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Natural habitats on private lands are potentially important components of national biodiversity conservation strategies, yet they are being rapidly lost to development. Conservation easements and other means of protecting these habitats have expanded in use and will be most effective if they target private lands of highest biodiversity value and risk of loss. We developed a Biodiversity Conservation Priority Index (BCPI) based on ecological value and risk of habitat loss for remaining areas of natural vegetation cover (NVC) in the northwestern United States and addressed two questions: (1) Which remaining NVC on private lands is the highest priority for biodiversity conservation based on ecological value and risk of development? And (2) are conservation easements in NVC placed preferentially in locations of high biodiversity conservation priority? Drawing on the concept of ecological integrity, we integrated five metrics of ecological structure, function, and composition to quantify ecological value of NVC. These included net primary productivity, species richness, ecosystem type representation, imperiled species range rarity, and connectivity among "Greater Wildland Ecosystems." Risk of habitat loss was derived from analysis of biophysical and sociodemographic predictors of NVC loss. Ecological value and risk of loss were combined into the BCPI. We then analyzed spatial patterns of BCPI to identify the NVC highest in biodiversity conservation priority and examined the relationship between BCPI and conservation easement status. We found that BCPI varied spatially across the study area and was highest in western and southern portions of the study area. High BCPI was associated with suburban and rural development, roads, urban proximity, valley bottom landforms, and low intensity of current development. Existing conservation easements were distributed more towards lower BCPI values than unprotected NVC at both the study area and region scales. The BCPI can be used to better inform land use decision making at local, regional, and potentially national scales in order to better achieve biodiversity goals.

Although natural habitats are being lost globally, the extent and fate of natural habitats on private lands in the United States have not been quantified at the resolution relevant for conservation planning. Here we provide information on the locations and risk of loss of areas of natural vegetation cover (NVC) on private lands across the northwestern United States to motivate discussion on needs and opportunities to slow their loss. Specific questions were as follows: (1) Where are the remaining areas of NVC on private lands? (2) Which regions and communities have had the highest loss rates of NVC? and (3) In which socioecological settings is NVC at greatest risk of loss? NVC location and change were mapped using two land cover classifications during 2001–2011, the most recent period with available data. Associations between NVC loss and market proximity, demographic, infrastructure, natural amenity, and climate factors were used to model probability of NVC loss in 2011. We found that NVC covered 64% of the study area in 2011. During 2001–2011, 2.5% of the area of NVC in 2001 was converted to development and croplands. Rates of loss were as high as 12% in some regions (e.g., western Washington). Housing development accounted for the majority of this NVC loss, increasing by 8% while croplands increased by 5%. Conversion of NVC for development and crops during 2001–2011 per capita varied 20–40 fold among “city spheres” (urban areas >10,000 people and 40‐min commuting distance). NVC loss was statistically associated with urban fringe development, forest edge vegetation, proximity to highways, public land, and waterbodies and was associated with New West demographic city spheres. Of the NVC on private lands in 2011, 11% was projected to have >20% probability of future loss over the next decade. We conclude that portions of the northwestern United States, one of the last stronghold for extensive natural habitats in the contiguous United States, are rapidly losing NVC to development, particularly in the New West communities that typically have the highest motivation and capacity to conserve them.

Signatory countries to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are formulating goals and indicators through 2050 under the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Among the goals is increasing the integrity of ecosystems. The CBD is now seeking input toward a quantifiable definition of integrity and methods to track it globally. Here, we offer a schema for using Earth observations (EO) to monitor and evaluate global forest ecosystem integrity (EI). Our approach builds on three topics: the concept of EI, the use of satellite‐based EO, and the use of “essential biodiversity variables” to monitor and report on it. Within this schema, EI is a measure of the structure, function, and composition of an ecosystem relative to the range of variation determined by climatic–geophysical environment. We use evaluation criteria to recommend eight potential indicators of EI that can be monitored around the globe using Earth Observations to support the efforts of nations to monitor and report progress to implement the post‐2020 GBF. If operationalized, this schema should help Parties to the CBD take action and report progress on achieving ecosystem commitments during this decade.

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) (PIAL) is a proposed threatened species that plays a keystone ecological role in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Its population response to climate change is of high interest to managers because climate-induced declines may adversely affect critical ecosystem services that this species provides. While previous studies of reproductive size classes of the species have projected dramatic reductions in area of suitable habitat under climate warming scenarios, it has been suggested that the species can tolerate warmer and drier conditions if seedlings and saplings are not competitively excluded by other conifer species. Thus, we asked if juvenile-sized PIAL are found in warmer and drier locations than larger individuals, under the assumption that competitive exclusion would require several years to decades to influence the distribution of regenerating PIAL. We used a new genetic technique to distinguish non-cone bearing PIAL from the more warm-dry tolerant limber pine (P. flexilis) among samples collected along transects extending from lower treeline to the subalpine around the GYE. Predictor data on climate and water balance were obtained from a 250-m spatially explicit data product. We used a stochastic gradient boosting model to predict probability of presence of PIAL =1 cm dbh as a function of these predictors. We discovered that smaller diameter PIAL were not proportionally more abundant at lower elevations, suggesting that competitive exclusion may not be the primary mechanism limiting this species' low elevation distribution. In contrast, the small size class PIAL were slightly less warm-dry tolerant than larger individuals. This suggests that the zone of regeneration of PIAL has shifted upwards in elevation in recent decades, perhaps associated with the observed warming in the GYE. In comparison to a previous study of reproductive-sized trees (>20 cm dbh) from a coarser (1.6 km) sampling frame, however, the predicted zone of suitable habitat of PIAL (