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Abstract |
Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation are the principal threats to biodiversity worldwide. In addition to the direct changes to the habitat caused by human activity, the mere presence of humans can prevent wildlife from accessing otherwise intact patches of habitat. This is exemplified by a wideranging species, wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) in Norway. During winter, reindeer rely on lichens that are both vulnerable for wear and slow to regenerate. In summer months, the reindeer follow the retreat-ing snowpack as they seek greener vegetation and insectfree calving pastures. The wild reindeer is a challenging species to manage. It is adapted to survive in a mountain environment with extremely variable foraging conditions that require extensive seasonal movements. Human development of different kind of infrastructure, combined with increased human presence in their environment, mainly for for recreational purposes, have created an ever-changing disturbance regime. To monitor the human use component in this context, include the metrics of visitors spatial extent, temporal extent and variability, volume, type of activity and characteristics.Marked trails between tourist cabins are the most common infrastructure within wild reindeer ranges, and trail systems often transect large remote areas in such a way that that wild reindeer herds are forced to cross marked trails frequently. The key question is: what level of human disturbance can reindeer herds tolerate, in terms of user numbers per unit of time, before the reindeer movements are either severely hampered or cease altogether? The human use of trails within a wild reindeer range inevitably varies considerably during the summer peak tourist season. Some trail segments see as few as 1 person/day, while other segments have more than 500 person/day. The intensity of use can also vary considerably between different types of trails or paths and the terrain they cross. NINA uses several different methods to collect data on the spatiotemporal pattern of human presence in large mountain areas where use is widely dispersed: automatic counters (TrafX, EcoCounter), GPS surveys (Trackstics), asking visitors to draw their trips on a map, systematic moment observations, mobility bigdata (e.g. the Strava training smartphone app), and different kinds of secondary data. This talk will address these methods and give examples of potential methodological biases. |
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