1 What Is Habitat?
Aldo Leopold is generally accepted as providing the philosophical basis for wildlife management in the United States. Leopold was trained and employed initially as a forester, and the academic and disciplinary home of wildlife management in the early years was aligned with forestry. But over time, due to the need to be recognized as a discipline in its own right, wildlife biology and management diverged from the forestry profession and in recent years the views of some wildlife professionals have been at odds with views expressed among some forestry professionals. This book is an attempt to bridge the disciplines of wildlife habitat management and forest management. It provides the conceptual bases for stand and landscape management so as to achieve habitat objectives for various species and communities and also provides case studies from across the United States to illustrate how these concepts can be applied. By providing the foresters with an explanation of concepts of habitat selection, habitat relationships, habitat elements, element dynamics in stands and landscapes, habitat permeability, connectivity, and exogenous pressures (climate change, invasive species, development), they can understand how these factors would influence the decisions made during stand and forest management. Further, biologists are provided with explanations of stand and forest landscape dynamics, silvicultural approaches to providing habitat elements, and harvest planning. Case studies in each section of the book provide examples of how these concepts can be applied to achieve habitat goals at stand, landscape, and regional spatial scales. Finally, the information culminates in stand prescription development and forest planning—key prerequisites to sustainable management practices. In addition, this planning process must include the concerns and objectives of various stakeholders. Foresters and wildlife biologists MUST work together, cooperatively, with these concerned publics to ensure that management approaches are adaptable to the inevitable social changes and to the competing demands for ecosystem services and aesthetic qualities of forests while also ensuring that current decisions are not likely to forgo future options.