Habitat Relationships
The Idea –
If we understood the conditions under which individuals of a species are likely (or not likely) to occur, we would not only better understand the effects of our land management, but we would be able to predict future distributions in the face of alternative land-use practices or in the face of global change. Thus, in 1990 we designed the Northern Region Landbird Monitoring Program (NRLMP), which includes not only the bird occurrence data needed to calculate population trends, but also detailed the local-scale vegetation information and landscape-scale context information surrounding every survey point needed to better understand bird-habitat relationships.
For a more complete description of and philosophy behind the design of the Northern Region Landbird Monitoring Program, read the following:
- Hutto, R. L. 1998. Using landbirds as an indicator species group. Pp. 75-92 in Marzluff, J. M., and R. Sallabanks (eds.), Avian conservation: Research and Management. Island Press, Covelo, CA. [HTML] [pdf]
- Hutto, R. L., and J. S. Young. 2002. Regional landbird monitoring: perspectives from the northern Rocky Mountains. Wildlife Society Bulletin 30:738-750. [pdf]
- Hutto, R. L., and J. S. Young. 2003. On the design of monitoring programs and the use of population indices: A reply to Ellingson and Lukacs. Wildlife Society Bulletin 31:903-910. [pdf]
- Hutto, R. L. 2005. Northern Region Landbird Monitoring Program: a program designed to monitor more than long-term population trends. USDA For. Serv. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191:956-962. [pdf]
- Young, J. S., J. R. Hoffland, and R. L. Hutto. 2005. Monitoring for adaptive management in coniferous forests of the northern Rockies. USDA For. Serv. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191:405-411. [pdf]
- Hutto, R. L., and S. Kowalski. 2006. Northern Region Landbird Monitoring Program: a USFS-University of Montana partnership designed to provide both short-term and long-term feedback for land managers, p. 936-943. In C. Aguirre-Bravo, P. J. Pellicane, D. P. Burns, and S. Draggan [eds.], Monitoring science and technology symposium: unifying knowledge for sustainability in the Western Hemisphere. USDA For. Serv. Proc. RMRS-P-42CD, Fort Collins, CO. [pdf]
A recently awarded four-year grant from the USDA Managed Ecosystems Program is allowing us to capitalize on our landbird monitoring database (which now includes information from more than 10,000 survey points scattered across the region, as illustrated in the map above) to develop and validate habitat-based models for a large suite of species.
Our primary objectives are to:
- develop accurate multi-scale habitat-based models for a large number of species using innovative approaches;
- validate models to determine which modeling approach is best for understanding the consequences of land management;
- provide tools and extension training for managers so that they can use our models to understand the effects of past management and the consequences of future alternative land-management scenarios; and
- educate students and others about the usefulness of habitat-relationships models as decision support tools.
Methods –
We now have some 350 geographically stratified, permanently marked and globally positioned 10-point transects that have been surveyed for more than a decade and that can be re-visited periodically to provide supplementary data on persistence for our modeling work. You can download a description of our Standardized Point Count Protocol or our 2004 Methods Manual.
Results –
We have generated several prototype maps of bird species distributions based on several spatially explicit modeling approaches (see Winter Wren example). You can use our newly developed geospatial web interface to view the locations of all survey points associated with this program, to query any point to obtain information associated with that point, and to obtain custom summary reports for species or geographic locations of particular interest.
Annual Reports or Publications from this Project –
click HERE for publications related to this project.
Funders –
USDA Forest Service, Region 1; USDA Managed Ecosystems Program;
Collaborators –
Rob Fletcher, University of Florida (co-PI); GCS Research, Missoula.