Temporal invariance of social-ecological catchments

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Conservation Science
• Human Dimensions of Natural Resources

Background:

• Natural resources create social-ecological catchments, linking human users to resource locations.
• Catchment concepts are typically discipline-specific and underutilized for cross-disciplinary studies.
• Understanding spatiotemporal dynamics between mobile users and patchy resources is complex.

Purpose of the Study:

• To apply the social-ecological catchment concept to understand angler resource use dynamics.
• To investigate seasonal and annual variations in angler-waterbody catchment sizes.
• To assess the utility of catchment analysis for landscape-level conservation decisions.

Main Methods:

• Collected residence ZIP codes from 19,983 angler parties (2014-2017) in Nebraska, USA.
• Constructed seven angler-waterbody catchments using dense (10%) and dispersed (95%) utilization distributions.
• Analyzed catchment size variations across seasons and years.

Main Results:

• Contrary to predictions, angler-waterbody catchment sizes were invariant across seasons and years.
• Social and ecological factors (e.g., conservation actions, water quality, species diversity) are discussed as potential influences on resource use patterns.
• The study demonstrates the robustness of catchment size despite expected seasonal and annual fluctuations.

Conclusions:

• The social-ecological catchment concept provides a user-friendly technique for studying coupled human-natural systems.
• Invariant catchment sizes suggest a stable underlying structure of angler resource selection.
• This approach can inform timely, landscape-level conservation decisions for natural resource management.