Open AccessUsing the spatial information implicit in the habitat specificity of the burrowing crayfish Distocambarus crockeri to identify a lost landscape component
Author(s) -
Welch Shane M.,
Eversole Arnold G.,
Riley Jeanne
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
ecography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.973
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1600-0587
pISSN - 0906-7590
DOI - 10.1111/j.0906-7590.2007.04815.x
Subject(s) - habitat , ecology , crayfish , geography , landscape ecology , context (archaeology) , range (aeronautics) , vegetation (pathology) , abundance (ecology) , biology , medicine , materials science , archaeology , pathology , composite material
Historical ecology can be used to model past environments and identify reference conditions for restoration efforts. The primary burrowing crayfish Distocambarus crockeri exhibits a high degree of habitat specialization and is largely limited to open canopied terrestrial habitats maintained along roadsides, utility rights‐of‐way, and agricultural field edges within a portion of the South Carolina piedmont, USA. Crayfish abundance, vegetation structure, and negative binomial regression were used to model the habitat of D. crockeri . Modeling indicated that within a community‐defined landscape patch context, D. crockeri was a prairie specialist. Historical descriptions of areas within the species’ range indicated that prairie‐like habitats (piedmont prairies) were a regular component of the landscape. The congruence between habitat models and historical data indicate that prairie habitat was a natural component of the historic piedmont landscape and that the habitat specificity of D. crockeri contained spatial information about this lost landscape component.