Conservation biologist Karen Root with a vegetation map of south Florida. Root is helping identify critical areas of habitat that, if preserved, will help ensure the survival of the state's endangered species.

BGSU biologist works to save endangered Florida wildlife

A BGSU researcher is helping “close the gap” in conservation of Florida’s rare and endangered wildlife.

Using sophisticated computer modeling, biologist Karen Root is assessing the risks to about 50 of the state’s imperiled mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians—everything from the Florida panther to the Florida scrub jay. The results will help the state prioritize where to direct its private-land acquisition program.

Root has received close to $40,000 from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to carry out one of three components of a project to preserve habitat for the disappearing species. The project is titled “Closing the Gaps in Florida’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Systems.”

The need is urgent, she said. There are only 85 Florida panthers remaining, for example, and biologists have determined that at least 120 are necessary to ensure their survival over the long term.

Meanwhile, the human population is burgeoning and development and agriculture in the state are consuming large amounts of land while the Everglades are drying up. “We’re running out of habitat,” Root said.

Florida has a greater number of imperiled species than any other state except California and Hawaii. Some, like the Audubon’s crested caracara, a carrion bird, are indigenous to the state while others, such as migratory birds, pass through it. Some species are on the threatened list in Florida, some are on the federal list and others are on both.

Florida is keenly aware of the need to balance development with wildlife preservation, according to Root. “Ecotourism is an important industry in the state,” she said. It has spent $300 million a year for the last 15 years in acquisition of private land for habitat, but much more is needed if species like the Florida black bear and the gopher tortoise are not to go the way of the passenger pigeon.

“We can’t protect all the habitat in Florida, but if we can locate and preserve the most strategic places, we could keep them from going extinct,” said Randy Kautz, Root’s project colleague and habitat protection planning section leader at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That is where Root comes in, he said.

Using Landsat satellite images and geographic information systems (GIS) technology, Kautz’s team identified what types of vegetation ground cover are in the state’s green spaces, whether cypress swamp, pasture or hardwood forest, for example. Then they used actual records of what animals and birds are living in each habitat to map the state by these habitats. These records could include eagles’ nests or rookeries of wading birds, for example.

The habitat map and the wildlife population map were then overlaid and passed on to Root, whose job is to determine the viability of each species. She takes everything that is currently known about each species—including longevity, age of first mating, male to female ratio and preferred diet—enters it into the computer, and then experiments with variable elements to assess the potential impact on the species. Using the modeling software, she can calculate how long a species could survive under a certain set of conditions and the minimum number of a species needed for long-term survival.

Some actions that affect animal populations are deliberate and human, such as development or agricultural use, while others are unpredictable and uncontrollable, such as hurricanes, she said.
The various factors can have unexpected results, she pointed out. A hurricane, for example, might actually open space and encourage plants and animals to enter where there was no opportunity before.

The picture is complex, according to Root. Factors that have a negative impact on one species may be beneficial to another. The shrinking of the Everglades due to siphoning of water for agricultural use and the proliferation of invasive plants that suck up moisture has been bad for wading birds, but creates additional living space for deer, the food source for the Florida panther, Root said.

Even fire control can have unintended consequences, she said. For a long time, the state has interrupted the natural cycle of lightning-caused fires by putting out nearly all blazes. Now, the many fire-dependent species are threatened.

So she must use a number of scales to measure the impact of all these factors and more.

The current project is the second round of a study that was first done in 1994, using data gathered in 1989. “It’s a new generation of a product that’s been very well received,” Kautz said. The 1994 report has been used to guide acquisition of private land throughout Florida, to evaluate development proposals, and in the creation of regulations and land-management decisions. It has attracted national and international attention and has been used as a model in countries such as Japan, he said.

“Round two will be much more sophisticated, in part because of Karen’s work to make population viability much more spatially explicit,” he said. “She’s bringing us to the next millennium.”

Root has been at BGSU since 2002. She received her Ph.D. in conservation biology and population ecology in 1996 from the Florida Institute of Technology, where her dissertation focused on the Florida scrub jay. While in Florida, she collaborated on a project for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on preservation of Florida panther habitat in southwest Florida.