An agent-based modelling approach to project future habitat suitability for North-ern Spotted Owl in Central Oregon

Wildfires remain a major threat to Northern Spotted Owl habitat in Cen-tral Oregon, and there is an urgent need for tools to support the development of effective conservation planning strategies. We describe the managed forest eco-system in Central Oregon as a coupled human and natural system and apply the agent-based modelling framework ENVISION for quantifying the integrated effects of wildfires, vegetative succession, and human decisions regarding forest and fire management on the suitability of owl habitat. Our simulation results show that ENVISION is suitable for the simulation of complex system feedbacks and links over different spatial and temporal scale levels. It is applicable to generate interdis-ciplinary insights for policy research and application planning that cannot be gained from ecological or social research alone. However, modelling approaches such as ENVISION require a better empirical foundation in order to be able to utilize their full potential for the development of effective conservation planning strategies.