OPTIMIZING HABITAT FRAGMENTATION - AN AGROLANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVE

The importance of wildlife conservation in the agricultural Midwest ha s long been recognized. Likewise, the impact of habitat fragmentation within human-perturbed landscapes has received increased attention. Th eoretically there exists an optimum degree of fragmentation at the lan dscape scale (e.g. to maintain both interior and edge species) that wi ll permit an integrative approach to sustainable agriculture, as well as to conserve biotic diversity at a greater spatial and temporal scal e. We propose a method for comparing biotic diversity within and betwe en fragmented landscapes. This method encompasses both natural and hum an-subsidized components of the landscape mosaic. A sustainable landsc ape approach to conserving biotic diversity will require the cooperati on of land-use planners, public land owners, policy makers, resource m anagers, and wildlife biologists, to name a few, at a scale seldom add ressed in a human-dominated landscape. We describe a representative wa tershed (Four-Mile Creek Watershed) in Ohio and Indiana within which w e outline an approach to wildlife habitat conservation that attempts t o optimize biotic diversity and sustainable agricultural productivity. A new paradigm, namely agrolandscape ecology, is needed if we are to manage landscape elements (corridors and patches) within an agricultur al landscape matrix. Approaches using ecological theory, hierarchy the ory, landscape planning, and problem-solving algorithms must be integr ated if society is to simultaneously increase habitat quality and impl ement a sustainability approach to landscape management.