McCune, Jenny L.

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Browsing McCune, Jenny L. by Subject "Conservation"

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    Assessing public comitment to endangered species protection: a Canadian case study
    (Canadian Science Publishing, 2017) McCune, Jenny L.; Carlsson, Anja M.; Colla, Sheila; Davy, Christina; Favaro, Brett; Ford, Adam T.; Fraser, Kevin C.; Martins, Eduardo G.
    Preventing the extinction of species will require limiting human activities in key areas, but it is unclear to what extent the public is committed to these limits and the associated costs. We commissioned an online survey of 1000 Canadians and asked them if it is important to prevent the extinction of wild species in Canada. We used specific scenarios illustrating the need for limits to personal activities, private property rights, and industrial development to further test their support. The respondents were strongly committed to species conservation in principle (89% agree), including the need to limit industrial development (80% agree). There was less support for limiting private property rights (63% agree), and more uncertainty when scenarios suggested potential loss of property rights and industry-based jobs. This highlights the high level of public concern regarding the economic impacts of preventing extinctions, and the need for more programs to encourage voluntary stewardship of endangered species on private land. Opinion polls that measure public support for conservation without acknowledging the concessions required may result in overly optimistic estimates of the level of support. Most Canadians in our sample supported endangered species conservation even when the necessity of limiting human activities was explicitly stated.
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    Dispersal limitation and seed predation drive rarity of a plant species at its range edge
    (Wiley, 2025) Neigel, Emma R.; Schwinghammer, Timothy D.; McCune, Jenny L.
    1. Understanding the causes of species rarity is a central goal in ecology. The three filters thought to predict if a species is present or not in a community are the suit- ability of abiotic conditions, dispersal limitation and biotic interactions. Theory emphasizes the importance of the availability of abiotically suitable habitat in de- termining occurrence frequency, especially for species at their range edge, where the amount of suitable habitat is predicted to decline. However, the relative influ- ence of these filters in driving species rarity is mostly unknown. 2. We used species distribution models (SDMs) to estimate habitat suitability based on broad-scale abiotic predictors for a rare plant species (Stylophorum diphyllum) at the northern edge of its global distribution. We tested the role of dispersal limi- tation by planting seeds in unoccupied sites that varied in their predicted habitat suitability and measured seedling emergence and seedling survival over 2 years. To manipulate the biotic interactions, we excluded seed predators by caging half of the seeds. We also measured the microclimate at each microsite, including soil moisture, temperature and canopy cover. 3. The habitat suitability estimated by the SDMs did not predict seedling emergence or short-term seedling survival. We found that dispersal limitation coupled with seed pre- dation was a significant predictor of seedling emergence, while microclimate, specifi- cally microsite temperature, was a significant predictor of short-term seedling survival. 4. Synthesis. Contrary to the assumption that species occur at a low frequency near their range edges due to a lack of suitable habitat, we found that dispersal limita- tion coupled with biotic interactions can drive rarity. If this is the case for many rare species at risk of extinction at their range edges, effective conservation strategies must incorporate assisted dispersal (i.e. translocations) into appropri- ate microsites and the management of biotic interactions to establish new popu- lations and ensure long-term persistence.