Focal Species

Introduction

The paper will begin by a brief introduction to Blue Whales as an endangered species. The discussion will then highlight the environmental significance of the subject and the most important ideas and theories set forth. This section will also incorporate an insight into the data and information that strongly supports the ideas or theories. The subsequent paragraphs will elaborate on the topic of interest and the reason because of which this topic was chosen. The discussion will come to a concluding note by presenting recommendations that can be implemented to make a difference.

10 Focal species

Focal species are often used in conservation planning to complement efforts to conserve other types of biodiversity targets such as rare-species locations and vegetative communities (Carroll et al., 2003). Planners may intensively focus on habitat and viability requirements of a few well-studied species because they assume such species can serve as ''conservation umbrellas”, either through overlap in priority habitat with a wider group of poorly-known taxa or by informing design rules on how the size, spacing, and connectivity of reserves affect viability (Noon and Blakesley, 2006; Carroll et al., 2003). Alternately, the focal species approach may arise from legal mandates such as the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) that require detailed consideration of the viability of a few species of highest concern. The Northern Spotted Owl (NSO; Strix occidentalis caurina) was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the ESA due to declining population trends related to the loss of older coniferous forest habitat to timber harvest (Bart and Forsman, 1992; Noon and Blakesley, 2006). In response, the US federal Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was initiated in 1994 to coordinate forest planning at broad spatial scales (the range of the NSO within western Washington, Oregon, and northern California) through a conservation zoning framework that included late-successional reserves (LSR, 2.97 million ha) that emphasize retention and restoration of older forest conditions, adaptive management areas (609,000 ha) where new approaches to forestry would be developed, and the matrix (1.59 million ha) where most timber management would occur (Thomas et al., 2006). The NWFP ultimately evolved into a comprehensive multi-species plan (Thomas et al., 2006). However, because the NWFP initially arose from a legal and policy controversy over the viability of the NSO, the owl remained the de facto ''umbrella” species for conserving the community of species associated with older forests. In this study, I evaluate the potential effects of climate change on NSO habitat distribution and the efficacy of the NWFP's reserve system at capturing NSO habitat under current and projected future climate.

Species distribution models based solely on climate data, termed ''climatic niche” models, allow first approximations of potential effects of global climate change on large suites of taxa (Thomas et al., 2004). Because many of these species are poorly-known, and relevant non-climatic environmental variables may be unavailable over the global or continental extent of analysis, more detailed and biologically-informed models may not be feasible. However, as climatic niche models are increasingly applied to inform single-species ...