their destinations were tallied. At the watershed level, the number of moves required for bears to leave the watershed were tallied. Sensitivity analyses were used to determine the variability of the results with respect to changes in some parameters of interest (i.e., permeabilities of private lands, harvest per- meabilities, and disturbance indices). With the permeability of private land set at 50 (range: 0 to 99), simulated grizzlies did not disperse from the Scapegoat and Bob Marshall Wildernesses into Yellowstone National Park (0 of 10000 simulated individuals). Under the assumptions of this model, a linkage between the wilder