Tuesday, November 14, 2006 - 3:15 PM
139-6

Simulation Modeling of Urban Encroachment Effects on Threaten and Endangered Species (TES) Habitat and Identification of TES Corridors on and off of Military Installation Lands.

William Meyer, ERDC/CERL, PO Box 9005, Champaign, IL 61826, United States of America

The loss of wildlife habitat due to human development pressures is dramatic. In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, declines in neotropical migrant avian species have been correlated with the increase of residential development along the Snake River riparian corridor.   Amphibian populations have also suffered and are the group with the highest proportion of species threatened with extinction.  Habitat destruction from urban development is considered to be the most devastating threat to worldwide biological diversity.  Military land managers have realized that urban encroachment surrounding military installations poses a potential threat to the continued survival of on installation Threatened and Endangered Species (TES) Populations.  To better understand this growing potential threat Military Land Managers at the Fort Benning Military Installation working with the Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign, IL undertook a simulation modeling research project to identify the future landscape encroachment impacts to TES habitats and the potential to locate wildlife corridor greenways between installation lands and neighboring lands that would guard against the loss of species diversity and fitness as the result of isolation produced by a loss of species traversal corridors. 

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