Keppie, D.M. 1997: Fragmentation of spruce grouse Dendragapus canadensis habitat: a synthesis of the present and direction for the future. - Wildl. Biol. 3: 284.
Fragmentation is a concept that generally carries negative connotations. Yet for spruce grouse Dendragapus canadensis, and indeed for many other species with broad geographic ranges, the concept has quite different biological meanings across their range. Across its northern and western range, spruce grouse inhabit forests that have large patches generated by multi-scale processes such as fire and insect defoliation. In its eastern range, forests are naturally smaller and more patchy, and along the southern border of this range anthropogenic changes to the forest have been most notable and numbers of spruce grouse have declined. Some contemporary perceptions about tactical operations in timber management, for example, that clearcutting and plantations are detrimental for spruce grouse, are, without context, incorrect. Much of the substantive population research to date in the north is of little use for management questions about forest fragmentation and pattern, and grouse population demography because explicit questions about these issues did not generate and guide the initial research. It is hypothesized that spruce grouse across their range are sensitive to their physical environment at different scales of resolution, hence, modification of the forest at any particular scale will have different quantitative effects on grouse in different places. Population dynamics in the north probably are fundamentally different from those in the south, at least in part because of a difference in dispersion, as birds in the north are distributed more continuously over space. The direction of forest management in the north will not make much use of further single species research except where the species is endangered. Although transfer of information from northern studies to southern application is problematical, research in the north can be designed to apply to southern spruce grouse management. Investigations in the north will require that study areas are used in which forest structure and grouse density are as comparable as possible to conditions in the south. In the north, can local populations that demographically resemble those in the south be created and maintained? Research questions posed must enable us to identify controllable factors that limit grouse abundance.
Key words: Dendragapus canadenisis, forest fragmentation, North America, spruce grouse
Daniel M. Keppie, Department of Biology and Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, PO Box 44555, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 6C2, Canada