Conversion of unmanaged to managed agricultural landscapes can have detrimental effects on wildlife. For many species, planting and managing traditional row crops reduces the quality of wildlife habitat and causes habitat fragmentation. The hope is that multifunctional working landscapes that produce biofuel crops will benefit wildlife. Biodiversity provides supporting ecosystem services that have value to farmers. For example, hunting comprises a large sector of the tourist economy in many mid-western states. Habitat supporting game species generate value that is revealed by spending on hunting licenses (privilege) and payments to farmers to hunt on their lands. Here, we focus on designing Iowa landscapes to promote two objectives: 1) sustained hunting opportunities, and 2) sustained production of biomass for energy. Note that recovery of pheasant populations is a prerequisite for meeting objective 1. As a first step toward optimizing for both objectives, we developed an Agent-based model (ABM) that simulates three types of individuals, pheasants, hunters, and tractors. Pheasant dynamics involve interactions of different life stages (nesting, feeding, refuge) with required habitat and exposure to mortality risk from hunters and tractor operations. We assigned value to these modeled outcomes through county-level hunting license sales.
Results/Conclusions
Our preliminary results demonstrate the ability of the ABM to simulate patterns observed in the literature and local data. For example, we were able to match survival rates as a function of the timing of biomass harvest and show observed population trends. We compared several harvest scenarios and observed trade-offs between earlier and later biomass harvest and pheasant recovery. These patterns suggest strategies for complementarities in promoting both pheasants and biomass production.