CRP Targeting for Wildlife Habitat: A New Indicator Using the 1992 National Resources Inventory
Congress has wrestled with the issue of which land should be enrolled in a renewal of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), considering that benefits to wildlife from CRP are substantial. This paper evaluates the amount of land that may qualify for CRP enrollment in order to provide high-value wildlife habitat and to present the potential enrollment costs. The assessment is based on a wildlife habitat indicator developed from the National Resources Inventory conducted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Wetland Soils of the Prairie Potholes
Publisher Summary The chapter discusses the wetlands of the prairie pothole region (PPR). The two important hydrologic factors are climate and topography that explain the existence of wetlands in any landscape. PPR wetland soil development is based on hydrologic processes and conditions created by a climatic gradient as impacted by topography, sediment lithology, and stratigraphy. The most important systems used to classify wetlands in the PPR include the United States Fish and Wildlife system; the Stewart and Kantrud system; and an extension of the Stewart and Kantrud system that incorporates hydrology and landscape position. The dominant water quality considerations for wetlands in the PPR are increased sedimentation from cultivation; and salinity associated with hydric soils, groundwater, and surface water. Wetland soil properties that have the greatest influence on current land use include soil moisture dynamics, soil aeration, and salinity. Using principal components analysis (PCA), Richardson and Bigler found that principal component factors reflecting salinity, organic matter accumulation, calcium carbonate dynamics, and texture, respectively in order of importance, explained most of the observed variations in PPR wetlands. In the PPR, three soil types have been observed in nonfen wetland edges: the Calciaquoll without salinity and gypsum; the Calciaquoll with salinity and gypsum; and the Natraquoll.
Morpho-biometric Relationship, Relative Condition Factor and Meat Yield of Distant Scallop Bractechlamys vexillum (Reeve, 1853) in Asid Gulf, Philippines
Understanding the relationships of morphometric and biometric characters of a species allows the prediction of one trait from the other and generate a measure of relative condition. These relationships were studied for the Distant scallop Bratechlamys vexillum (Reeve, 1853) in Asid Gulf. Representative samples collected during the dry season (May 2018, n = 99) and wet season (September 2018, n = 100) were used to analyse these relationships through models of simple linear and power regression analyses, revealing allometric growth patterns. For both periods, it was revealed that shell width (SW) is a slightly better predictor than the height (SH) for total weight (TW) (R2 = 0.90 and 0.92) and the adductor muscle weight (AW) (R2 = 0.78 and 0.80). The strong functional relationship was also observed between TW and AW (R2 = 0.80 and 0.81). The relative condition factors (Kn) were high in both seasons. High meat yields were also observed in May (12.77 %) and September (14.26 %). The significant difference in meat yields (P < 0.05) can be a result of the seasonal difference manifested by the dynamics of energy partitioning during gametogenesis and spawning. These biological metrics are vital inputs in analysing mariculture prospects for the resource and a contribution to the scarce information on the biology of the species.