Habitat specialists are declining worldwide, often paralleling rapid loss of habitat. Grassland habitats across North America are declining precipitously, due in part to intense conversion of grasslands to agriculture and rangelands, and specialist communities reliant upon this landscape are at particular risk of decline and collapse. We explored the relationship between grassland habitat specialism in birds and species population trends using several different grassland specialism indices (GSIs). Our data sources for these indices included (1) a regional bird dataset employing a spatially stratified sampling design (Integrated Monitoring of Bird Conservation Regions) of bird surveys in the Northern Great Plains of North America, and (2) geospatial data of species ranges (BirdLife Int’l) and grassland habitat (CEC North American Land Cover). We found a negative relationship between degree of habitat specialism and species population trends for all specialism metrics. We also found some evidence to support that specialism to grasslands on the wintering grounds partially explains population trends during the breeding season, giving added weight to the consideration of habitat conservation across the full annual cycle of a species to reverse or lessen population decline. Our work is the first to use quantitative methods to confirm the precarious state of grassland specialist songbirds in North America as well as demonstrate multiple methods for quantifying habitat specialism across different types of datasets.
Quantifying specialist avifaunal decline in grassland birds of the Northern Great Plains
M. Correll,Erin H. Strasser,A. Green,A. Panjabi
Published 2019 in Ecosphere
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2019
- Venue
Ecosphere
- Publication date
2019-01-01
- Fields of study
Biology, Environmental Science
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- birdlife international species ranges
Geospatial species range data from BirdLife International used to characterize the distribution of bird species.
Aliases: BirdLife Int'l species ranges, BirdLife ranges
- breeding season
The breeding-period stage of the annual cycle used when relating habitat specialism to population trends.
Aliases: breeding period
- cec north american land cover
A land-cover dataset for North America used here to identify grassland habitat in geospatial analyses.
Aliases: CEC land cover, North American land cover
- grassland habitat specialism
The degree to which a bird species is restricted to grassland habitats rather than using a broad range of habitat types.
Aliases: habitat specialism in grassland birds, grassland specialism, degree of habitat specialism
- grassland specialism index
A quantitative metric used here to summarize how strongly a bird species is associated with grassland habitat.
Aliases: GSI, specialism metric, specialism index
- integrated monitoring of bird conservation regions
A regional bird survey dataset with spatially stratified sampling used to measure bird occurrence and abundance in the Northern Great Plains.
Aliases: IMBCR
- northern great plains
The North American grassland region where the bird surveys and habitat analyses were conducted.
Aliases: NGP
- species population trends
The direction and magnitude of population change for bird species over time as analyzed in the study.
Aliases: population trends, species trends
- wintering grounds
The non-breeding seasonal range used in the analysis of how habitat specialism outside the breeding period relates to later trends.
Aliases: wintering ground, wintering habitat
REFERENCES
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