scholarly journals Comparing the reliability of relative bird abundance indices from standardized surveys and community science data at finer resolutions

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257226
Author(s):  
Mei-Ling Emily Feng ◽  
Judy Che-Castaldo
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Biological Surveys ◽  
Bird Populations ◽  
Modeling Approaches ◽  
Annual Changes ◽  
Community Science

Biodiversity loss is a global ecological crisis that is both a driver of and response to environmental change. Understanding the connections between species declines and other components of human-natural systems extends across the physical, life, and social sciences. From an analysis perspective, this requires integration of data from different scientific domains, which often have heterogeneous scales and resolutions. Community science projects such as eBird may help to fill spatiotemporal gaps and enhance the resolution of standardized biological surveys. Comparisons between eBird and the more comprehensive North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) have found these datasets can produce consistent multi-year abundance trends for bird populations at national and regional scales. Here we investigate the reliability of these datasets for estimating patterns at finer resolutions, inter-annual changes in abundance within town boundaries. Using a case study of 14 focal species within Massachusetts, we calculated four indices of annual relative abundance using eBird and BBS datasets, including two different modeling approaches within each dataset. We compared the correspondence between these indices in terms of multi-year trends, annual estimates, and inter-annual changes in estimates at the state and town-level. We found correspondence between eBird and BBS multi-year trends, but this was not consistent across all species and diminished at finer, inter-annual temporal resolutions. We further show that standardizing modeling approaches can increase index reliability even between datasets at coarser temporal resolutions. Our results indicate that multiple datasets and modeling methods should be considered when estimating species population dynamics at finer temporal resolutions, but standardizing modeling approaches may improve estimate correspondence between abundance datasets. In addition, reliability of these indices at finer spatial scales may depend on habitat composition, which can impact survey accuracy.

Monitoring the world's bird populations with community science data

2020 ◽  
Vol 248 ◽  
pp. 108653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montague H.C. Neate-Clegg ◽  
Joshua J. Horns ◽  
Frederick R. Adler ◽  
M. Çisel Kemahlı Aytekin ◽  
Çağan H. Şekercioğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Data ◽  
Bird Populations ◽  
Community Science

scholarly journals High-Resolution, Long-Term Trends in Relative Abundance from Spatial Modeling of Continent-Wide Bird Counts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy D. Meehan ◽  
Nicole L. Michel ◽  
Håvard Rue
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Current Standard ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
American Robin ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Community Science

AbstractContinent-wide bird counts by community volunteers provide valuable information about the conservation needs of many bird species. The statistical modeling techniques commonly used to analyze these counts provide robust long-term trend estimates from heterogeneous community science data at regional, national, and continental scales. Here we present a novel modeling framework that increases the spatial resolution of trend estimates, and reduces the computational burden of trend estimation, each by an order of magnitude. We demonstrate the approach with data for the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) from Audubon Christmas Bird Counts conducted between 1966 and 2017, and show that aggregate regional trend estimates from the proposed method align well with those from the current standard method. Thus, it appears that the proposed technique can provide reasonable large-scale trend estimates for users concerned with general patterns, while also providing higher resolution estimates for others examining correlates of abundance trends at finer spatial scales.

scholarly journals Mapping the premigration distribution of eastern Monarch butterflies using community science data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Momeni‐Dehaghi ◽  
Joseph R. Bennett ◽  
Greg W. Mitchell ◽  
Trina Rytwinski ◽  
Lenore Fahrig
Keyword(s):  
Science Data ◽  
Monarch Butterflies ◽  
Community Science

scholarly journals Contrasting responses of above- and belowground diversity to multiple components of land-use intensity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaëtane Le Provost ◽  
Jan Thiele ◽  
Catrin Westphal ◽  
Caterina Penone ◽  
Eric Allan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Land Use Intensity ◽  
Trophic Groups ◽  
Multiple Components ◽  
Belowground Diversity ◽  
Landscape Level

AbstractLand-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. However, understanding how different components of land use drive biodiversity loss requires the investigation of multiple trophic levels across spatial scales. Using data from 150 agricultural grasslands in central Europe, we assess the influence of multiple components of local- and landscape-level land use on more than 4,000 above- and belowground taxa, spanning 20 trophic groups. Plot-level land-use intensity is strongly and negatively associated with aboveground trophic groups, but positively or not associated with belowground trophic groups. Meanwhile, both above- and belowground trophic groups respond to landscape-level land use, but to different drivers: aboveground diversity of grasslands is promoted by diverse surrounding land-cover, while belowground diversity is positively related to a high permanent forest cover in the surrounding landscape. These results highlight a role of landscape-level land use in shaping belowground communities, and suggest that revised agroecosystem management strategies are needed to conserve whole-ecosystem biodiversity.

scholarly journals Habitat heterogeneity drives scale-dependent biodiversity loss in a temperate marine ecosystem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Starko ◽  
Lauren Bailey ◽  
Elandra Creviston ◽  
Katelyn James ◽  
Alison Warren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Heterogeneity ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Extreme Temperature ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Community Diversity ◽  
Diversity Loss ◽  
Biological Responses ◽  
Local Wave

AbstractBiodiversity loss is driven by interacting factors operating at different spatial scales. Yet, there remains uncertainty as to how fine-scale environmental conditions mediate biological responses to broad-scale stressors. We surveyed mid-latitude kelp bed habitats to determine whether local habitat heterogeneity has mediated changes in community diversity after more than two decades of extreme temperature events, most notably the 2013-2016 heat wave. Local wave exposure conditions were key in determining responses, with some habitats remaining stable and others experiencing near complete diversity loss, leading to local declines without regional extinctions. Wave-sheltered shores, which saw the largest declines, are a very common habitat type in the Northeast Pacific and may be especially sensitive to climate-related losses in kelp diversity and abundance. Our findings highlight how local gradients can interact with global drivers to facilitate diversity loss and demonstrate how incorporating differences between habitat patches can be essential to capturing scale-dependent biodiversity loss across the landscape.

A response to estimating hybridization in the wild using community science data: a path forward

Evolution ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas M. Justyn ◽  
Corey T. Callaghan ◽  
Geoffrey E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Science Data ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Community Science

scholarly journals Influence of landscape matrix on urban bird abundance: evidence from Malaysian citizen science data

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Leong Puan ◽  
Kok Loong Yeong ◽  
Kang Woei Ong ◽  
Muhd Izzat Ahmad Fauzi ◽  
Muhammad Syafiq Yahya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Landscape Matrix ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Urban Bird

scholarly journals Conservation cobenefits from air pollution regulation: Evidence from birds

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (49) ◽  
pp. 30900-30906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanning Liang ◽  
Ivan Rudik ◽  
Eric Yongchen Zou ◽  
Alison Johnston ◽  
Amanda D. Rodewald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bird Conservation ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Bird Populations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Pollution Regulation ◽  
Air Pollution Regulation

Massive wildlife losses over the past 50 y have brought new urgency to identifying both the drivers of population decline and potential solutions. We provide large-scale evidence that air pollution, specifically ozone, is associated with declines in bird abundance in the United States. We show that an air pollution regulation limiting ozone precursors emissions has delivered substantial benefits to bird conservation. Our estimates imply that air quality improvements over the past 4 decades have stemmed the decline in bird populations, averting the loss of 1.5 billion birds, ∼20% of current totals. Our results highlight that in addition to protecting human health, air pollution regulations have previously unrecognized and unquantified conservation cobenefits.

Mismatched spatial scales can limit the utility of citizen science data for estimating wildlife‐habitat relationships

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javan M. Bauder ◽  
Alyson M. Cervantes ◽  
Alexandra C. Avrin ◽  
Laura S. Whipple ◽  
Morgan J. Farmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Science Data

scholarly journals Fire effects on the composition of a bird community in an amazonian Savanna (Brazil)

2005 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cintra ◽  
T. M. Sanaiotti
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Bird Community ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Bird Species Richness ◽  
Byrsonima Crassifolia ◽  
Mist Net

The effects of fire on the composition of a bird community were investigated in an Amazonian savanna near Alter-do-Chão, Pará (Brazil). Mist-net captures and visual counts were used to assess species richness and bird abundance pre- and post-fire in an approximately 20 ha area. Visual counts along transects were used to survey birds in an approximately 2000 ha area in a nearby area. Results using the same method of ordination analysis (multidimensional scaling) showed significant effects of fire in the 20 ha and 2000 ha areas and strongly suggest direct effects on bird community composition. However, the effects were different at different spatial scales and/or in different years, indicating that the effects of fire vary spatially and/or temporally. Bird community composition pre-fire was significantly different from that found post-fire. Using multiple regression analysis it was found that the numbers of burned and unburned trees were not significantly related to either bird species richness or bird abundance. Two months after the fire, neither bird species richness nor bird abundance was significantly related to the number of flowering trees (Lafoensia pacari) or fruiting trees (Byrsonima crassifolia). Since fire is an annual event in Alter-do-Chão and is becoming frequent in the entire Amazon, bird community composition in affected areas could be constantly changing in time and space.

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