Regional Population Trends
The idea –
The USFS directly manages land and not wildlife populations, although the agency is legally required to maintain viable populations of all native vertebrates on those lands. Thus, the USFS seeks to understand the kind of land conditions needed to maintain populations so they can retain those conditions on the landscape (use a coarse-filter management approach). If the land conditions are present, the wildlife is also likely to be present. Unfortunately, that approach may work well for resident populations, but not for populations that move from one geographic location to another. What some other land management agency (or even some other country) does may very well influence the wildlife populations that any given agency has a legal responsibility to maintain! Thus, there is a need to monitor the very things (species) that need to be maintained just to be sure that the coarse-filter approach is working and that nothing is falling through the cracks.
Agencies can rely on the 50-year-old national Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) for long-term population trends, but because there are relatively few routes in any one region, and because many of those routes are situated along relatively busy roads, we saw the need to supplement those counts with more intense sampling on smaller roads and trails as well as at off-road sites. In 1990, we designed a monitoring program to help biologists and managers better understand the habitat relationships and population trends of landbirds breeding in this region. From 1994-2006, the Avian Science Center coordinated efforts to survey birds at permanently marked points on an every-other-year basis. These georeferenced points now provide a solid anchor for real long-term monitoring into the future.
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]
Methods –
We now have some 370 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 for comparison with the national BBS. Click here to see our survey point locations on a geospatial web interface (link), and click one of the following to download a description of our [Point Count Protocol] or our more general methods [2004 Methods Manual]
Results –
There are not nearly enough years of data to make meaningful use of our population trend data yet, but the preliminary data suggest that most populations have remained fairly stable during the 12-year period between 1994-2006.
You can use our newly developed geospatial web interfaceto 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 trends in the probabilities of occurrence for species of particular interest.
Future –
The Montana Bird Conservation Partnership has been discussing a comprehensive statewide All-bird Monitoring Plan for several years. When implemented, this plan will serve the needs of federal and state agencies, tribal entities, private landowners, and non-governmental organizations. Perhaps our permanently marked points will be incorporated into the plan for long-term monitoring, but that decision has yet to be made.
Funders –
USDA Forest Service Northern Region, Bureau of Land Management, Glacier National Park, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Potlatch Timber Co, and Plum Creek Timber Co., PPL-Montana.
Contact –
