Improving understanding and management of the complex relationship between visitor motivations and spatial behaviors in parks and protected areas.

Increases in use and changes in the behavior of visitors to parks and protected areas (PPAs) worldwide are challenging the ability of managers to provide for a quality visitor experience while also maintaining the integrity of natural resources. Understanding visitor motivations and spatial behaviors are important for effective management of PPA resources and visitor experiences, as differences in motivations and spatial behaviors can influence the distribution of impacts to a recreation landscape. However, the relationships between motivations and behaviors are not well understood. In this study, we investigated the relationship between motivations and spatial behavior patterns of recreationists within a system of urban and peri-urban PPAs in Orange County, California, USA. Data were collected using paired GPS-based tracking and visitor questionnaires. Factor analysis revealed seven primary motivations derived from a 36-item motivation scale, and classification of visitors by motivations suggests two primary types. A three-way Analysis of Variance examining the relationship between a suite of visitor spatial behaviors and activity type (mountain bike vs. pedestrian), motivation type, and recreation area visited showed that all three variables interacted to influence visitor spatial behavior patterns while recreating. A spatial analysis of visitor dispersion further illustrated these interactions. These results suggest that the relationship between visitor motivations and spatial behaviors is complex. Understanding the complexities of how motivations influence visitor spatial behavior can help land managers mitigate impacts and improve planning for outdoor recreation by predicting where use may increase, how visitors might behave, and highlight locations of future research.

Conservation Genomics of the Threatened Western Spadefoot, Spea hammondii, in Urbanized Southern California.

Populations of the western spadefoot (Spea hammondii) in southern California occur in one of the most urbanized and fragmented landscapes on the planet and have lost up to 80% of their native habitat. Orange County is one of the last strongholds for this pond-breeding amphibian in the region, and ongoing restoration efforts targeting S. hammondii have involved habitat protection and the construction of artificial breeding ponds. These efforts have successfully increased breeding activity, but genetic characterization of the populations, including estimates of effective population size and admixture between the gene pools of constructed artificial and natural ponds, has never been undertaken. Using thousands of genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms, we characterized the population structure, genetic diversity, and genetic connectivity of spadefoots in Orange County to guide ongoing and future management efforts. We identified at least 2, and possibly 3 major genetic clusters, with additional substructure within clusters indicating that individual ponds are often genetically distinct. Estimates of landscape resistance suggest that ponds on either side of the Los Angeles Basin were likely interconnected historically, but intense urban development has rendered them essentially isolated, and the resulting risk of interruption to natural metapopulation dynamics appears to be high. Resistance surfaces show that the existing artificial ponds were well-placed and connected to natural populations by low-resistance corridors. Toad samples from all ponds (natural and artificial) returned extremely low estimates of effective population size, possibly due to a bottleneck caused by a recent multi-year drought. Management efforts should focus on maintaining gene flow among natural and artificial ponds by both assisted migration and construction of new ponds to bolster the existing pond network in the region.

The Intersection of Human Disturbance and Diel Activity, with Potential Consequences on Trophic Interactions.

Direct effects of human disturbance on animal populations are well documented across habitats, biomes, and species, but indirect effects of diel have received less attention. An emerging field in applied ecology involves behavioral avoidance of or attraction to humans and their trappings. We posit trophic consequences, in terms of relative risk, for four species of mammals, each of which strongly avoids human activity, in urban reserves of coastal southern California. Two species, one predator and one prey, avoid human activity via a temporal shift to become "more nocturnal"-the species' activity is centered near dawn on days without human activity but nearer to midnight on days with human activity. Diel shifts have brought the species into greater overlap, respectively, with a key prey and a key predator, overlap that may increase encounter rate and thus increase relative risk of predation, with potential consequences for trophic dynamics and cascades: increased risk of predation may depress prey population, either directly (e.g., mortality) or indirectly (e.g., "landscape of fear"). Human use of reserves, especially in high population density regions, needs to be reconsidered either to reduce access or to restrict access entirely to areas that may provide refuge to both predators and prey.

Ants as a measure of effectiveness of habitat conservation planning in southern California.

In the United States multispecies habitat conservation plans were meant to be the solution to conflicts between economic development and protection of biological diversity. Although now widely applied, questions exist concerning the scientific credibility of the conservation planning process and effectiveness of the plans. We used ants to assess performance of one of the first regional conservation plans developed in the United States, the Orange County Central-Coastal Natural Community Conservation Plan (NCCP), in meeting its broader conservation objectives of biodiversity and ecosystem-level protection. We collected pitfall data on ants for over 3 years on 172 sites established across a network of conservation lands in coastal southern California. Although recovered native ant diversity for the study area was high, site-occupancy models indicated the invasive and ecologically disruptive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) was present at 29% of sites, and sites located within 200 m of urban and agricultural areas were more likely to have been invaded. Within invaded sites, native ants were largely displaced, and their median species richness declined by more than 60% compared with uninvaded sites. At the time of planning, 24% of the 15,133-ha reserve system established by Orange County NCCP fell within 200 m of an urban or agricultural edge. With complete build out of lands surrounding the reserve, the proportion of the reserve system vulnerable to invasion will grow to 44%. Our data indicate that simply protecting designated areas from development is not enough. If habitat conservation plans are to fulfill their conservation promise of ecosystem-level protection, a more-integrated and systematic approach to the process of habitat conservation planning is needed.