Land cover trends in South Texas (1987-2050): Potential implications for wild felids

Abstract

The Rio Grande Delta and surrounding rangelands in Texas has become one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the United States over the last 35 years. We assessed how land cover trends contributed to the large-scale processes that have driven land cover change since 1987. We classified LANDSAT imagery from 1987 to 2016 to quantify different rates of land cover change and used housing density scenarios to project changes in the amount and spatial distribution of woody cover until 2050 and its potential impact on wild felid habitat. Since 1987, woody cover increased from 3.9% along with patch and edge density, whereas mean patch area and Euclidean nearest neighbor decreased. Closer inspection revealed that woody encroachment of small patches (<1 ha) was the leading cause of woody cover increase by a magnitude of 4, with an observed significant skewness and kurtosis in the frequency distribution of patch size across years. By 2050, urbanization will be the dominant landscape type and at least 200 km2 of woody cover may be lost, thereby affecting felid populations in South Texas. These results provide important information for predicting future woody cover fragmentation and its potential impact on the connectivity of wild felid populations.