National Red Lists in Fennoscandian Conservation: how spatio-temporal dynamics of red-listed species and geographical scale matter for site selection and conservation priorities Lise Tingstad Thesis for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) University of Bergen, Norway 2018 National Red Lists in Fennoscandian Conservation: how spatio-temporal dynamics of red-listed species and geographical scale matter for site selection and conservation priorities Lise Tingstad ThesisAvhandling for the for Degree graden of philosophiaePhilosophiae doctorDoctor (ph.d (PhD). ) atved the Universitetet University of i BergenBergen 20182017 DateDato of fordefence: disputas: 25.05.2018 1111 © Copyright Lise Tingstad The material in this publication is covered by the provisions of the Copyright Act. Year: 2018 Title: National Red Lists in Fennoscandian Conservation: how spatio-temporal dynamics of red-listed species and geographical scale matter for site selection and conservation priorities Name: Lise Tingstad Print: Skipnes Kommunikasjon / University of Bergen National Red Lists in Fennoscandian conservation: how spatio-temporal dynamics of red-listed species and geographical scale matter for site selection and conservation priorities Lise Tingstad Dissertation for the degree of philosophiae doctorae (PhD) at the University of Bergen, Norway 2018 ii Scientific environment_______________________________________________________________ This PhD dissertation was written at the University of Bergen at the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences and at the Department of Biological Sciences. The thesis was partly funded by the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO). iii Acknowledgements__________________________________________________________________ Nature has always fascinated me! Perhaps because people around me introduced me to it and taught me about from I was little. I remember walking with my grandmother who was a botanist. She would teach me plant species and Latin names from I was little, probably no more than 5. My parents have taken us out to experience nature at every occasion, teaching us about it and making us curious. It definitely worked on me! I am grateful for the opportunity to have had this field of interest as my daily work for the last four years! I want to thank my main supervisors John-Arvid Grytnes (UiB) and Ivar Gjerde (NIBIO) for their guidance throughout the whole period. I have learned much from you, and you have been patient and assisting. I want to send a special thanks to Anders Dahlberg in Uppsala for giving me the opportunity to work with the Fennoscandian dataset, and for a great collaboration! You have taught me a lot about scientific thinking and writing. I would like to thank all the people in the EECRG. What an including group to be a part of! I thank you for all good scientific discussions, all coffee breaks, board game nights, and other social events. My position was also financed by NIBIO, and I thank all the people at Fanaflaten for their encouragement and support, and not the least for teaching me a lot about forest management and conservation! Special thanks to Magne Sætersdal, Hans Blom, and Einar Heegaard. Mari Jokerud and Inge Althuizen– you have been super office mates, and I thank you for great company through long days (and nights) in the office. In the field, I received good help and guidance from Magne Sætersdal, Ivar Gjerde and Fride Høistad Schei from NIBIO with planning and accomplishing the work. I also have some great field assistants I want to thank; Marie Uhlen Maurseth, Ynghild Gilje Storhaug, Heidi Lyngstad, Ildikó Orbán, Torbjørg Bjelland, Alyssa Winckler and Ragnhild Gya! You did excellent work and cheered up even the rainiest field day! Thanks also to Fritidstunet in iv Sigdal and Magnhild Gravdal who showed great hospitality and accommodated me through the field seasons. Last, but not least, I thank family and friends. I am incredibly thankful for all the support you have given me! You have always been there, and if not in Bergen, then no more than a phone call away. You have encouraged me and created small, needed breaks with room for more than studies. You have come up with ideas and helped me all the way. A special thanks to my dearest Peter, who have been giving tremendous support. I would not have reached this goal without you! v vi Contents________________________________________________________________________________ Scientific environment ................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... iv Contents ......................................................................................................................................... vii Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 1 List of individual papers ................................................................................................................... 5 Specifications of contributions to the individual papers .................................................................. 7 Synopsis ........................................................................................................................................... 9 Challenges in using national Red Lists for setting conservation priorities ................................ 11 The issue of scale .................................................................................................................... 12 Using criteria documentation to characterize red-listed species ............................................. 13 Spatio-temporal dynamics of species and site selection ......................................................... 15 Main objectives .............................................................................................................................. 18 Materials and methods summary .................................................................................................... 19 Fennoscandian Red List Dataset (Paper I and II) ................................................................... 19 Observational small-scale data (Paper III and IV) .................................................................. 22 Results and discussion .................................................................................................................... 25 The Fennoscandian perspective .............................................................................................. 25 Spatio-temporal dynamics of red-listed species and site selection ......................................... 29 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 33 Literature cited ............................................................................................................................... 36 Paper I-IV ...................................................................................................................................... 41 vii Abstract_______________________________________________________________________________ The Red List of threatened species is among the best tools available for management and conservation of species. In this thesis, I study nationally red-listed species at various geographical scales from fine-scale forest areas in Norway, to the region of Fennoscandia. I focus on the use of national Red Lists as a tool for assisting conservation priorities, for identification of important habitats for red-listed species, and for selection of sites for conservation. For national Red List assessments, most species are assessed at a scale smaller than their distribution range, and the national status is therefore often based on assessment of parts of the total population. This might pose challenges to conservation, as the species can have a different status at broader scales. In the first paper of this thesis, I investigate the effects of geographic scale on nationally red-listed species in Fennoscandia. The national Red Lists of Finland, Norway and Sweden was used to create a dataset of 4830 nationally red-listed forest species from the three countries. From this dataset, a subset called “Candidates for a Fennoscandian Red List” was extracted, and for each country this set of candidates, representing the regional level, was compared with the nationally red-listed species not chosen as candidates. Our results showed that the set of “Candidates” from each country represented a similar composition of organism groups and species of similar forest associations, despite including a lower number of species. In the second paper, the aim was to investigate if ecological documentation in national Red Lists could be sufficient to characterize general habitat associations and important ecological variables for red-listed species in Fennoscandia. The same Fennoscandian Red List dataset was used, and ecological information extracted for each species and used for analyses. Results showed that criteria documentation in national Red Lists can be used to identify habitat associations and important ecological variables for larger groups of red-listed species, and that the information can be arranged for various selections of species, defined either by geographical scales or by conservation interest. Results