Characterizing species at risk I: Modeling rare species under the Northwest Forest Plan

Abstract

The Northwest Forest Plan in the Pacific Northwest, United States includes directives for survey and site protection of hundreds of rare species across many taxonomic classes. To help direct survey activities, prioritize sites, and stand conditions for conservation of these species, I developed Bayesian belief network (BBN) models of habitat relationships and multiple stressors predicting presence of 12 rare species, and I present an example of predicting presence and absence of a rare fungus. The BBN models are developed along a rigorous process of expert judgment, peer review, reconciliation, accuracy testing, and incremental updating with known site data and validation data. Management implications of prediction errors are discussed. Copyright © 2006 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.